Ten Days With My HTC One S

[You can read part one of my article at http://it-is-phil-time.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/one-day-with-htc-one-s.html]

So it has been ten days now with my new HTC One S phone and it’s been, in the most a fun experience. I’m getting my head around my apps and, though I’ve not bought any paid-for apps yet I’ve enjoyed grabbing the Amazon app for quick shopping, including a snazzy bar code reader, a QR-code reader, the great Daft Punk app where you can play along to ‘Harder Better Faster Stronger’ and ‘Technologic’ (though with a little delay before pressing the button) and the IMDB app. I’ve also been looking around for useful recording apps such as RecForge Lite which is a powerful but simple to use .wav recording tool, and even the Comrex Arc app, though it only worked one way when trying it with my local radio station, against the fully working iPhone version.

I’ve also got an app to control the sub.tv system at work and the iPlayer app which works really well but only on wi-fi.

It’s not been all smooth sailing app-wise though. The Virgin Media app, which allows you to set programmes on your player when away from home, only works with their new Tivo box not mine which is a disappointment. Happily I can download the Sky+ one and now cause chaos by setting programmes to record on my parents Sky box, which is funny but not particularly useful. There is even a mock TV remote for my television... well, the model up from mine. It’s often quite frustrating with these compatibility things.

But it’s been fun playing ‘Draw Something’ and ‘Words With Friends’ and though I can’t complain about the choice and ease of use of the Android app store, there are certain things that bug me. I recently purchased a triple play of ‘Johnny English Reborn’ that comes with a digital download element “for your PC or mobile device”. The mobile device element should read “for Apple mobile devices” as the .wmv file doesn’t work on Android phones. Pathetic.

Otherwise I’m really enjoying the phone. I’ve just about got used to the keyboard and the 8mb outer camera takes some really good shots and the ability to upload to Facebook or Twitter is very straight forward.

The one thing I am noticing, though, is the quality of signal. Though I’m on the same network – T-Mobile – as my last phone, I am finding the signal to be less strong in areas than on my previous phone and sometimes connecting to a caller takes five or so seconds, but it’s not been too major a problem at the moment.

The major event I’ve had in the past week is having my Hotmail account hacked into and having to reset it (that’s a different story, but perhaps related to the bug that’s going round) and I’m not sure if it’s coincidence that it happened a few days after I set up push e-mails...

But, overall, a good mobile experience and we’ll see what the next week of smartphone use brings!

[On a side note my mum has now upgraded to a contract and got the Nokia Lumia 710 and though it has a lot of the same abilities as mine its Windows Phone app store is not comparable and the GUI not as fun, but it’s simple to use and powerful, but I think in paying the extra £150 to get a HTC rather than that I made the right decision.]