HTC One S has a top-notch camera and superb display

The HTC One S, available on T-Mobile for $200 on April 25th, is the carrier's new flagship phone. It boasts the fastest access to the carrier's 4G network, a dazzling 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display, and a feature-packed 8-megapixel camera that's arguably the best yet for a T-Mobile device.

It's also one of the first T-Mobile phones to ship with the latest version of the Android 4.0 OS (Ice Cream Sandwich). Other phone features include a, a fast 1.5GHz Dual Core processor, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage. HTC also claims superior audio performance for the One S, especially when it's used with Beats headphones—though these aren't included for free with the phone, as they were with several earlier HTC phones. (I didn't use the One S with Beats, but I did find its sound quality to be impressive on my own decent-but-not-stellar headphones.)

I also found the phone, which measures about 5 x 2.5 x 0.3 inches, to be quite comfortable to hold.

The details:

The camera. The HTC One S's 8-megapixel camera is currently being tested by our imaging engineers, but I was impressed with its ability to shoot a series of photos in rapid-fire succession while in camera mode as well as to snap a still picture at any moment while shooting a video.

To my eye, the photos and videos I took with it were of high quality. The camera has a
backlighted sensor, which helped it take pictures that showed more details in the shadows.

To launch the camera, you have to hit the camera icon in the app tray. Surprisingly, there's no hard camera button—a fairly common convenience on smart phones that lets you launch the camera as well as snap pics and shoot videos. But at least you can launch the camera from a locked screen by dragging the camera icon into a little circle at the bottom of the screen. If you use a password or PIN to lock your phone, you'll have to type it in before you can use the camera.

Once in camera mode, things are very easy. Instead of a virtual toggle to switch between camcorder and still camera, the icons for both are always visible, allowing you to switch rapidly from one function to the other. To snap a picture, you just push the camera button. The shutter responded in less than a second, a decent time for a smart phone camera.

But most impressive was the Continuous Shooting mode, which you activate by holding your finger on the camera button, initiating a 5-shot-per-second volley. Tapping the Best Shot button after selecting a photo from any group of continuous shots immediately deletes all of the others. (If you have more than one "best shot," you'll have to delete the photos individually.)

The phones' 8-megapixel camera can capture video in 1080p and is one of the first smart-phone cameras that can capture video at 60 frames per second, which is twice the rate of other smart phones. In theory, that should translate into smoother videos when you pan the camera from left to right. But the videos I took, though quite good, didn't seem noticeably better than those I've taken with other high-end smart phones.

What is distinctive is the One S's ability to capture still pictures as you're shooting a video by simply tapping the camera icon. You can also grab additional stills while you're reviewing the video. You can't engage Continuous Shot mode while you're shooting a video. Nevertheless, I was very impressed by how close together I was able to grab stills while shooting a video.

The display. The HTC One S presented graphics, photos, and videos with eye-popping clarity and brilliant, natural-looking color. Screen resolution is 960 x 540 pixels, which when stretched across the phone's 4.3-inch display, translates into a sharp 256 pixels per inch.

Despite those impressive specs, though, text in apps and on Web pages appeared a bit jagged to my eye. The flaws may relate to the way the pixels are oriented on the One S's screen, according to engineers from our TV and imaging labs. Comparing the display of the HTC One S with another AMOLED display on the Samsung Galaxy S II, they noted that the pixels on the HTC One S alternate in order: first red, green blue, then blue, green, red. On the Samsung Galaxy S II, pixels appear vertically in consistent columns of red, green, blue. The "alternating" pixel arrangement of the HTC screen produced a slightly jagged effect compared with that of the vertically aligned pixels on the Samsung display.

Data input and searches. The HTC comes with three keyboard choices: standard, condensed (two-letters per key), and phone (three and four letters per key). I only used the standard keyboard.

That standard keyboard has an optional Swype-like feature called Trace, which lets you type words by dragging you thumb over each letter. I found typos were minimized when using Trace, which learns from your repeated mistakes. But changing keyboard settings was relatively difficult. On most Android phones, you can call up the menu for keyboard settings by holding your finger down in the text field for just second or two. But changing keyboards on the HTC One S requires leaving the document and going into a second sub-menu for the phone's Settings app.

Also, the phone lacks a permanent Google search key—an odd omission on a phone whose operating system is touted for working well with Google. That makes finding restaurants, music, contacts, e-mails, and other Web- and phone-bound content needlessly challenging. A Google search bar does appear on the browser's home screen, but not on every screen, as is the case with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, which also lacks a Google Search button.

Bottom line. The HTC One S isn't perfect; downsides include a missing hard button for the camera, a Google search key, and a keyboard that's a hassle to adjust while you're using it. On the whole, however, it appears to be a very competent phone with a top-notch camera and a superb display.

—Mike Gikas