HTC has released 2 new Android phones in time for end of the year tech upgrades and holiday shopping, the One X+ and the One VX. The naming is a little confusing, but they’re similar phones, with the One X+ sitting at the top end of the range in both price and features, and the VX sitting somewhere closer to the middle.
The HTC One X+ may be familiar to you as an upgrade of the old One X. The form is basically the same, but HTC has gone ahead and upgraded the specs to put the One X+ out ahead as the flagship model. Like the original, the One X+ features a large 4.7 inch screen, molded black plastic exterior and Beat Audio tech. The weight of the phone stays almost the same too at 4.76 ounces.
One huge upgrade is the insane 64 GB of built-in storage, though there’s no SD card slot. Given that most phones feature 16GB of storage, and the iPhone has never had an SD card option, it shouldn’t be a problem for the vast majority of users. There’s also an upgrade to a quad-core processor, and a battery upgrade to go with it. A lot of the improvements in the experience of the One X+ come from the upgraded OS: the One X+ ships with the latest Android OS, Jellybean 4.1. It also has HTC’s proprietary user interface called Sense on top of the plain Android, and that gets an upgrade here too.
The One VX may look very similar to the One X+, but under the hood it’s just not quite as fast or strong. The screen size is slightly smaller, at 4.5 inches instead of 4.7, and the camera is only 5MP, instead of the One X+’s 8MP. The VX is noticeably thicker than the One X+, but actually weighs slightly less (though the difference is barely noticeable). It still features a dual core processor, 8 GB of internal storage, and the previous version of Android, 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
What about the difference in price though? The X+ sells for a contract price of $199 from AT&T. The VX is way cheaper, at $50 with an AT&T contract. At that price difference, the VX may be worth it to folks who value saving money over the latest specs: after all, the VX is still a solid phone with good specs. On the other hand, the One X+ is one of the top Android phones on the market right now. Both could be a great device for the right user.
More information on the One VX here, and more information on the One X+ here.