Destiny: A Successful Failure

I’m really enjoying my time in Destiny. Really enjoying it. Enjoying it so much that I spend a lot of my day trying to figure out how I’m going to watch that days new TV shows later, because I don’t have a DVR and want to play Destiny instead. I’m not alone, Destiny has sold $325M worth of game its first 5 days on the market. For a game that cost Bungie and Activision a reported $500M to produce and market, that’s not a bad start. However, the reviews have been fairly middling, with the game scoring a solid “C” rating of 77% from review aggregation site Metacritic. While 77% may not seem that bad (it was pretty close to what I normally received on tests in High School), it is a far cry from the “Game of the Year” potential that they hype-train had caused a lot of gamers to expect.

So what’s wrong? If I could distill it down to one word, it would be: laziness. For a game that has been in various forms of development since 2009 and brainstormed since 2002, it has no story. How is it possible, that a game that has been “cooking” for about 12 years has little to no story present in the final product? Sure, every time you reach a story beat in Destiny, the game produces a pop-up and tries to send you to the ever-loading bungie.net, so that you can read the grimoire and learn more about a particular race, weapon, planet, backstory, person, character, or location. But that’s laziness. Even Mass Effect, which was a game with a huge amount of backstory and lore, and had an in-game Codex that could be read for additional information. But without the Codex, you still knew everything that was happening through great storytelling and cut-scenes.

Destiny does neither of these particularly well. Cut-scenes appear disjointed, and there’s no story-telling to speak of throughout the actual game. Bungie tried to introduce an actual character in your Ghost, a floating side-kick. Unfortunately that side-kick does little to remind you about why you’re being sent to where you are, instead making quips about imminent doom. If Bungie had reiterated mission objectives and repercussions throughout the missions that it sent you on via the Ghost, the game would at least have had a little bit of soul to it. Instead, it feels like you’re being sent to the middle of nowhere to either kill a specific monster, or survive waves of other monsters, with very few exceptions to those two outcomes in a given mission. For a studio that wove together a massive and cohesive universe in Halo, this is horribly disappointing.

So why am I still playing it? Well, Destiny is fun to play. Really fun to play. Which makes the lack of story even more disappointing, because it feels like you are playing with no particular goal, or end in sight. Playing Destiny with my friends, or even farming loot by myself just feels fun. My only complaint with the game mechanics, is that there is a lot of different currency, and unlike other MMOs, there is no way to purchase items that are needed to better your characters gear. Outside of that, the game feels great. Firing weapons feels incredibly satisfying, and different depending on which one you choose. The game-world feels thought-out and the universe they created feels expansive, albeit a little repetitive since there are currently only 4 real locations to travel to.

Bungie is doing a good job of supporting Destiny so far. There are weekly mini-raids, daily strikes, and loads of PVP fun to be had. But it still feels like a shadow of what the game could have been. Having played both the Alpha and Beta, and now a week of the final game, the one thing that still stands out, is the lack of story and an in-game story telling system. For a game that counts on users coming back day in and day out, building a cohesive, relevant, and expanding narrative is paramount. Otherwise, once folks get tired of PVP, they’ll start to wander in the waiting arms of Call of Duty, or whatever game comes and takes its place. I sincerely hope that the Destiny expansions will add more game worlds, and start bringing in more characters. 

I realize that crafting a game story that’s centered around “many” heroes, instead of the typical “one” is difficult to write-around, but I’m hoping that they figure out a way to make every individual player feel important to the story, while moving the universe forward. If they can add story-hooks to keep me engaged outside of PVP and playing with friends, Destiny will hopefully be able to stand the test of time and become a gaming “platform”, instead of just a one-off game. I’m going to keep playing it on my PS4, and I hope you join me, but I sincerely hope that Bungie takes a long, hard look at the reviews and starts shifting the Destiny universe to be more narrative-driven. Elsewise, it’s a lot of beauty (and the game is beautiful), but not enough soul.

