 Buy an unlocked Intel 4th Gen Core i7 or Core i5 processor and get a free copy of Rome 2 Total War. Click now to learn more. Welcome to my video about the HTC One Max. This phone review will be a little bit shorter than most of mine because it's pretty much a phone that I've reviewed before. Unlike the One Mini with its mini size and mini specs compared to the regular One, the One Max is, and I suppose this was self-explanatory, a max size version of the One. There's no massive change in the specs though. It's got a 1.7 GHz Snapdragon 600 processor with an Adreno 320 GPU, 2 gigs of RAM, a 5.9 inch 1080p screen, that's about 373 pixels per inch, with Gorilla Glass 3, Wi-Fi AC, and Android 4.3 with a 4.4 KitKat update confirmed. With those numbers in mind, doing this review was a little weird. It's the first time a One device has ever felt anything but blindingly fast to me. It's still very fast, but going from the Nexus 5 to the One made me appreciate the subtle all-round difference that a faster phone running a newer, more lightweight OS can make. It didn't bother me for the last few weeks, but I definitely did notice it. So we'll start with the physical on hands-on. HTC actually sent me a case as well as a stylus for the phone. The case, well, I installed it, used it for like two minutes, and then I promptly put it down behind a barn with a shotgun. No, but seriously, I seem to have lost it, so I actually can't show it to you, but I would suggest trying to find something else anyway. The stylus is a stylus, I guess. It's aluminum and it feels nice, but my issue is that unlike the Note 3, there's nowhere to store it inside the phone body. So unless you have amazing discipline, I think you're going to be losing and buying it over and over again, and at $10, that's a little bit tough to swallow. So I decided after trying the stylus to just go bareback with no stylus for the duration of my review, because I feel like that's how most people are going to be using it. Earlier this year, when I first started using it, I found even the regular one to be a bit too big for me. I was coming from an iPhone 4 and a bit slippery with its, however beautiful it may be, smooth anodized aluminum backing. Now fast forward however many months it's been, and that's all changed. I'm used to the one, but moving up to the one max is that same learning curve all over again. You've got to be extremely careful, especially at first to avoid dropping it. Fortunately, I didn't. For someone like me with small hands, you have got to use both of them to handle this baby day to day, if you know what I mean. But well, you know what they say, practice makes perfect. And over the last few weeks, I've gotten a lot better at handling a big phone. The front of the phone is dominated by the huge 5.9 inch screen and the boom sound speakers. Man, I missed those speakers when I was using the Xperia Z1 and the Nexus 5. It is so nice to actually be able to hear things again and have them playing at me as opposed to coming out of the bottom of the phone into my palm. I mean, using the one for so long, I had actually started taking them for granted, but now let's say I've been on the other side, I have a new appreciation for them. The last thing on the front of the phone is the dedicated buttons rather than on screen buttons. Now, I feel like these are a bit of a mixed bag. I first felt very strongly that on screen buttons were a negative because they took up some of your screen real estate. But particularly on a phone like this, having on screen buttons is a non issue to me because the screen is so big. Actually many modern phones are like that. Whereas having hard buttons goes and makes the phone itself a little bit bigger, which is something that doesn't really feel necessary in this case. So it comes down to the individual, whether you prefer on screen or not on screen, I'm kind of in the middle. On the right, we find my single biggest gripe with this phone. The volume and lock buttons are so close together and so similar feeling that even after a couple of weeks, it's pretty much a 50-50 shot for me to hit what I'm aiming for. A top lock button like on the One, I understand why they didn't do that. It would have been very difficult to hit one handed. So that's maybe not the solution. But I think a different feel to these buttons on the side could have helped a lot here. It's still not a deal breaker. And overall, I actually really like the phone. It's just that a couple of weeks in, it does continue to bother me and I wish they'd found another way to implement that. Moving on to the bottom of the phone, we find a single micro USB charging port. I feel like wireless charging is a very conspicuous absentee here, especially with newer phones like the Nexus 5 having that as a headline feature. In fact, that's one of the biggest things I miss about the Nexus 5. Wireless charging is a truly next generation type experience shift compared to plugging in your phone all the time. So there you go, guys. It's not here, but hopefully the upcoming One, Two, or whatever