HTC One V

Rating: Good

4/5

Features:

Performance:

Value:

Design:

PROS

• Aluminum unibody is rare in this price category
• Built well
• Surprisingly crisp display
• Decent performance
• Android ICS out of the box

CONS

• Disappointing camera
• Slight niggles with glass around earpiece

Summary

The HTC One V is possibly the best mid-range Android phone you can buy at the moment. The new Sony Ericsson Xperia NXT range would be a better choice though, if only it offered ICS out of the box. The retro looks of the One V also work very well!

Among the three HTC One series of smartphones, the One V is the second one to come to India. Along with the big brother, the One X. There is unfortunately, no sign of the One S yet, however, it is expected to be launched in India in the not too distant future.

Design & Build
Straight out of the box, the HTC One V looks like the HTC Legend. So much so that for a second we got a bit worried that HTC had sent us the wrong phone as a review unit! As we had quoted in the first impression feature of this phone sometime back, “It was a sense of déjà vu when I opened the box and took the HTC One V out. For a couple of seconds, I actually thought that I had received the HTC Legend by mistake, instead of the review unit of the HTC One V that we had actually asked for!” Being a HTC Legend user at one point of time, the immediate flood back of memories could be forgiven, I believe!

In terms of the design and build bit, the One V does have an advantage over most of the rivals – aluminum over the traditional and popular plastic finish. The unibody design just adds that dollop of solidity to the entire package. The review unit that we received was the matte brown-grey finish, unlike the brushed metal finish of the HTC Legend.

Design inspiration for the HTC One V is clearly visible, more so because of the chin – the bottom of the phone curves towards you. Unlike straight-throughout phones, this design just helps a little with the grip, and is more comfortable to hold overall. The 3.7-inch Gorilla Glass tends to stand out a few millimeters from the rest of the body. An unfortunate fallout of this is that the glass at the top has been cut, where the earpiece sits. This can be slightly uncomfortably sharp when the phone is pressed against the ear.

Below the HTC One V’s display are the three touch sensitive keys – return, home and task manager. Not carried forward from the Legend is the optical track pad.

The power key is on the top, along with the 3.5mm jack. The right spine has the volume rocker. The left spine has been left clean. Flip the phone over, and towards the top sits the 5MP camera with the LED flash. To access the SIM and memory card slots, you need to go to the lower part of this side, and slide down the rubberized portion. The design and mechanism was similar in the HTC Legend, except that in the One V, you cannot access the battery pack.

In a nutshell, the HTC One V seems to have been designed by the same person who hatched the HTC Legend. And he seems to be having fun doing the job he is doing! For a phone well under Rs. 20,000, the One V feels very premium to hold, to use and even to look at. Except for the glass near the earpiece bit, we cannot find anything wrong with the phone’s build and design. Except that it probably could have been a bit slimmer.

Features & Specifications
If the build and design didn’t, the spec sheet clearly betrays why the One V is priced well under Rs. 20,000. A 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon processor powers it, a humble single core. This is paired with 512MB of RAM. Now compare this to the Sony Xperia Sola that is retailing in the market for around Rs 19,500. The Xperia Sola has a 1GHz dual-core processor, but similar RAM – 512MB. The One V has Adreno 205 graphics, while the Sola has the Mali 400 chip.

The HTC One V’s 3.7-inch display has a resolution of 480x800 pixels, with Gorilla Glass treatment. Straight off, we were impressed with the fact that a humble LCD was offering this kind of image and colour reproduction. However, the real kicker was the crispness of the text, which was unbelievably good. It is immensely helpful, and quite surprising, considering the not-so-large size of the display, which can stands up to the bigger AMOLED or S-LCD displays of some other smartphones, both in terms of the quality as well as the comfort.. Viewing angles are excellent, mostly because this display does not have the reflective tendencies a lot of phones have.

Being an HTC phone, it must have the HTC Sense UI wrapped around the OS! The Sense 4.0 UI on the One V is the same as seen on the One X, only reproduced on a smaller display. What is a major surprise is that on the One V, Sense ran absolutely smoothly with not even a hint of lag, something we couldn’t say for the infinitely more powerful and considerably more expensive One X. In fact, in the review of the One X, we even had a bunch of screenshots showing the Sense UI crashing out of the blue. However, if you are one of those who are very particular about ICS (or any Android OS, for that matter) retaining an image as close to its original as possible, then Sense will probably signal the end of the world, at least for you!

HTC has smartly sent this phone to make a name for itself in the market, with all the right tools at its disposal. Primary being the OS, and the One V comes preloaded with Android 4.0.3. Unfortunately, Sony doesn’t believe in this idea, surprisingly, which is why the Xperia Sola (along with the rest of the Xperia NXT family) has been sent out with Android 2.3 on board, with promised future upgrade to ICS. With Android ICS already available, you will be able to use ICS only apps like Google Chrome beta and the advanced version of Gmail.

App list scrolls sideways	Set the phone up, and immediately checked for updates. And voila!	Some hardware details of the One V
The goodness of ICS, out of the box. Are you listening, Sony?	The on-screen keypad is very comfortable, despite the phone's size	The task manager is very different from what is there on the One X

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Panasonic Lumix DMC-SZ7

MRP: 12999

Rating: Good

3.5/5

Features:

Performance:

Value:

Design:

PROS

• Very slim form factor for a 10X optical zoom
• Leica Lens offers good sharp images
• Simple user interface and menu navigation
• Great ergonomics

CONS

• Obvious JPG artefact at 100% magnification
• Loss of detail at ISO 1600 and above
• Video quality average at best

Summary

Paying Rs. 13,000 for a camera that can hide unnoticeably in our pockets, while packing a 10X optical zoom Leica lens along with a 14 megapixel sensor seems like a great deal! This is definitely one of the slimmest and the lightest travel zoom cameras we've played around with, bur, there a nagging question remains - "does a cheaper price also mean cheaper performance?" The answer to that question is a little more complicated than a simple yes or no, but the bottomline remains, if we needed a travel zoom under 15K, this is probably the one we'd go for.

