Summary: The HTC One X is the best smartphone money can buy, period. It’s fast, gorgeous and has a stunning ImageSense camera.

In sharp contrast to HTC’s earlier strategy of releasing dozens of fragmented devices, the new One series unifies the experience across the board, bringing with it some serious design chops. The polycarbonate unibody of the One X is light, scratch-resistant and curved to fit into your hand, and at 8.9 mm, it’s thinner than almost every other phone currently available. The design is also clean, and there are no seams anywhere on the phone. On the back, there’s a little bump that houses the camera; this could be a problem in the long-term since the lens is exposed to scratches. One major feature of this phone is its size- with a huge 4.7 inch screen, we think it’s the perfect size. However, those of you with smaller hands or pockets might find this to be an issue, although it’s nowhere near as monstrous as the Galaxy Note. The phone also houses a quad-core Tegra 3 processor that blows away the competition in terms of raw power, but slurps rather than sips battery power (more on that later). The display is a stunning 720p Gorilla Glass screen- there’s really nothing that even comes close. Viewing angles are great, and brightness and colour reproduction are fantastic, as is pixel density.

The camera on the One X is a brand new 8 megapixel set-up that surpasses even the current king-of-the-hill, the iPhone 4S. Image quality is nearly identical, but low-light performance is mind-blowing thanks to the f/2.0 optics. It also captures 1080p video that looks great (see samples). HTC’s camera app has also undergone a makeover- it now comes with a set of Instagram-like filters, simultaneous stills and video recording and a burst-shot mode that can come in handy. The front camera is a capable 1.3 megapixel shooter that’s great for video calls.

The One X runs Android’s latest version, 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). It’s a powerful, customizable OS that’s miles ahead of earlier Android versions. However, HTC’s Sense overlay can be annoying and clunky; they really shouldn’t have messed with a good thing. That said, it’s very easy to remove parts of the Sense look by installing a third-party launcher from the Play Store (we used Apex Launcher, which is great). Contact management is great, and there are no stability issues.

This thing is a beast. With a quad-core processor and NVIDIA’s graphics, the phone flies. We haven’t noticed a single hiccup or stutter when playing with the phone, even when we hammered it with games, video and extensive multitasking. Simply put, there’s nothing that comes close in terms of performance, and it’s bound to be future-proof in terms of performance for quite some time to come. The benchmarks tell us that we’re right- this phone destroys the competition.

Battery life, however, isn’t so great. The 1800mah battery does a decent job when idle, but constant use brings it to its knees. With light use, you’ll easily get through a day and a half, but with moderate to heavy use, you’ll be searching for a plug point well before your day is through. Expect around 12 hours of moderate use, and no more. Another unfortunate side-effect of the processor is that it takes quite a while to charge fully; in our tests, it took almost three hours to charge from 0-100%.

The only real competitor at this point is Samsung’s Galaxy S3. While it’s just as fast and has some useful software enhancements, the plain-jane design and poor quality materials leave us feeling short-changed. Overall, we’d pick the One X any day. Read our Galaxy S3 review for more detailed impressions.

The HTC One X is a revelation. It’s beautiful, fast, cutting-edge and has a camera that rivals some point-and-shoots, apart from an insanely high resolution display that’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before. However, it’s a power-hungry beast that only has middling battery life. Unless battery life is your biggest concern, go for the One X. You’ll be smitten, just like us.