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The HTC One Max is officially revealed yesterday as the biggest member of the current aluminium clad HTC One series. While it is bigger on the exterior, its internals are identical to the 4.7″ HTC One.
So where does the HTC One Max stand in the sea of large screen smart phones? In terms of dimensions, it isn’t the biggest as the Xperia Z Ultra sports a tablet-like 6.44″ TFT Full HD display. However it is worth pointing out that the Xperia Z Ultra is thinner (6.5mm) and lighter (212g) than the One Max. With a thickness of 10.29mm, the One Max is thinner than the Lumia 1020 (10.4mm) and its 5″ cousin, the HTC Butterfly S (10.6mm). Comparing the battery capacity, the One Max tops the list with a larger 3,300mAh battery which is 100mAh more than the Galaxy Note 3.
For the first time for HTC, the One Max features a fingerprint scanner that’s located at the back. Unlike the iPhone 5S’s home button with discreet Touch ID, the One Max fingerprint scanner is rather conventional with the typical finger swipe motion. To unlock the device from sleep, you would still need to hit the power button the sides before swiping your finger at the back.
The achilles heel on paper has got to be the processor. For a high end device to launch in the final quarter of 2013, we would expect the One Max to run on a faster 2.2GHz Snapdragon 800 processor but HTC has decided to stick to a familiar 1.7GHz Snapdragon 600 processor that was used by the original HTC One. Surprisingly even its earlier HTC Butterfly S runs on a faster 1.9GHz Snapdragon 600 processor.
Performance shouldn’t be a big issue as the Snapdragon 600 processor has proven itself on the HTC One with a buttery smooth experience. We dare say that the HTC One is much smoother and has better battery life than the Galaxy S4 non-LTE edition.
The next question would be when will it reach Malaysia and how much would it sell for. The Xperia Z Ultra which is now available with 4G LTE support is currently priced at RM2,199 with 16GB of storage. If the HTC One Max gets priced at RM2,399, would you choose it over the Galaxy Note 3 or Xperia Z1? Leave your thoughts in the comments below. If you haven’t seen it yet, do check out our first hands-on impressions of the HTC One Max here.