Panasonic has always kept a low profile when it came to their cameras, especially when compared to the likes of Canon, Nikon and Sony. However, there is no doubt that Panasonic has earned quite a reputation in the imaging product segment, especially with the likes of the FZ-150.

In fact, Panasonic was the first company to launch a true “travel-zoom” camera, the DMC-TZ1, which ruled the roost for a while, at least till the other camera makers, could play catch up. Today, we look at the Panasonic DMC-SZ7, a long departure from the TZ1 of 2006, but yet, very similar in many regards.

Build & Ergonomics
The first thing you’ll notice about the Lumix SZ7 when it is pulled out of its cardboard box, is its ridiculously thin and small form factor. For a minute, we scratched our heads, wondering if the claim of the 10x optical zoom was real or not. It is also extremely lightweight (we played a 15 minute game of basketball without realizing the camera was in the pocket of our shorts) despite the battery and the SD card being in the camera.

The body of the Panasonic Lumix SZ7 is made of high-grade plastic, which feels rather sturdy. While we wouldn’t drop the camera (we love our toys way too much to let them take a tumble), we’re pretty confident it would survive a small drop or two, even if not cosmetically. The black body of the camera is supplemented with slate grey metallic bevels that adorn the sides of the camera , giving it quite an elegant look overall.

The button layout on the top is absolutely minimal, with just the on-off switch, the shutter button, the customary zoom control and a dedicated video recording button. The back features the usual dial that can be spun to sift through options. There’s also the usual menu, display and mode buttons that do pretty much what their name suggests.

The overall build is sturdy and the camera feels good in the hands. It’s just the right amount of “light” for its dimensions, not too heavy, not too underweight. Even at the various focal lengths with the zoom barrel extended to different lengths, the camera doesn’t become unbalanced.

PerformanceWe are always sceptical about gadgets that seem too good to be true. With a travel zoom this size, we were left wondering whether Panasonic had dumbed down the innards of the DMC-SZ7, so we picked it up and took a long walk through the city, taking a lot of random (well thought out, of course) shots. We started with the standard image quality assessment at the wide and telephoto end, with the Leica lens performing rather well in keeping sharpness at the centre and the edges intact. Of course the centre was sharper than the edges (as it is to be expected), but that doesn’t mean that the edges seemed lacking in any way.

Sample Shots

Macro shots revealed that the DMC-SZ7 lens has a barely noticeable barrel distortion, which is great! Don’t want that regular house fly looking like an over-fed, well-taken-care-of house pet now do we? Shooting under the mid-day sun, we did find that the camera’s ability to handle dynamic range isn’t all that stellar, with the emphasis being more on retaining/exposing for highlights than shadows. Of course, when exposing for shadows, the highlights in all our shots were consistently blown out.

The one issue we did encounter during shooting was with the LCD screen. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-SZ7 employs a 460K dot TFT LCD screen, which in several scenarios, tended to exhibit a lag or jitter under several shooting conditions. For example, when we were zoomed into a scene that was low on illumination or just when we tried to pan around too quickly, the screen would not work fluidly. Unlike its elder siblings, the TZ20, TZ25 and TZ30, the SZ7 does not include a touchscreen, which we feel is a good thing especially given how the screen can become sluggish in just rendering the lens view.

Moving into the studio for our customary test target shots, we examine the SZ7’s ISO performance at each of its ISO 100-3200 steps. While JPG compression artefact is present in all images when viewed at 100%, the aggressive noise reduction becomes a prominent around ISO 800. At ISO 1600, the JPG artefact is enhanced due to the aggressive noise reduction algorithms, giving the details in the images a smudged look. The images at ISO 3200 convinced us to use it only in dire emergencies, as a last resort.

ISO 100% Crops

ISO 100	ISO 200	ISO 400
ISO 800	ISO 1600	ISO 3200

In terms of sharpness, well, there’s only one word – Leica. Leica has always had quite a reputation for superior optics and Panasonic’s association with the wonder-boy of lens-making has made it possible for Panasonic to really shine with respect to sharpness. The centre sharpness as revealed in our studio tests holds strong through the entire ISO range. The edges also held their own, being not as sharp as the centre of course, but still sharp enough to look good in large prints.

The SZ7, like most point-and-shoot digital cameras these days, is capable of shooting full 1080p HD footage, though the smaller sensor limits the quality of output. The video recorded at full HD resolution (30 fps) is encoded at roughly 14mbps, meaning, the quality is just a little over average (GOOD Full HD footage is shot at 1080p encoded at 24mbps). We’re not really sure if it was a problem with our unit or just a general problem with this series, but the camera tended to underexpose by about 1/3 of a stop while shooting video. This wasn’t much of a problem during brightly lit day-time shots, but when shooting in low light, the level of noise would rise significantly. The audio, however, was of surprisingly good quality, thanks to the stereo mics.

VerdictThe Panasonic SZ7 is a gorgeous little camera that can become incognito the minute it slips into your pant pockets. It rocks a 10x Leica lens and a 14 megapixel sensor, all packaged into a slim package for a small price of Rs. 13,000. However, with the SZ7, you get what you pay for. There is obvious JPG compression artefact and the noise performance at ISO 1600 and above isn’t great. The video is great in normal lighting, but once the illumination dips, the video quality dips with it. Despite the shortcomings, the SZ7 is a great travel zoom camera, especially if you’re looking to pick up a camera on a tight budget. 

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