HTC One Max review: Supersized

Fingerprint sensor

One of the cool new features brought by the HTC One Max is the fingerprint sensor on its back. Unlike Apple's implementation, this one requires you to slide your finger over it, rather than just hold it on top, but it is still quick and accurate enough. The One Max recognizes up to three fingers, which is even more limiting than Apple's Touch ID maximum of five records.

The fingerprint settings

As a value-added feature you can assign an app to each stored fingerprint so it gets activated automatically with the screen unlock. That way you can have your index finger launch the phone app, your middle finger launch the camera, and have another finger simply unlock the Max. Unfortunately, those shortcuts are no longer available once you unlock the phablet, which we find to be quite disappointing.

You can select a default app for each fingerprint

To set a fingerprint you need to swipe three times on the sensor. That kinda reminded us of the first times we saw fingerprint sensors on phones - the Toshiba G900 had a similar learning setup.

Saving a fingerprint

Unlike the G900, the One Max sensor is pretty accurate, but because you need to do a swipe gesture, not just tap and hold, we find it slower than Apple's solution. There are some occasions when you are in a hurry and you are just not slow enough for the sensor to read your finger, which has the potential of getting in your way.

There is a quick setting for the Fingerprint reader in the Notification Quick Settings pane. It will take you straight to input a new fingerprint screen if you have a free fingerprint slot.

As usual, before you setup a fingerprint lock, you will be asked to enter a password for security reasons. In case you are unable to use the fingerprint scanner, you can unlock the device with that password.

Synthetic benchmarks and performance

HTC One Max runs on the Snapdragon 600 chipset - the same ticking inside the HTC One and inside at least one variant of the Samsung Galaxy S4. It has four Krait 300 cores clocked at 1.7GHz, Adreno 320 is in charge of graphics and there are 2GB or RAM.

As usual our first test is all about single-core performance. The Krait 300 score is on par with the S600-running Galaxy S4 devices.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  99
• LG G2
  99
• Sony Xperia Z1
  115
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  115
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  130
• HTC One Max
  131
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  132
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  132
• HTC Butterfly S
  135
• LG Optimus G Pro
  147
• HTC One
  151
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  166
• Sony Xperia Z
  264
• HTC Butterfly
  266
• Oppo Find 5
  267
• HTC One X+
  280
• LG Optimus G
  285
• HTC One mini
  293
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  305
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  330
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  350
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  359
• Nexus 4
  431

HTC One Max repeats the result from our previous test, performing equally to the S600 gang on the multi-threaded version of Linpack.

Linpack

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  1081
• LG G2
  1054
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  1034
• Sony Xperia Z1
  1004
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  818
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  791
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  788
• LG Optimus G Pro
  743
• HTC One Max
  723
• HTC Butterfly S
  669
• HTC One
  646
• Sony Xperia Z
  630
• HTC Butterfly
  624
• LG Optimus G
  608
• Oppo Find 5
  593
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  413
• HTC One mini
  320
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  214.3
• Nexus 4
  213.5
• HTC One X+
  177.7
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  175.5
• HTC One X
  160.9
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  141.5

GeekBench 3 is a popular CPU benchmark, where the One Max scores a hair below the original HTC One.

Geekbench 3

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  2937
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  2670
• Sony Xperia Z1
  2638
• Apple iPhone 5s
  2561
• LG G2
  2243
• HTC One
  1972
• HTC One Max
  1899
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  1869
• LG Optimus G
  1623
• Huawei Ascend P6
  1315
• LG Nexus 4
  1288
• HTC Butterfly
  1257
• Oppo R819
  1047
• HTC One mini
  887

Quadrant and AnTuTu 4 gauge the overall device performance instead of just the CPU and the One Max managed to produce the same results the HTC One did earlier this year.

Quadrant

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z1
  20388
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  20052
• LG G2
  19815
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  18177
• HTC Butterfly S
  13130
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  12446
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  12376
• LG Optimus G Pro
  12105
• HTC One Max
  11914
• HTC One
  11746
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  11346
• Sony Xperia Z
  8075
• HTC One X+
  7632
• LG Optimus G
  7439
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  7153
• Oppo Find 5
  7111
• HTC One mini
  6048
• HTC One X
  5952
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  5916
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  5450
• Nexus 4
  4567

AnTuTu 4

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  31109
• Sony Xperia Z1
  30850
• LG G2
  30243
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  29185
• Samsung Galaxy S4
  27613
• HTC One
  26389
• HTC One Max
  26348
• LG Nexus 4
  17006

We've put the Adreno 320 GPU through the GFX Benchmark. It did as we expected - decent, on par with the S600 Galaxies and One, but noticeably slower than the S800's Adreno 330.

