HTC has announced a new flagship smartphone that builds on the One X to bring something faster and longer lasting to the market, just as Apple’s iPhone 5 threatens to tighten its grip.
The phone is of course the HTC One X+, which keen blog readers will have spotted a few times in recent weeks, as blurry images of the phone have popped up online in a gradual stream. The original One X is one of our favourite Android phones in recent years, and the One X+ builds on its weaker points to make it even better.
Keeping a very similar shape, size and design, HTC has done plenty with the internals to make the phone a better beast. A new Nvidia Tegra 3 AP37 quad-core chip runs at a speedy 1.7GHz, making the One X+ one of the fastest Droids on the market. There’s the same 1GB of RAM inside backing up the processor, and early reports have noted the One X+ to be a very quick device.
The One X doesn’t have the greatest battery life in the world, so HTC has jammed in a bigger battery to make the One X+ last even longer. Coupled with a newer, more efficient processor, HTC reckons its new phone can do up to 50% more talktime. The exact jump in battery size is from 1,800 mAh to 2,100 mAh.
The other main area that has received an upgrade is storage. There’s still no support for micro SD cards unfortunately, but HTC has scrapped the 16GB option and gone for 32 and 64GB instead. Coupled with the free Dropbox storage you get thanks to HTC’s Sense software, you’ll have plenty of space to store files of all types.
HTC has left the rear camera very much unchanged, but has boosted the front-facing camera to 1.6-megapixels and hooked it up to an imaging chip, which will make for fine tuning of your images.
Design-wise the phone looks and feels much the same as the One X, but has been given a slight makeover. The main finish is a matte black, while Beats Audio red is accented on the camera lens and touch buttons on the front – this is a similar finish to the Sensation XE.
Finally, the One X+ will launch running the very latest version of Android – Jelly Bean 4.1 – along with a new version of HTC Sense, the user interface that adds a host of new features.
Launching in mid-October, the HTC One X+ will cost £479.99 SIM-Free. If you’re buying from O2, you won’t be getting a charger with it!
Let us know your thoughts on our comments below or via our @Gadget_Helpline Twitter page or Official Facebook group.