they're going to call it will. On the top, we find an IR emitter, yay, universal remote and a headphone jack. Then on the back, we find the ultra pixel camera, which just like the one has strong image stabilization and is easy to get good stills with even in low light, but has a little bit of difficulty with autofocus in video mode. So it tends to kind of look for focus a lot, but maybe we'll see a software update for that. I mean, you see how much the Nexus 5's camera improved just with a software update, so maybe there's still hope for it. On the back, we also find a fingerprint scanner that I had on for about an hour before I gave up. I think a big part of the issue for me was that to get a solid scan, you can only really do it if you can reach it properly and consistently pull your finger across it in a repeatable manner. And that required me to hold the phone with two hands. Now, I don't mind operating the phone two handed, but being able to unlock it one handed to quickly look at things is a must for me. Let's move back to the front of the phone and take some time to really talk about the screen. The viewing angles are solid. I can't see the touchscreen interface even on uniform backgrounds, which is a personal pet peeve of mine. And while it lacks some of the sharpness of the 4.7 inch 1080p screen on the One, unless you're reading very small text from very close up all day, I doubt you would ever even know that. I think the only complaint that I really have about it is the slight warm or yellow cast of the colors compared to the One especially, which has a more cool or blue look. Although even that stopped bothering me after about the first day. It is still obvious in a side by side comparison though. Now on to the size. There are definite challenges associated with handling a six inch, but I think we can all agree that having such a big clear screen is great for certain things. Content consumption is an example. Lately I've been mostly using my Nvidia Shield for watching videos in bed or around the house, but the One Max due to its massive screen and great speakers has actually taken over that duty. I also find myself zooming in less on photos that I'm viewing on the phone. When I hand it to people to take a picture or a video for me, they often comment that they can see really clearly and it's easy to use and these things are great. But initially I didn't necessarily feel like my appreciation for those things outweighed the inconvenience of the largeness because of my small hands. In fact initially my review notes about the phone's ludicrous size included only stories like my wife's cousin laughing at me when I was talking on it just because it's so big and I had some negative stuff about little places where Sense 5.5 didn't make use of the additional screen size for general productivity, like for example in the app tray. Things were going to come out a bit negative, although in HTC's defense while the app tray displays exactly as many icons in the grid as the One and even the One Mini, most stuff is adapted reasonably well. The launcher supports a full additional row and column of icons and stuff like that. So that was a very minor complaint. But anyway that's the direction I was headed. Then about three days into my evaluation of the phone something happened. I was standing in an office texting someone and a middle-aged lady behind a desk nearby said to me, wow, what phone is that? I showed it to her and she proceeded to play around with it and tell me a story about how her kids made her get an iPhone and she hates it because she can't see anything on it or type anything on it because it's just too small for her to press the buttons. And I realized she's right. Typing even though it does require two hands for me to grip the phone and use it at the same time is an absolute dream on the One Max. Without thinking about it, I had forgotten to install SwiftKey because even with my small hands and HTC's unexceptional stock keyboard, I was faster with less reliance on auto correct and I'm a reasonably good touchscreen typist. So I think that's my new summary about the size. While I can use this phone and there are things I do like about it, that trade off of screen size to phone size wasn't necessarily designed for people like me who want information density and compactness. It was made for people who might legitimately need a big screen for ease of use where large display elements will be perfect and I can think of a lot of people like that. Software wise, I've used since for months so there weren't really any surprises here but I'll summarize some of the things I do and don't like about it. Swiping down from the top with one or two fingers for your notifications or for your quick toggles is good. I like HTC's quick toggles implementation. It doesn't have 3000 things in it like Samsung's but it doesn't just lock you into half a dozen basic things and you will not use anything else like stock Android. However, I do still use power toggles just because I particularly with a large phone like this have trouble getting