One thing HTC has been pretty good at over the last few phone generations is in experimenting with different phone constructions. We’ve seen mobiles made of plastic, ceramic and metal – often within the same range.
The HTC One opts for a mix of aluminium and white plastic. It’s a plastic-metal sandwich. The meat of the phone is aluminium, with just thin strips of white plastic running along the edges. Some have reported that these plastic parts are prone to cracking, but we didn't experience any such issues.
These aluminium plates give the phone the cool, hard feel that you get with an iPhone 5. If anything, though, the HTC One is ergonomically superior. Its rear is smoothly curved to hug your hand and its edges are bevelled to remove any sharp bits. Although its look may be a little severe, the feel of it is anything but.
This is certainly one of the most attractive phones availale, with a more striking, cohesive look than either the Sony Xperia Z or the Samsung Galaxy S4. It's only the slightly aggressive styling that makes this feel like an HTC-designed device, rather than the one that could have slipped out of Apple's labs.
The HTC One’s roll-call of attention grabbing elements is fairly long. We have the dual front speaker grilles, the oversized camera housing, the concentric circles texture of the volume rocker, and the high-contrast look of the front camera, light sensor and power button up top.
The HTC One is a looker, and a phone that’s easy to recognise in the ever-expanding sea of mobiles. It's far more interesting to look at than its top rival the Samsung Galaxy S4.
Build quality is excellent too. The seams between the HTC One’s plastic and aluminium layers are tight aside from a tiny gap on the top edge of our review sample, and there’s none of the flex you’d see in a plastic-bodied phone. In-hand it feels much more expensive than the top Sony and Samsung phones.
The cost of such immaculate design is that the innards of the HTC One are inaccessible unless you get out your Dremel and saw the thing in half. You have no access to the battery here, and there is no memory card slot, which you do get with the Sony Xperia Z. The phone also lacks that handset’s waterproofing, although this means you don’t have to deal with any irritating rubber-sealed flaps – used in ruggedised phones to keep water out of sockets.
The HTC One’s body also won’t appreciate rough treatment much. Aluminium feels great on the fingers, but it’s a relatively soft metal that will eventually get scratched by loose change and your car keys. However, after using the phone for weeks without masses of care, its bodywork is still looking good, with only the shiny sides of the body bearing particularly visible scratches.
The white plastic of the silver edition is a terrible dirt magnet, though – it’ll be fine one minute and covered in dark smudges the next. Unless your personal hygiene is much better than ours, of course.
Like any phone this size, one of the trickiest bits to get used to is how large the screen is. It’s smaller than some – at 4.7 inches across when many new phones rock 5-inch displays – but reaching to the opposite end of the screen with a thumb is a real stretch. For right-handers, the power button also requires a stretch.
It’s one to add to the growing list of first-world problems – having a phone so big you need two hands to operate it.
However, the HTC One disappears into pockets easily enough, thanks to its fairly slim body. Its ergonomic curves ensure it’s not aggressively thin at 9.3mm thick, but we’d rather have a comfy phone than one whose figurative ribs poke through into your palm. The HTC Phone’s two soft touch nav keys are easy enough to operate one-handed too, handling “back” and “Home” functions. They’re lit-up with swish-looking cool blue light when operated.