We’re heading into Mid 2012 with a pretty clear picture of where the smartphone market is. Apple is comfortable, even with an update still a few months away. Samsung is surging, with their Galaxy line finding the sweetspot between price, range and quality. Nokia is the only big Windows Phone player with much going on, and they have their fingers crossed that the Lumia line will make a dent. LG are walking around the park in their bathrobe, muttering “Prada Phone” to themselves, and RIM (the makers of the BlackBerry) are comforting themselves by building pillow forts out of old Playbooks.
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But what about HTC? The Taiwanese powerhouse were once the go-to company for rapid innovation in the mobile space. They were THE manufacturer of choice for early smartphone platforms like Windows Mobile. They were the go-to manufacturer when Google wanted someone to build a phone using Android (Samsung is the hardware partner right now, with Motorola possibly in line for that job). They were Samsung before Samsung.
HTC’s CEO, Peter Chou, acknowledged earlier this year that HTC had to calm down and regroup, following a period of desperation where they competed with Samsung to release a new phone every few days. The first line in that strategy is to find a flagship line of phones, distinct from the Evos, Rhymes, Incredibles and other niche handsets that were failing to sell. Something to compete with the iPhone and Galaxy line.
At the Mobile World Congress trade show in February, HTC unveiled that line- the One. So, the phone that Neo would use, I guess. The flagship model, the One X, has an impressive spec sheet - Big 4.7” screen (a form factor borrowed from their Titan line of Windows Phones), sleek curves, Beats audio interface – and a beastly 4-core processor. That makes it more powerful than computers from 18 months ago. In a phone. Madness!
This beast will also run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, right out of the box. One presumes that with that sort of heat under the hood, it will be able to run the next few iterations of Android’s OS without too much stress (I’m hanging out for Android 8.0, Diabetes).
Also on board are an 8MP camera, 720p resolution screen and…well, everything else. Most importantly, this little (actually, very big) slice of everything can be had for….
$0! Vodafone will be the exclusive carrier of the HTC One X, and are offering a special online only deal for $0 on the $59 Cap, with a 24 month contract. That comes with $750 call credit, free texts to any network, 1.5GB data- and your first monthfree. NOT. BAD.
For the less talkative, the HTC One X is available for $5/month on the $49 Cap, with the same first month free online promotion. Good deals can also be had for commitment-phobes, with the phone going for $20/month on a 12 month contract ($49 Cap), or $15/month on the $59 cap.