Hands on with the MOBO Edition 18ct Gold HTC One
by Brian Klug on October 9, 2013 8:49 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- HTC One
Gold seems to be on every device maker's mind right now. Recently we saw Apple introduce the Gold iPhone 5S, and then Samsung countered with a gold Galaxy S4, today we got a chance to hold and look at a special edition Gold HTC One. I stuck my gold iPhone 5S alongside the gold HTC One to compare the two gold phones.
The special edition HTC One is electroplated with 18 carat gold by Goldgenie for the 18th anniversary of the MOBO Awards. One of the devices will be given away to the winner of the best newcomer category at the MOBO Awards.
HTC is only making 5 gold HTC Ones, and the device we got hands on with is a test designed for getting the plating right and doing testing, so it isn't quite as flawless as the end devices will be. There's a clear coating on top of the gold to prevent scratching or flaking, of course gold itself has native properties that resist the formation of an oxide. Oddly enough the clear coating seemed to be the cause of most of the visual scratches which are suspended above the mirror finish gold plating. The front metal inserts of the HTC One are also gold plated. This gold version weighs 4 grams more than a normal HTC One as well, and HTC says its valued at 2,750 GBP, or roughly 4,400 USD.
Whereas the gold iPhone 5S is more of a champagne color, the gold HTC One is a much more vibrant color owing to the native color of the gold plating. The plastic regions are black on this gold edition as well, as an aside I wish Apple had a black and gold combination rather than the white and gold available now, as gold and black is visually much more striking.
HTC says the special edition gold HTC One has passed all the necessary RF testing, in spite of being plated. Antenna attenuation is of course still a concern even if the gold edition of the HTC One is ornamental.
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Mondozai - Wednesday, October 9, 2013 - link
There are good-looking Gold versions and there are less good-looking versions.I think the back looks okay but the front color(which is not the same as the back) looks hideous.
Also, while I know you guys have been busy, we didn't get a review of Xperia Z1 but we get a gold-version of an old phone.
If Brian is too busy, and we know he is, why not get someone else?
Maybe he needs re-inforcement.
How relevant is this phone to most users? A lot of people will buy the Z1 and not a lot of people will buy this mongrel.
(To the counter-arguement that there are reviews at other sites, that's true, but we know that they are marked by a paucity of quality which is why we read this site).
thesavvymage - Wednesday, October 9, 2013 - link
An entire phone review takes a week plus to test and write. This likely took him less than a half hour.kyuu - Wednesday, October 9, 2013 - link
As the other poster noted, this isn't a review. It's a short pipeline article noting his impressions of it, since he happened to get a hands-on with it. I'm still miffed that the Lumia 920 review was shelved with no explanation, but there's obviously a world of difference between this article and an actual review.BMNify - Wednesday, October 9, 2013 - link
Brian is a PROUD windows hater, he constantly mocks windows phone on twitter and podcasts, he did not review Lumia 920 which Nokia gave him, even the Lumia 1020 review has been put in the dust bin.Apart from that, he has not used both Surface RT and Surface pro and even after that he was sent to cover Surface 2 event!!
Hopefully, someone else in the team like Vivek or Ganesh will get more chances and we can get objective reviews of windows products.
maximumGPU - Thursday, October 10, 2013 - link
Well said!windows phone coverage is sorely lacking at AT, and seems all due to Brian hating it. He has a right to dislike it, but that shouldn't deny AT readers from an in depth review of WP8 devices.
drexnx - Thursday, October 10, 2013 - link
probably because WP8 is a garbage platform.Nokia would have moved millions upon millions of lumias if they had android instead of WP8.
BMNify - Thursday, October 10, 2013 - link
Probably your pea-sized brain is garbage to understand the issue here, we are not asking for glowing reviews, we are just asking for objective reviews for atleast the products whose samples they already receive.When Android platform which results losses for almost every manufacturer including the best Android phone declared by Anandtech that is HTC One and even Motorola bleeding money since years only surviving due to Google's Advertisement dollars can get all the hype, attention and reviews then Windows products also deserve reviews.
Besides, Anandtech is not financial analyst website, so the profits, sales talk is point is moot.
sor - Wednesday, October 9, 2013 - link
Dude. C3PO lost his phone.dishayu - Thursday, October 10, 2013 - link
Holy mother of god, THE BLING!! Kill me already!