HTC One V review

As this is a HTC handset, Android 4.0 has been rejigged with the Sense 4 interface. We don’t like to get too bogged down in the differentiations between various Android flavours – as it’s simple enough to cherry pick great free apps for practically every key function from the Play store anyway. That said, HTC have done a good job here, with a dialler, contacts list and camera controls that all useful improvements on the norm.

The HTC One V has three touch-sensitive buttons below the screen, and so doesn’t need the onscreen versions of these found on some Android 4 devices

Speaking of the camera, the HTC One V’s is excellent. Admittedly, it’s only five-megapixel, compared to the eight-megapixel ones in the more expensive models in the range, and can only shoot 720p video, rather than 1080p video, but it’s not the specifications that make HTC’s current cameras great. Using a dedicated image processing chip, the camera is very fast to startup (under a second to the first shot) and then shoots at 4fps if you hold down the shutter. You can pick a best shot from any burst and delete the unwanted images with ease (if desired). Image quality is excellent with well-judged exposures, as you can see below. HTC currently provide undoubtedly our favourite mobile snapper, and despite the resolution change, HTC One V’s version is still impressive.

A resized shot from the HTC’s One V’s excellent camera – click to enlarge

This is a pixel-to-pixel crop which shows a respectable amount of detail – click to enlarge

The HTC One V has a 1,500mAh battery, that doesn’t sound very big compared to some recent handsets, such as the 2,100mAh in the Samsung Galaxy S3. Even taking into account the handset’s smaller display we were pleased to get seven hours out of it in our continuous video playback test. You can’t access the battery to replace it if required, but a pop-off rubber bottom piece does give you access to the full-sized SIM slot and micro SD slot – so you can expand the built-in 4GB of memory.

Remove the bottom cover and you can get at the SIM and SD card slots

If you’re looking for a stylish handset with the latest version of Android and a decent camera, but don’t need a great big screen and a fast processor, then the HTC One V is ideal. Its combination of great build quality, a single-core processor and Android 4.0 is unusual, and we can’t think of any new Android phones to compare it to. If you’re keen on the appearance and finish of the One V, or on HTC’s version of Android 4, then the larger HTC One S is probably its biggest competitor. That handset has a larger AMOLED display, dual-core processor, more memory and a slightly-sharper eight-megapixel camera. Surprisingly, though, it doesn’t cost a lot more on contract if you shop around, so if you’re happy to have a slightly larger handset then it’s the better buy.