Review: HTC One – Part 2
This part of the HTC One review covers the software that comes with the phone. There are things that stand out. For example it has a kid mode that allows a parent to hand their HTC One to their kids knowing that they won’t be doing things that they shouldn’t. Plus it helps to put age appropriate games on the smartphone. That’s a nice touch. What isn’t a nice touch is the navigation system. Being an Android phone, it’s powered by Google Maps and it offers turn by turn navigation. However, it doesn’t speak street names. That’s a bit of a fail because it forces you to look at the phone to figure out exactly where to turn. While driving, that’s dangerous. I have to admit that I find it to be even stranger if I consider that my copy of Google Maps on my new iPhone speaks street names. Perhaps it’s a different group within Google that’s responsible for this, or HTC didn’t pay Google enough money? Whatever the reason, this is a major oversight.
Another feature is BlinkFeed. BlinkFeed is an active home screen that aggregates content from different providers such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Updates can be downloaded automatically on a set schedule or BlinkFeed can be refreshed manually. This is slick. This smartphone also have HTC TV which acts as a TV guide as well as control your TV and cable box using the built in IR port. It looks slick, it easy to set up, and works quite well.
Other than that, it’s just like any other Android phone. That’s not a bad thing by the way as most owners are going to put their own software on the phone the second they get it. Though I will note that a DropBox client, as well as Polaris Office which allows you to edit Microsoft Office docs on your phone are present.
In part three of this review, I’ll cover the camera as well as wrap up a few loose ends.
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