I didn't buy my Note 2 until I saw information about the HTC One and the Galaxy S4. Mine was a decision based upon demos of those two and the features of them all. I gotta say I was attracted by the looks of the of the HTC One and some of the features are impressive. But, having visited with a friend who has an HTC One my decision to get the Note 2 has been affirmed. Here's what I learned about the HTC One from my friend.
- Battery: It's horrible. He says it's exhausted by around 2pm every day. He needs to be tethered to a wall wart. At a party he has to hang out with the iPhone folks near the wall plug. With no replaceable battery this is unacceptable. He suspects that the HiDef 1080p screen sucks a LOT of battery time. More than his previous phones. What makes him suspicious of this is that HTC removed the "Screen Time" panel from the Battery settings page. They appear to be afraid to let you know how much juice that screen is really using.
- He keeps the brightness way down to try to keep the battery last longer, so the benefit of a beautiful bright HiDef screen is diminished. Even with that his battery is toast at 2pm.
- He's in a constant "save battery" mode. He turns off GPS most of the time, he keeps bluetooth off most of the time, and he turns off wifi when he leaves the building. It's a lot of work for him just to get to 2pm.
- Sound. Yes, it has front facing speakers. I think that should be in all phones. But he says that even though there are two of them they're too close together to really distinguish stereo. They do sound better, he says, but maybe that's just because they're facing forward.
- Heat. He says the sucker gets really hot. Maybe that unibody aluminum back isn't dissipating the heat properly?
All in all, I'm very happy I chose the Note over the HTC One. I leave my screen at full brightness all day. I also leave wifi, gps and bluetooth on all day and never have to worry about battery. The Note 2 is as it should be.
- Battery: It's horrible. He says it's exhausted by around 2pm every day. He needs to be tethered to a wall wart. At a party he has to hang out with the iPhone folks near the wall plug. With no replaceable battery this is unacceptable. He suspects that the HiDef 1080p screen sucks a LOT of battery time. More than his previous phones. What makes him suspicious of this is that HTC removed the "Screen Time" panel from the Battery settings page. They appear to be afraid to let you know how much juice that screen is really using.
- He keeps the brightness way down to try to keep the battery last longer, so the benefit of a beautiful bright HiDef screen is diminished. Even with that his battery is toast at 2pm.
- He's in a constant "save battery" mode. He turns off GPS most of the time, he keeps bluetooth off most of the time, and he turns off wifi when he leaves the building. It's a lot of work for him just to get to 2pm.
- Sound. Yes, it has front facing speakers. I think that should be in all phones. But he says that even though there are two of them they're too close together to really distinguish stereo. They do sound better, he says, but maybe that's just because they're facing forward.
- Heat. He says the sucker gets really hot. Maybe that unibody aluminum back isn't dissipating the heat properly?
All in all, I'm very happy I chose the Note over the HTC One. I leave my screen at full brightness all day. I also leave wifi, gps and bluetooth on all day and never have to worry about battery. The Note 2 is as it should be.
. And I absolutely refuse to consider a phone with a sealed/embedded battery!
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