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  68
• Sony Xperia Z1
  60
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  60
• Apple iPhone 5s
  56
• LG G2
  54
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  43
• HTC Butterfly S
  42
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  41
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  41
• HTC One Max
  41
• HTC One
  37
• Oppo Find 5
  32
• Google Nexus 4
  32
• Sony Xperia Z
  31
• Sony Xperia ZL
  31
• Sony Xperia SP
  31
• Apple iPhone 5
  30
• LG Optimus G Pro
  30
• LG Optimus G
  21
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3
  17
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  17
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  17
• HTC One mini
  15
• HTC One X
  11

GLBenchmark 2.7 T-Rex (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  26
• Sony Xperia Z1
  23
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  23
• Apple iPhone 5s
  23
• LG G2
  22
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  17.1
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  17.1
• Apple iPad 4
  16.8
• HTC Butterfly S
  16
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  16
• HTC One Max
  14
• Google Nexus 10
  13.9
• LG Optimus G
  13.9
• Sony Xperia Z
  13.5
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  13
• Sony Xperia ZL
  12.8
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  6.4
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3
  6.3
• HTC One mini
  5.6
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  4.9

The updated Epic Citadel benchmark has the new Ultra High Quality setting and we've re-tested every 1080p device we possibly could. The One Max scored just a whisker below the HTC One.

Epic Citadel

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z1
  54.9
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  54.9
• LG G2
  51
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  47.7
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  37.2
• HTC One
  35.6
• HTC One Max
  34.9
• HTC Butterfly
  29.6

The JavaScript performance of the HTC One Max is decent, though the SunSpider score is the lowest we've seen on a Snapdragon 600 device.

SunSpider

Lower is better

• Apple iPhone 5s
  403
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  587
• Apple iPhone 5
  694
• Apple iPhone 5c
  704
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  750
• Sony Xperia Z1
  845
• LG G2
  908
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  1046
• HTC One
  1174
• HTC One Max
  1295
• LG Optimus G
  1293
• HTC One mini
  1375
• LG Nexus 4
  1379
• HTC Butterfly
  1397
• Oppo R819
  1423
• Huawei Ascend P6
  3858

The combined BrowserMark 2 benchmark showed the HTC One Max is once again on par with the rest of the S600 gang.

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 5s
  3549
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  3041
• Apple iPhone 5
  2825
• Apple iPhone 5c
  2799
• LG G2
  2718
• LG Optimus G
  2555
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  2438
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  2419
• Sony Xperia Z1
  2398
• HTC Butterfly S
  2378
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  2338
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  2314
• HTC One
  2262
• HTC One Max
  2243
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  2170
• HTC One mini
  2164
• Sony Xperia ZL
  2107
• Sony Xperia Z
  2093
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1801
• Oppo Find 5
  1797
• Nexus 4
  1794
• Nokia Lumia 920
  1774
• Google Nexus 10
  1773
• HTC Butterfly
  1475
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1247

Finally, the HTC One did better on Vellamo than the original One and on par with the Butterfly S.

Vellamo

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  2944
• LG G2
  2908
• Sony Xperia Z1
  2904
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  2853
• HTC Butterfly S
  2592
• HTC One Max
  2523
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2418
• HTC One
  2382
• HTC One mini
  2252
• Sony Xperia Z
  2189
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  2078
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  2060
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  2056
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  2019
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  1936
• HTC Butterfly
  1866
• Oppo Find 5
  1658
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1641
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1568
• LG Optimus G
  1522
• Nexus 4
  1310

So, HTC One Max performs exactly as well as you would expect from a Snapdragon 600 device. This is no longer Qualcomm's top-of-the-line chipset, but it delivers excellent lag-free user experience that won't disappoint anyone. The latest top-notch games won't pose much challenge either.

Still, the Snapdragon 800 shows its superiority when it comes to web browsing speed and app loading times. It's not a choice between good and bad performance, more like between great and the best, but when you are shopping in this price range the best is often the only one good enough.