HTC One SV review

Camera
On paper, the HTC One SV features a 5MP rear-facing camera, complete with autofocus, touch focus and LED flash.

Taken using the HTC One SV

The camera performed well too, although we did find it quite difficult to use thanks to the lack of a dedicated camera key and shoddy image stabilisation. Image quality was good, with snapshots boasting natural colours and plenty of detail.

The camera is also capable of shooting HD 1080p video, which it does well. However, we found that clips often ended up shaky, and not quite on a par with those shot on the HTC One X.

Battery and storage
The battery life on the HTC One SV is decent, despite the handset's LTE support. The 1,800mAh battery cell might not sound all that impressive on paper, but we found that the One SV glided through a full day of medium to heavy usage without any hiccups.

For storage, the phone comes with only 8GB of internal storage, but there's a microSD card slot on the handset, which means that this can be expanded by an additional 32GB.

In Short
The HTC One SV isn't a bad mid-range phone, but despite the handset's 4G LTE capability we think there are better alternatives available on the market.

At £36 a month on EE, it's at the top end of the mid-range market, and considering that you can pick up a Samsung Galaxy S3 with a higher-resolution screen, a nippier processor and more intuitve software for around £25 a month, we're not sure that LTE is worth the price bump.

That said, if you're desperate to get your hands on a 4G phone but don't fancy paying upwards of £40 a month, the HTC One SV certainly will get the job done. It does have an excellent battery life, after all. µ

The Good
Good design, 4G connectivity is nippy, decent battery life.

The Bad
Low resolution screen.

The Ugly
HTC's Sense user interface can be obtrusive.

Bartender's Score
6/10