HTC One Max 6-Inch Android Smartphone Review

The One Max uses HTC’s new UltraPixel Camera which uses a 4 megapixel sensor that HTC claims is capable of capturing 300% more light than most leading 13 megapixel cameras. The UltraPixel camera does this by enlarging the pixel size, making each pixel comparable in size to what you’d find in a photo enthusiast compact camera.

The UltraPixel Camera also uses HTC’s ImageChip 2 which enables continuous autofocus, richer colors, noise reduction, and a more natural dynamic range. By combining the UltraPixel Sensor, a fast shutter speed, and a large f/2.0 aperture, the camera is better equipped than some cameras to capture pictures and video in low light.  

Like the HTC One, the One Max also includes HTC Zoe with Sequence Shot, Always Smile and Object Removal. With Zoe enabled, the camera will capture a series of high quality photos and collect them in a short, 3 second video clip. You can then use some of the cool Zoe features that let you create a Sequence Shot, extract and save a specific image from your HTC Zoe shot, enable slow motion video recording with variable speed playback, and more.

While viewing images on the phone, the One Max will automatically place the images into albums based on the date they were taken. When you open an album, you'll see thumbnails of all images. Zoe images will automatically play in the thumbnail or you can tap to view them larger.

In terms of image quality, we felt the One Max captured very good images. As is the case with most camera phones, some images turned out better than others but overall our experience with the One Max’s camera and HTC Zoe was positive.

Battery Life

The HTC One Max comes with a 3300 mAh Li-polymer battery. This battery is not user replaceable. HTC claims you should get up to 25 hours of talk time in WCDMA mode and up to 585 hours (9.75 days) of standby time in WCDMA mode.

In an attempt to quantitatively measure the HTC One Max's battery life in a controlled benchmark environment, we ran the AnTuTu Battery Test which is available from the Google Play Store. For this test, we set the HTC One Max's display to 50% brightness, which is still plenty bright and easy on the eyes. The One Max scored 622, making it the top performer in our chart by a decent margin. Although we always like user-replaceable batteries in phones, the longevity of the One Max should eliminate the need to swap batteries for most users.

In real-world use, the phone also seemed to last longer than many other phones we’ve tested. We would expect an average user should have no problem making it through an entire day with moderate use of the phone while checking email, taking pictures, making calls, surfing the web, etc. After four days of light use, the battery was still going strong. Even on days when we put the phone through heavy use it still had a longer battery life than most phones.