Unboxing the AT&T HTC One

With only a few days to go before the April 19^th launch of the HTC One on AT&T and Sprint, our good friends at HTC were kind enough to send us a review unit to play with. We’ve managed to get our greasy fingers on the HTC One on several occasions already, but it’s impossible to get a true sense of what the phone is capable of until you spend a few days with the device.

The very first thing that impressed us with the AT&T HTC One was the phone’s packaging. Typically, AT&T throws out HTC’s packaging and uses its own boxes which come plastered with the networks gaudy orange color. Somehow, HTC managed to convince AT&T that its packaging for the HTC One is what consumers really wanted.  There is an AT&T logo on the top right corner of the box and references to AT&T services on the back, but the overall design of the box is in line with what HTC is using across the globe.

The second bonus was a pair of HTC’s flat cable earphones with in-line microphone. HTC has always included headphones with its devices in Europe and Asia, but US service providers typically didn’t include them. We can assume that the audio quality is sub-par since the earphones are probably worth around $10, but we’ll definitely be throwing the earphones in our bag as a backup just in the off-chance that we might need them.

For all intents and purposes, the AT&T HTC One is identical to the international variant. The specs are the same; the hardware build is the same and the software in the same. Except for the few bits and pieces which are not. AT&T has mucked things up a little by placing its globe logo on the back of the HTC One and there are a total of ten apps pre-installed which are specific to the AT&T HTC One. Fortunately, all of the AT&T apps are neatly organized into a folder in the application drawer, nicely tucked away so that you can easily forget about them.

We’ll be covering BlinkFeed, BoomSound, Sense 5 and the HTC One’s Ultrapixel camera in separate posts. For now, all we’ll say that that we’re thoroughly enjoying all aspects of the phone and can’t find anything to complain about.

For a closer look at our unboxing, check out the video below.