HTC One X review

HTC Watch competes with Google’s own Play Store – it’s a movie store that offers movies to buy for £10 and to rent for £3.49. It’s a similar choice to that available in the Play Store, but neither store had any of the slightly obscure films we could think of (Drunken Master, The Beyond, and Cube). Sense doesn’t include an ebook store, so you’ll have to either use the Play Store or download a separate app for the store you prefer. You get a huge 32GB of storage on the phone, which is useful as there’s no Micro SD card slot for added space.

Android 4.0 brings some changes that take some getting used to, such as having the menu button at the top-right of apps rather than the bottom-right. Even then, some apps defy this convention and place the menu at the bottom of the screen, taking up a strip about 7mm high just for these three dots.

It’s not all smooth sailing. We noticed a bug whereby the phone switches itself to USB storage mode when plugged in via USB, even when we’d selected Charge Only – and it did this multiple times, which was annoying when we were trying to download a large app update. Battery life in our video playback test is also disappointing at under six and a half hours. You also can’t remove the battery, so you can’t carry a spare.

The One X is in many ways an impressive phone, and we particularly like the way the latest version of Sense ties in with Android 4.0’s changes. The handset can be found for less than £30 a month on a 24-month contract, but if you want a shorter contract or to buy it SIM-free, be prepared to pay flagship prices. It’s a quad-core phone with a brilliant camera and the latest version of Android, and if you can afford it, it’s the best Android phone you can get. It’s an Ultimate award winner.