It hopes that new software features will help to
make its new handset stand out.
Bzzt. Thank you very much. I'm in the market for a new phone, you are not targeting me. Sense? No way. And no, 'Software' on top of Android is not going to make your phone nice to buy for this particular guy here.
Searching for a good stock device? Don't write it off just for some bad customizations. If you're up to the task, find the best looking/specked phone for your price that has quality, active cyanogenmod support (all the hardware in the device works well w/ cm).
Saying this on hacker news feels a bit sacrilegious, but don't be afraid to get your hands dirty. The well supported phones have good wiki pages and rooting/flashing them isn't all that hard. But you will only have yourself to blame if it goes sideways.
I still don't understand the hate HTC gets for Sense, it is mostly great and an improvement over stock Android. Also HTC provide new Android versions nowadays in reasonable time. Android and the "derivatives" are evolving quickly, make sure you are not judging on outdated facts.
Plenty of people do like Sense, though. I agree with you- I hate it, and I'm disappointed that my only real device choice is a Nexus 4. But we're a minority, and manufacturers need to differentiate themselves from each other.
Do you get reasonable fast upgrades for old (like, month old) phones though, if Android moves forward? Do you get updates at all? Does it (the 'improved' ROM) include unremovable crapware?
Even if all answers to the questions above are positive (as in, the 'right' answer): Do you buy a phone for the software improvements on top of a widely available platform?
I buy decent hardware (sturdy, well made, slick) & support for improvements to the software that this manufacturer didn't even create in the first place. So far, only Nexus devices seem to fit the bill.
Based on my experiences with the Epic 4G Touch, Galaxy S3, and Note 2, in order: Yes, for at least one major version (this is a little hard to qualify). Yes, but nearly all of it is disableable (there's one app that isn't, but it's small and never runs, so I don't care too much). No, but if I'm buying the phone already, it's a nice extra.
I tend to buy my devices based purely on what they can do now as opposed to that and future support, which I know isn't really common here. If it's a tradeoff between future software improvements (which recently haven't been all that substantial: 4.2 was nothing special, and 4.1 was only slightly better than ICS) and current hardware capabilities (those phones are all reasonably thin and have removable batteries and SD card slots, two things that the Nexus line currently lacks), I'm going with the hardware.
I have to chime in on the opposite spectrum. I had an evo and use a note 2 as the primary phone. I rooted the evo and put on Cynogen because I got more from the phone by doing so. Removing touchwiz and putting on cynogen or other aosp on the note would net me less functionality this time around. Unless google adds a stylus to their spec I don't see the (absolute) inferiority of forking the aosp trunk.
Happy to see a company willing to stop the constant march of increasing megapixel count at the cost of smaller photon sites and worse signal-to-noise. (The HTC One has a 4MP camera, with physical pixels twice as large as competing sensors.)
One of the most important features on a phone (to me) is the camera. I love that they're willing to try a new take and make a better camera. But why are they not releasing sample images? If you're going to push a new technology... back it up with some examples!
I really wanted to love HTC. I bought and still enjoy my HTC One X for AT&T ... but their complete lack of support for the mod community, and in fact stonewalling them, has completely turned me off to the company.
I have the HTC One X (International Version) apart for the horrible thing that is HTC Sense 4 (apart from the camera improvements and certain dialer improvements), I've been able to root and load custom ROMS on my phone without any issues.
I'm not seeing the most important info in a product announcement. Is it available yet, and if not, when will it be available? How much will it cost?
I don't understand the mindset behind launching a device that you aren't selling. By the time it's actually on the market, your faster moving competitors (Apple, Samsung, etc) have already matched your improvements. You also get a huge amount of buzz when first unveiling a product, and you need to capitalize on that by letting people give you money for it. Microsoft fails at this every single time, and it looks like HTC is joining them?
This is coming from someone who saw this phone and decided 'ok, sold, where do I buy one?' - and could not find any of this out. Terrible marketing failure. By tomorrow I will have forgotten completely, and I'll probably end up just getting a Samsung.
HTC isn't selling their phones to you, they're selling them to carriers. World wide. The price and time will vary by geography and carrier. It's pretty terrible that they can't sort this out before announcing it, but seems to be par for the course.
I'm very surprised by the negative comments about HTC/TouchWiz. I got the DNA and I'm totally in love with it (except for a few minor quirks). It has a 5" screen but overall size is about the same as S3 due to DNA's near edge to edge display. It is ultra thin and lightweight too. It seems like this is going to be even a better device than the DNA due to it being more a "normal" size phone but with the 4.7" screen but same 1080p display.
HTC Desire Z (AKA HTC Vision) user here. No ICS firmware. Stuck on Android 2.3.3, so this is my first and last HTC phone - I won't support vendors that don't provide timely updates. 512 MB RAM, but typically only 100-150 MB free, so it constantly reloads/restarts any apps and the HTC Sense UI itself. Google Play in-app purchases don't work.
My next phone will be whatever Google's next flagship phone will be, assuming they fix USB OTG, LTE and microsd-slot. Or some other vendor that is smart enough to use vanilla Android without any "product differentiation". I don't want any custom UIs like HTC Sense or Touchwiz, non-uninstallable bloatware (looking at you Samsung: Kies, ChatON, etc.) and app-breaking UI 'enhancements'.
Don't hold your breath for "fixing" LTE and microsd in Nexuses.
LTE is currently a negotiation point in hands of carriers. The price of supporting LTE would be no timely updates (see also Verizon and Sprint Galaxy Nexus). This is something that Google will not compromise about.
MicroSD is a slightly different story, it has several problems:
UX ones:
- most users are confused by two separate storage pools (see the confusion: "I have XY gigabites free on the phone, why can't I install this app?")
- the SD card has to be unmounted, when the phone is attached to the computer - that means killing everything, that was launched from the card.
Technical:
- The MicroSD performance is inferior to eMMC.
Legal:
- You have to license FAT32 and exFAT (for SDXC) from Microsoft. (Yes, I know that it is technically possible to use different filesystems with SD cards - but that is a decision that would not go very well with mainstream users who just want to connect the phone to their Windows or Apple computer).
I'm still interested by the fate of LTE in the Nexus 4- it has the hardware for it, but it's manually disabled. When T-Mobile launch their LTE network it'll be interesting to see if any hacks will re-enable it. It could end up being one of the first technically unlicensed LTE devices.
Current HTC Droid Incredible 2 owner. They have yet to deliver ICS for it, even though the original date for ICS was the same as Thunderbolt's. I'll be looking for a Nexus device next time I purchase a phone.
Searching on for a decent 'stock' device..