The HTC One+ hides a lot of computing power in an undistinguished case.The HTC X+ isn't much to look at. It's another rectangular smartphone with a nice soft touch exterior. But it is what is known in automotive parlance as a “sandbagger.â€
The undistinguished case hides an NVIDIA Tegra 3 processing chip, a 1.7 GHz quad-core processor, which means if there were a computing drag race, this phone would be an odds-on favorite.
You may wonder who needs that much processing power. Nobody, really. Just like no one needs a 600-horsepower muscle car. Still, there are people who want them.
There are places where that kind of chip speed comes in han dy â€" most prominently in gaming. It means that pictures render faster and more accurately with more detail. There is even a site for games that are made specifically to work with Tegra-powered devices, called the TegraZone.
Not that you have to be a gamer to use the phone. It has a 4.7-inch LCD screen that produces a sharp picture, and it runs the Android operating systems Jellybean 4.1, which means it has Near Field Communications capabilities.
Having NFC means you can transfer files to other NFC devices â€" supposedly with a tap. In practice the transfers were spotty. It took a long time to share photos across devices, and the transfer often failed.
Of course, the phone has all the advantages of Android OS devices, which includes easy connection to free Google services and to YouTube
The phone comes with Bluetooth aptX, which lets you send and receive higher fidelity sound, and Wi-Fi and DLNA, which should ease connecting your phone to a TV or com puter.
The camera is eight megapixels with an F2 aperture, which means it is better in low light than most phone cameras. It also has Beats Audio built in, which improves music fidelity without the oppressively bass heavy found in some Beats products.
The HTC One X+ is available through AT&T for $200 with a two-year contract.
