Entry Level HTC One V Smartphone Holds Its Ground in Performance Tests

While power users often dismiss entry level offerings in the smartphone space due to their anemic performance, recent advances in processing and graphics chipsets along with more efficiently tuned software code may make the HTC One V a standout crowd pleaser. Unlike the HTC One X flagship and the mid-range HTC One S, the One V won’t come with a high resolution display, capping out with a 480 X 800 resolution, but it does hold its own ground when put to the test.

On paper, the HTC One V would be a great smartphone for a year or two ago with a single-core 1 GHz CPU, 512 MB of RAM, and 4 GB of internal storage. However, where it matters is real world performance and Netbook News has put the phone to work to find out how the device fares in gaming and other daily tasks. Playing games like Shadow Gun and Temple Run worked fine, with the occasional drop in frame rates in graphic-intensive scenes, and the phone appeared zippy in daily tasks.

Even the 5-megapixel camera is bolstered by HTC’s added imaging technology, such as the dedicated HTC ImageChip, which takes the load off of the processor and GPU for taking photos and videos.

In fact, the mid-range HTC EVO Design 4G was among my favorite smartphones when it was released for Sprint as it offered an affordable price tag, strong industrial design, and really great performance in real world usage despite having a paltry single-core applications processor in an era where dual-core CPUs reign supreme.

The device also has a premium feel that’s seen as an evolution of the unibody aluminum construction found on the GSM international version of the HTC Hero that was released a few years ago. That device was considered a mid-range handset when it was released.

With advancements in mobile technology, handset- and chip-makers are playing up multi-core capabilities, but it seems that baseline performance is sufficient enough so that the lines between entry level, mid-range, and flagship are increasingly blurred. At the end of the day, it seems that we may be approaching an era of the ultrabook equivalent for smartphones with small, but powerful and more affordable devices that blur the line between the netbook era and heavy performance laptops.