An Update On My HTC One S

It's been a while since I updated on my phone following articles - Part One and Part Two - and it's been a relatively smooth ride with it.

I'm enjoying the much easier to use abilities of Facebook and Twitter via the apps and the app store is itself proving to be very good on Android phones. There's nothing particular that I've wanted to download that's not been available and it makes things like IMDB, RunPee (a great app for film goers) and FourSquare a doddle to use.

I've been exploring the features of the camera much more and though the front facing VGA camera is so low quality it's almost pointless the main camera creates great quality photos though does struggle with fast moving images. One thing it is lacking is some way of taking photos of yourself with friends and it's difficult to point the exterior camera at you and then press the correct part of the touch screen to take the photos, so a physical side button would have been beneficial.

The one part of the phone I am finding a struggle with at times is the mobile signal. A 3G or H connection isn't always possible and sometimes Facebook can be rather sluggish. I also find that it sometimes takes two times to call people or a good ten second delay between starting a call and it ringing, but I don't know whether this is to do with the phone or T-Mobiles signal. The amount of bars displayed doesn't seem to connect up with the speed of the connection and the Wi-Fi sometimes seems to stop things downloading at all unless cancelled, but this is rare.

There are a few other minor quibbles. With the beautiful weather we've had recently I find the screen doesn't cope so well in bright sunlight and the side of the case gets scuffed a little.

Overall though I'm very pleased with the phone. Phone calls are clear and crisp and now I've activated my voice mails, for some reason this wasn't set-up by default, everything is working fine. The layout of text messages as conversations is very helpful but I'm still struggling with the keyboard, but a stylus bought for me by friend Liam helps. The buttons are just too small for my fingers and though the predictive text options is excellent in guessing what you're writing, even when you go considerably wrong it's still not that intuitive.

One thing I'm trying to tackle now is showing the calendar options - which syncs perfectly with Facebook - as part of the main screen but it's just a matter of uncovering the options.

If someone asked me the straight question of, if given the option, would I buy this phone again, I would say yes. There are a few minor niggles with signal and the difficult to use keyboard, but it's a phone that integrates easily and intuitively with contacts, social networks and other areas. The app store is easy to use and comprehensive. The camera is above average for a mobile device. The music player sounds great and is flexible. The screen is a great size and the device itself light weight. So, yes, it's well worth a purchase.