This isn't a proper review but more like initial impressions if anyone is interested.
I absolutely love the design of this phone. I've always thought the iPhone 4 is the most premium feeling and best designed phone, but I actually like this more. There are so many things right with it, it feels nice, looks fantastic (especially in white), it's a good weight, not heavy but not too light either. That's obviously quite important for a lot of people.
On down the downside, it's a little bit slippery. Not so much that it really matters, but if you're a bit careless with handling it, you may end up dropping it. It's certainly something I noticed as it's quite a large phone. I'd say the Galaxy Nexus is definitely a bit easier to hold and use in one hand. Not really much of an issue though, as both are generally fine.
The power button would have been better on the side, but again, not a huge issue. The notification LED is very well hidden beneath the speaker, and it shines through very well, you'll probably notice it even in a bright room. I like what they've done there.
As for the screen? Well, what can you say. It's the best screen I've ever seen by a country mile. Everything is just superb on it. It doesn't have the perfect blacks of AMOLED but they are very deep nevertheless. It's pin sharp and everything is just stunning. The viewing angles are rock solid as well, as good as anything else I've seen.
The camera isn't amazing, but it's very good. A lot of places are saying this has all the other phones (including the N8) beaten on the whole, and they are sort of right. As a total package, it's rather excellent. It's packed with features and the pictures are captured literally instantly. The HDR for example as you've probably seen absolutely transforms pictures of the sky (or including the sky). They look superb. I think what HTC have attempted here is to capture atmospheric pictures, instead of super realistic ones that you'd expect from a proper camera. Those tend to look better when being shown on a phone screen to people. The video is also very good, it's nothing really new in quality terms, but it's simply decent. There is stuttering but this is definitely more pronounced on Youtube and you don't notice it as much when watching video back on the device itself. The stuttering is also something I'd expect to be gone in future updates.
Considering the power housed within the One X, it doesn't really feel any faster than a dual-core phone, but do they ever feel slow? Not really. Ultimately it needs some more work when it comes to the software side of things, because the slowdown (microstutter really) seems to be related to that, I doubt it's due to a lack of horsepower from the Tegra 3. Sometimes though, you do notice it do things effortlessly. It's more animation lag than anything, and most Android phones have suffered with this and it eventually is ironed out after a few updates. Given how heavily skinned Android is here by HTC Sense, it's understandable. The web browser is just blisteringly fast, the fastest I've seen and used before, and I like the way it works with text reflow, it's very nice.
On to HTC Sense, I really like it. Not everyone will and I'd be just as happy with stock Android on the Nexus, but as you're basically stuck with it (for now) it's not really a downside. It looks and generally feels like Sense on the Sensation, and has most of the same features. In a few aspects they improve on stock Android and in others they don't. My main annoyance is the fact that, as there's now no menu button, many apps have it stuck at the bottom as a horizontal 3 dot menu. This is a colossal waste of screen space and looks completely out of place but hopefully it will be fixed and improved in most apps in future.
As an actual phone is where I'm probably most impressed. The loudspeaker is loud, not louder than the likes of the iPhone but just about the same. The earpiece is the same, nice and loud and very clear. The signal and wifi strength are both excellent, I think this is one of the advantages of the polycarbonate shell as it reduces interference. I can get a signal in some places with it where the Galaxy S II, 4S, Sensation and Nexus all can't.
The battery life is really the only downside. I think that the auto brightness (what I'm using at the moment) isn't aggressive enough. Sometimes in a dark or dull room, it keeps the screen brightness far too high and just doesn't drop it enough in general. At idle, the phone hardly uses any power and I'd say you're looking at a 1% drop every 2 hours or so. When the screen is on, the battery levels really take a nosedive. It's to be expected though and again, with all the reports of the power management files in the wrong place and further software optimisations to come, it should improve quite a bit in future. You can expect to be charging daily though if you use it quite a bit - the same as most other phones out there.
Anyway, overall I'm extremely pleased with it. It's more or less everything I expected and a little bit more. If they can improve the battery life a bit and iron out the last remaining bugs and just improve the general smoothness, I probably won't jump ship to the Galaxy S III unless it has some seriously ridiculous specs (and I prefer the IPSLCD to AMOLED personally anyway) and also, quite importantly, a nice design. I won't accept another plastic attempt after seeing what HTC have done here.
After a poor year last year, HTC are back on top of their game. Good news for all.
