HTC One X for AT&T US review: Xtra flavor

Introduction

With its international sibling receiving accolades left and right, it is time for the AT&T exclusive, LTE sporting HTC One X to take the stage. While the newcomer has retained the gorgeous looks of the global version, it is yet another case of a character makeover, received prior to crossing the Atlantic. In order to get along with AT&T's LTE network, the US residing HTC One X sports a Qualcomm chipset and CPU, rather than the NVIDIA silicon featured in the globally available smartphone.

HTC One X for AT&T official photos

The HTC One X for AT&T packs Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon S4 chipset, featuring two Krait CPU cores, clocked at 1.5GHz. While this is quite a sharp departure from the quad-core sporting Tegra 3 from NVIDIA, it is the only way to enjoy LTE on the smartphone at the moment. And besides, our previous encounter with the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4, packed in the HTC One S, clearly showed that, due to its brand new architecture, it stacks up quite well, and even outperforms the Tegra 3 silicon at times.

Here goes the full list of features, which the HTC One X for AT&T has to offer, followed by some of its disadvantages.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM and tri-band 3G support
• CAT3 LTE network support
• 21 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
• 4.7" 16M-color Super LCD 2 capacitive touchscreen of HD resolution (720 x 1280 pixels); Gorilla glass
• Superb build quality
• Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich with latest HTC Sense 4.0
• 1.5 GHz dual-core Krait CPU, Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chipset
• 1 GB of RAM and 16GB of storage; 25GB of free Dropbox storage for 2 years
• 8 MP autofocus camera with LED flash; face detection and geotagging
• 1080p and 720p video recording @ 30fps with stereo sound
• 720p front-facing camera for video-chat
• Wi-Fi b/g/n and DLNA
• GPS with A-GPS
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• Accelerometer, proximity sensor and auto-brightness sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v4.0
• MHL TV-out (requires MHL-to-HDMI adapter)
• Smart dialing, voice dialing
• DivX/XviD video support
• HTC Locations app
• HTCSense.com integration
• HTC Portable Hotspot
• Office document editor
• Beats audio enhancements

Main disadvantages

• No microSD card slot, no alternative options in terms of storage
• No dedicated camera key
• Non-user-accessible battery

With the spec sheet ticking almost all the boxes, only the pickiest of users will find something to complain about. The HTC One X for AT&T is a proper Android powerhouse, ready to take on any competition.

HTC One X for AT&T live photos

The smartphone's weakest point will undoubtedly be the limited amount of built-in memory - it's non-expandable and 13 gigs worth of storage are not too likely to cut it for heavy users these days, considering the fact that graphic intensive video games easily hit the 700MB download mark. Not to mention the high-definition videos you might want to enjoy on that HD screen.

So, how much has the AT&T flavored HTC One X changed during its trip across the pond? Read on to find out. As always, we'll kick things off with an unboxing, followed by a design and build quality inspection.

Editorial: You might notice that this review is shorter than usual and doesn't include all of our proprietary tests. The reason is it has been prepared and written far away from our office and test lab. The HTC One X for AT&T is a US-only phone and it's unlikely it will be making rounds on the Old Continent. Still, we think we've captured the essence of the phone in the same precise, informative and detailed way that's become our trademark. Enjoy the good read!