One of the cool new features brought by the HTC One Max is the fingerprint sensor on its back. Unlike Apple's implementation, this one requires you to slide your finger over it, rather than just hold it on top, but it is still quick and accurate enough. The One Max recognizes up to three fingers, which is even more limiting than Apple's Touch ID maximum of five records.
The fingerprint settings
As a value-added feature you can assign an app to each stored fingerprint so it gets activated automatically with the screen unlock. That way you can have your index finger launch the phone app, your middle finger launch the camera, and have another finger simply unlock the Max. Unfortunately, those shortcuts are no longer available once you unlock the phablet, which we find to be quite disappointing.
You can select a default app for each fingerprint
To set a fingerprint you need to swipe three times on the sensor. That kinda reminded us of the first times we saw fingerprint sensors on phones - the Toshiba G900 had a similar learning setup.
Saving a fingerprint
Unlike the G900, the One Max sensor is pretty accurate, but because you need to do a swipe gesture, not just tap and hold, we find it slower than Apple's solution. There are some occasions when you are in a hurry and you are just not slow enough for the sensor to read your finger, which has the potential of getting in your way.
There is a quick setting for the Fingerprint reader in the Notification Quick Settings pane. It will take you straight to input a new fingerprint screen if you have a free fingerprint slot.
As usual, before you setup a fingerprint lock, you will be asked to enter a password for security reasons. In case you are unable to use the fingerprint scanner, you can unlock the device with that password.
Synthetic benchmarks and performance
HTC One Max runs on the Snapdragon 600 chipset - the same ticking inside the HTC One and inside at least one variant of the Samsung Galaxy S4. It has four Krait 300 cores clocked at 1.7GHz, Adreno 320 is in charge of graphics and there are 2GB or RAM.
As usual our first test is all about single-core performance. The Krait 300 score is on par with the S600-running Galaxy S4 devices.
Benchmark Pi
Lower is better
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 99
LG G2 99
Sony Xperia Z1 115
Sony Xperia Z Ultra 115
Samsung Galaxy S4 Active 130
HTC One Max 131
Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa) 132
Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600) 132
HTC Butterfly S 135
LG Optimus G Pro 147
HTC One 151
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini 166
Sony Xperia Z 264
HTC Butterfly 266
Oppo Find 5 267
HTC One X+ 280
LG Optimus G 285
HTC One mini 293
Samsung Galaxy Note II 305
HTC One X (Tegra 3) 330
LG Optimus 4X HD 350
Samsung Galaxy S III 359
Nexus 4 431
HTC One Max repeats the result from our previous test, performing equally to the S600 gang on the multi-threaded version of Linpack.
Linpack
Higher is better
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 1081
LG G2 1054
Sony Xperia Z Ultra 1034
Sony Xperia Z1 1004
Samsung Galaxy S4 Active 818
Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa) 791
Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600) 788
LG Optimus G Pro 743
HTC One Max 723
HTC Butterfly S 669
HTC One 646
Sony Xperia Z 630
HTC Butterfly 624
LG Optimus G 608
Oppo Find 5 593
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini 413
HTC One mini 320
Samsung Galaxy Note II 214.3
Nexus 4 213.5
HTC One X+ 177.7
Samsung Galaxy S III 175.5
HTC One X 160.9
LG Optimus 4X HD 141.5
GeekBench 3 is a popular CPU benchmark, where the One Max scores a hair below the original HTC One.
Geekbench 3
Higher is better
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 2937
Sony Xperia Z Ultra 2670
Sony Xperia Z1 2638
Apple iPhone 5s 2561
LG G2 2243
HTC One 1972
HTC One Max 1899
Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600) 1869
LG Optimus G 1623
Huawei Ascend P6 1315
LG Nexus 4 1288
HTC Butterfly 1257
Oppo R819 1047
HTC One mini 887
Quadrant and AnTuTu 4 gauge the overall device performance instead of just the CPU and the One Max managed to produce the same results the HTC One did earlier this year.
Quadrant
Higher is better
Sony Xperia Z1 20388
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 20052
LG G2 19815
Sony Xperia Z Ultra 18177
HTC Butterfly S 13130
Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa) 12446
Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600) 12376
LG Optimus G Pro 12105
HTC One Max 11914
HTC One 11746
Samsung Galaxy S4 Active 11346
Sony Xperia Z 8075
HTC One X+ 7632
LG Optimus G 7439
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini 7153
Oppo Find 5 7111
HTC One mini 6048
HTC One X 5952
Samsung Galaxy Note II 5916
Samsung Galaxy S III 5450
Nexus 4 4567
AnTuTu 4
Higher is better
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 31109
Sony Xperia Z1 30850
LG G2 30243
Sony Xperia Z Ultra 29185
Samsung Galaxy S4 27613
HTC One 26389
HTC One Max 26348
LG Nexus 4 17006
We've put the Adreno 320 GPU through the GFX Benchmark. It did as we expected - decent, on par with the S600 Galaxies and One, but noticeably slower than the S800's Adreno 330.
GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p off-screen)
Higher is better
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 68
Sony Xperia Z1 60
Sony Xperia Z Ultra 60
Apple iPhone 5s 56
LG G2 54
Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa) 43
HTC Butterfly S 42
Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600) 41
Samsung Galaxy S4 Active 41
HTC One Max 41
HTC One 37
Oppo Find 5 32
Google Nexus 4 32
Sony Xperia Z 31
Sony Xperia ZL 31
Sony Xperia SP 31
Apple iPhone 5 30
LG Optimus G Pro 30
LG Optimus G 21
Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 17
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini 17
Samsung Galaxy Note II 17
HTC One mini 15
HTC One X 11
GLBenchmark 2.7 T-Rex (1080p off-screen)
Higher is better
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 26
Sony Xperia Z1 23
Sony Xperia Z Ultra 23
Apple iPhone 5s 23
LG G2 22
Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600) 17.1
Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa) 17.1
Apple iPad 4 16.8
HTC Butterfly S 16
Samsung Galaxy S4 Active 16
HTC One Max 14
Google Nexus 10 13.9
LG Optimus G 13.9
Sony Xperia Z 13.5
Sony Xperia Tablet Z 13
Sony Xperia ZL 12.8
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini 6.4
Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 6.3
HTC One mini 5.6
Samsung Galaxy Note II 4.9
The updated Epic Citadel benchmark has the new Ultra High Quality setting and we've re-tested every 1080p device we possibly could. The One Max scored just a whisker below the HTC One.
Epic Citadel
Higher is better
Sony Xperia Z1 54.9
Sony Xperia Z Ultra 54.9
LG G2 51
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 47.7
Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600) 37.2
HTC One 35.6
HTC One Max 34.9
HTC Butterfly 29.6
The JavaScript performance of the HTC One Max is decent, though the SunSpider score is the lowest we've seen on a Snapdragon 600 device.
SunSpider
Lower is better
Apple iPhone 5s 403
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 587
Apple iPhone 5 694
Apple iPhone 5c 704
Sony Xperia Z Ultra 750
Sony Xperia Z1 845
LG G2 908
Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600) 1046
HTC One 1174
HTC One Max 1295
LG Optimus G 1293
HTC One mini 1375
LG Nexus 4 1379
HTC Butterfly 1397
Oppo R819 1423
Huawei Ascend P6 3858
The combined BrowserMark 2 benchmark showed the HTC One Max is once again on par with the rest of the S600 gang.
BrowserMark 2
Higher is better
Apple iPhone 5s 3549
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 3041
Apple iPhone 5 2825
Apple iPhone 5c 2799
LG G2 2718
LG Optimus G 2555
Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600) 2438
Sony Xperia Z Ultra 2419
Sony Xperia Z1 2398
HTC Butterfly S 2378
Samsung Galaxy S4 Active 2338
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini 2314
HTC One 2262
HTC One Max 2243
Sony Xperia Tablet Z 2170
HTC One mini 2164
Sony Xperia ZL 2107
Sony Xperia Z 2093
LG Optimus G Pro 1801
Oppo Find 5 1797
Nexus 4 1794
Nokia Lumia 920 1774
Google Nexus 10 1773
HTC Butterfly 1475
Samsung Galaxy S III 1247
Finally, the HTC One did better on Vellamo than the original One and on par with the Butterfly S.
Vellamo
Higher is better
Sony Xperia Z Ultra 2944
LG G2 2908
Sony Xperia Z1 2904
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 2853
HTC Butterfly S 2592
HTC One Max 2523
Samsung Galaxy Note II 2418
HTC One 2382
HTC One mini 2252
Sony Xperia Z 2189
HTC One X (Tegra 3) 2078
Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600) 2060
Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa) 2056
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini 2019
Samsung Galaxy S4 Active 1936
HTC Butterfly 1866
Oppo Find 5 1658
Samsung Galaxy S III 1641
LG Optimus 4X HD 1568
LG Optimus G 1522
Nexus 4 1310
So, HTC One Max performs exactly as well as you would expect from a Snapdragon 600 device. This is no longer Qualcomm's top-of-the-line chipset, but it delivers excellent lag-free user experience that won't disappoint anyone. The latest top-notch games won't pose much challenge either.
Still, the Snapdragon 800 shows its superiority when it comes to web browsing speed and app loading times. It's not a choice between good and bad performance, more like between great and the best, but when you are shopping in this price range the best is often the only one good enough.
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