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Shootout: 4G LTE Smartphones Below S$600

By Sidney Wong & Vijay Anand - 15 Jul 2013

HTC One SV: Design & Features

HTC One SV

The HTC One SV is officially priced at $688 (inclusive of GST) without line contract, but you can get it for as low as $415 from other retailers.

The HTC One SV inherits some design traits from the company’s higher-end models such as the curvy edges, slightly tapered back and a polycarbonate chassis. A metal ring goes around the phone’s edges, giving it a more premium feel than it actually is. Its build quality is also good, and the heft of the device (122g) adds a solid feel in the hands.

On the front, you will find a 4.3-inch Super LCD 2 display with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. The earpiece grille is located at the top and three capacitive navigation buttons (back, home, menu) at the bottom. A 1.6-megapixel front-facing camera sits to the right of the earpiece grille.

The micro-SIM and microSD card slots are found underneath the back cover. In addition to the internal storage capacity of 8GB, HTC offers a two-year, free 25GB Dropbox cloud storage on the One SV.

The One SV ships with Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean and Sense 4+, the latter which has few enhanced features such as a redesigned virtual keyboard, a revamped camera user interface and the inclusion of a Power Saver mode.

The bottom row of navigation keys is removed, leading to a more streamlined keyboard.

The camera user interface of the HTC One SV is one of our favorites.

On Sense 4+, HTC improves the interface by adding the option to switch between the front and rear facing cameras. By placing a shortcut on the user interface, consumers will find it easier to switch between the two cameras. The interface also gives an estimate of the number of shots or duration of videos that your phone can take before it runs out of storage. The digital zoom bar is now shifted to the side. While these changes may seem subtle, they actually make the interface more much user-intuitive and  job well done by HTC.

Power Saver maximizes battery life on the HTC One SV and the control panel is aptly named that combines all the sub-options.

To improve the power management in its devices, HTC included the Power Saver mode. It is accessible either via the pull-down notification tab or Settings > Power. The Power Saver mode helps conserve battery through conserving CPU usage, reducing screen brightness, disabling vibration feedback and turning off data connection when screen is off.

A metallic rum goes around the side profile of the mostly polycarbonate build phone to give it a premium touch.

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