two fingers up there one handed when if I just want to turn on my flashlight and I'm kind of scrambling, it's nice to be able to just scroll down with one and activate the flashlight with one hand just like that. HTC's phone migration wizard is wireless and easy to use, something I wouldn't have even mentioned and would take for granted if I hadn't tried Sony's terrible one so recently. I also love Sense's multitasking compared to other implementations like the stock Google one that only shows a few recently opened applications or requires scrolling. Blink feed is something that people either use or don't use. I don't use it but I can recognize it as an efficient way to look at all your social media feeds and stuff like that, it's just not for me. Zoes are another thing that I don't really use because to me they're kind of like vines without even a button to pause recording. They're just little time limited video clips for those of you who don't know what a zo is and the One Max can record regular videos so I'd like to just have the option to keep it short just a few seconds or keep it rolling. Highlight reel, another software feature, one that I actually do use from time to time, lets you put together quick videos and it does automatic cuts and filters and stuff like that set to music and that works with zoes or regular videos so zoes feel a little bit unnecessary and like you're limiting yourself a little bit. Now one other thing and I've already been informed that this isn't a big deal and lots of phones do it but whatever this is my first time noticing it is that even if your phone battery is dead the one and the One Max for that matter will turn on for long enough to trigger your alarm in the morning. This is great if you're like me and occasionally forget to plug in your phone before going to sleep when it's really really low. This feature actually saved my butt one day during this review when I would have otherwise slept in so that's something that I did want to mention. Overall I like the software, maybe it's partly because my first Android experience is with Sense 5.5 so it's very familiar to me but there was one thing that I really missed from the Moto X and the Nexus 5. Hey Google, you've won me over on the whole voice thing. Google Now integration with 4.3 in the One is just not as good or as intuitive as those other phones and even though at the time I didn't feel like I was using it much even just trying to use maps for navigation on the One I really really missed it. So the summary is I guess I'll write my obligatory the voice quality on the One Max is excellent. I guess like the speakers it's a side effect of having more space inside the device and the fact that the microphone can actually be quite close to your mouth so I felt like I should mention that but other than that the conclusion of this video is quite simple. If you liked the One but you felt like it needed to have a bigger battery and screen then this is pretty much your dream phone. Okay no it has some other differences. Upgradable storage is one of them. I like the implementation of the removable back. There is a very slight gap but it doesn't detract from the overall fit and finish to me. That's a trade-off I'm willing to make. Moving on to the summary and conclusion. Oh wait sorry hold on. Voice quality on the One Max I guess it is a phone is excellent. I guess like the speakers being better because you know it's just like bigger and easier to build good sound devices in a bigger space. I guess it's a side effect of the phone just being larger but it was definitely a strong point for the phone. Okay there sorry now conclusion time. So other than that the conclusion for this video is quite simple. If you liked the One but you felt like it needed to have a bigger battery and screen then this is pretty much your dream phone. Okay no it has some other differences as well. The upgradable storage is one big one and I actually like the implementation of the removable back. There is a slight gap here but I don't feel like it detracts from the overall fit and finish that much. They've added a very very small lip like on the One Mini to I guess help prevent screen scratching if you put it face down but it really is very small and I still wouldn't put it face down on things. Either way it's a welcome addition. Both the haptic feedback and the vibrate ringtone feel less high pitched and obnoxious to me so yeah there are some definite improvements and with that in mind I would say the One Max is a better phone than the One but to me it doesn't come down to those little changes it comes down to whether you feel like you can handle all 5.9 inches of it strong sculpted. Anyway guys like this video if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it, leave a comment letting me know if you think phablets like the One Max are great or if you think that they're stupid and you know let the debate rage on in the YouTube comments and as always guys don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more unboxings, reviews and other computer videos.