I was standing in the AT&T store Friday, when I very hesitantly handed my iPhone 4S to an AT&T employee and whispered “I need to transfer my phone number to this HTC OneX+ phone”. I literally had tears in my eyes. Call me crazy. Some would call my iPhone, my 3rd hand, but I knew I was ready to take the leap after having using this phone on wifi only for a couple of days.  Even after reviewing several other Android devices, I never felt as ready to switch to an Android phone as I did with the HTC OneX+. Before this week and for the last several years, I was always either holding my iPhone or it was in my pocket, and at night my iPhone was under my pillow. For the last few years I have been connected to the world via my iPhone.

This week, I made the leap from iOS to Android.

Content and/or other value provided by our partner, HTC.

HTC requested that I review the HTC OneX+ smartphone, but did not request or require that I stop using my current phone.  However, in the interest of my readers I felt that I needed to fully immerse myself in the HTC and Android world in order to give you the most accurate and honest review of the HTC OneX+.   This would be a huge step for me as I live and breathe Mac when it comes to technology.  I have two MacBooks, an iPad, and most of my immediate family have an iPhone.

I have reviewed several Android phones and have enjoyed them all but the HTC OneX+ for AT&T is one that I found very easy to use and found using it for every day tasks like checking email and posting to and reading my social media streams, the first day I had the phone.

Three days later..

This post is the first in a series of three or so about the HTC OneX+ so stay tuned and subscribe to my feed to get updates as I learn more about the phone.

Let me start the review off with a list of my top 5 Smartphone must-have features.

My Top 5 Smartphone Feature Must Have’s:

• Great graphics
• Multitasking
• Incredible photos
• Sync with my iTunes music library
• A lot of storage space

My iPhone 4S has all of those features.  The HTC One X+ has these ADDITIONAL features:

Am I having any issues transitioning to the HTC OneX+?

I’m glad you asked.  Read on to learn about the transitions I’m facing while switching from the iPhone 4S to the HTC OneX+.

Before I go into detail about the issues I’m having with the transition from an iPhone 4S/iOS to the HTC OneX+/Android Jelly Bean, let me explain what I use my smartphone for.

As far as I’m concerned, these are the primary purposes of a smartphone:

• Calling people and receiving calls
• Checking and responding to emails
• Texting and SMS
• Keeping up with friends on Twitter and Facebook
• Updating my blogs via WordPress and other apps
• Keeping up with my long list of things to do via apps
• Reading news
• Catching up with my favorite tech & gadget blogs while putting my daughter to bed
• Watching and listening to podcasts
• Listening to music in the car
• Getting directions via GPS apps
• Keeping up with my son’s location via Google’s Latitude app
• Playing games

A few noticeable differences between the iPhone 4S and HTC OneX+

Keyboard differences

1. Something that is proving to be a bit of a learning curve for me is the keyboard. While it has a great built-in word suggestion tool, I am not used to it yet and sometimes the suggested words appearing above what I’m typing throws me off.
2. The iPhone keyboard initially presents the user with letters only.  The iPhone user then presses a “123” button in the lower left of the keyboard to bring up numbers only.  The HTC OneX+ keyboard presents the user with letter keys with a number in the top right corner of every letter key.  I find having the numbers on the letter keys to give the keyboard a cluttered look and feel.

I expect to have moved past these issues within one or two days as use the phone more.

Photo color
An identical photo taken with the iPhone 4S and HTC OneX+ and iPhone 4S present me with photos with differing colors.  For example, in a photo I took with the HTC OneX+, a white shirt is still white but with a hint of cyan. My daughter has a yellow skin tone like I do but in the HTC One X+ photos, her skin doesn’t have its natural yellow tone.  I think the colors are truer on the iPhone 4S. There are a lot of settings in the HTC OneX+ camera app so I have no doubt that once I adjust a few settings, the color will look truer than it does now. So far, the photos I have taken are with the camera’s ‘out of the box’ settings so I will have to play with it more to give you a better review of the camera and color presentation/quality. This is just an initial find. I worked in a photo laboratory for years and have a very good eye for the slightest in color variation. Too much cyan..not good.  Too much magenta… not good. The HTC OneX+ appears to lean on the side of too much cyan. I will play with the camera settings and hope to fix the color issue soon.

On a good note, I will gladly sacrifice the slight color differentiation for the crisp, sharp, beautiful quality of the photos taken on the HTC OneX+.  I can clearly make out strands of my daughter’s hair in the photos taken on the HTC OneX+ photos vs. not being able to, in the iPhone 4S photos.

Screen brightness
Even at the HTC OneX+’s brightest setting, the screen is not as bright as the iPhone 4S screen but I’m not complaining.  This is not a big deal to me.

Battery life
I have found after using the HTC OneX+ for three solid days, that the battery life appears to be shorter than the iPhone 4S’. I have pushed the HTC OneX+ by taking a lot of photos and using a lot of apps simultaneously, so we’ll see if battery life improves over the next few days as I learn more about multitasking and remember to use the Task Manager app. Upon the advice of my brother-in-law I have downloaded the app JuiceDefender Plus which should help with the HTC OneX+ battery life.  I will include details on that in my next review.

HTC OneX+ – Review #1 Summary

I wrote much of this post using the WordPress app on the HTC OneX+ and found the OneX+ to be pleasant to write on at length.  Ultimately, the size of the phone and screen, overshadowed the cluttered keyboard.  I’m getting used to the keyboard already.

Switching my phone number from my beloved iPhone to the HTC OneX+ was a huge leap for me.  I feel confident that the OneX+ will meet my needs for both a smartphone and a camera.

Stay tuned for more and if you have any Android app recommendations or comments or questions about iPhone vs. HTC OneX+, please leave them in the comments below.

Update: Since I wrote this post, I have written a few more:

Read more posts, on my sites, about the HTC OneX+:

Note to my readers: I received a complimentary HTC OneX+ for purposes of this review..  As always, all opinions presented in my posts are 100% honest.