Pebble Steel - It's For Real

Way back when I did a bit of a review for the Pebble that I backed on Kickstarter. I've since had to part ways with that Kickstarter Edition version and got the mass-produced original Pebble as a replacement. I've enjoyed my time with it ever since and have loved getting notifications on my wrists. So after almost a year with the original Pebble, there's now a new one in town. The Pebble Steel.

The Steel was announced at CES this year and I immediately ordered a pair, one in Stainless Steel, and one in Matte Black. When I got them, I sent the stainless version to my dad and kept the black for myself. Here are some images and afterwards, my thoughts on the new, premium version of the Pebble.

The new packaging for the Pebble Steel screams premium. It comes in what looks like a jewelry box.

When you open up the box you're greeted with the Pebble and the instruction book on pairing it to your phone.

Opening the box unveils the additional strap, the charger, and the instruction booklet.

There are two bands that come with the Pebble Steel, leather, and steel. Both feel very premium, but are proprietary, so not any strap will work like on the original Pebble.

Old and new Pebbles side-by-side.  The Steel is sleeker, takes up less wrist space, and overall just looks like a much more quality device. I do somewhat miss the rounded edges though.

Fuzzy time on the Pebble Steel.

So there you have it, the new Pebble hotness. As for the new device itself. I am on Android so I do not have version 2.0 of the Pebble App, meaning my Pebble cannot use the tri-colored LED that is on it. That's OK, it's only there to remind me that I have notifications. As far as the notifications go, the new Pebble Steel works a lot like the old one, whenever I get an incoming text, call, or email the back-light turns on and the watch vibrates. One of the things I like about the Steel is that the vibration seems a bit less "harsh" than on the original Pebble. It feels a bit more subtle, and slightly less jarring, which is a welcome change.

Overall it's a great watch and continues in the fashion of the original Pebble. It's great for notifications and as an extension of your phone. A few other companies are working on their own smart-watches, Sony and Samsung have watches that are currently out, and HTC is currently working on their own designs. I've played with the Sony and Samsung watches and while they do work well, they end up doing a bit too much. I love the idea that my Pebble is an extension of my phone, it gives me useful information in real-time. I don't want to be able to make calls, or record video, or do anything else with my watch, that's what the phone is for. I like that Pebble doesn't try to do too much, and because of its reserved build, it allows for 5-7 days of battery life, and still remains open enough for developers to write interesting apps on to it.

In summation: if you're going to be buying a smart-watch, take a look at Pebble, and if you have an extra $100, do yourself a favor and buy the new Pebble Steel.

Oy, Veykenstein - I, Frankenstein Review

I, Frankenstein was better than it had any right to be. That said, it was still a long way from "good". Maybe it was Stuart Beattie, who was a second-time director and maybe unfamiliar with the intricacies of making a movie flow. Or maybe it was just that the movie was too short. Though, as the writer of the screenplay Beattie might also be to blame there.

Too short? Yes. If you take away the story, the action sequences in I, Frankenstein were actually fairly good. As were the special effects. Even most of the acting was fine. If the story had a bit more time to develop, I think the overall film would have come out better. As it stands, you are barely introduced to the characters before epic-scale fight sequences begin and the story starts to unravel.

That story is as follows: Frankenstein, played by Aaron Eckhart is drawn in to a fight between the Gargoyle order (headed by Miranda Otto's Leanore) and evil demons (headed by Bill Nighy, as Naberius). That's basically the end of the plot, other than a few other things that would essentially give the movie away. Suffice it to say that the Naberius really wants to catch and study Frankenstein. Meanwhile, Leanore and Frankenstein are both trying to avoid it.

There's good fight sequences, good effects, and Billy Nighy is amazing as always. He is the best part of the Underworld films, and brings his evil charm to this movie as well. Aaron Eckhart tries his damndest to care, but it's apparent that his heart just isn't in it. He does try to impersonate Christian Bale's Batman voice, but it doesn't come off too well.

This one gets a 2/5. Buoyed by the effects and Bill Nighy-ness of the movie. Had it been a bit longer, and you had a chance to care about the characters, it could have been a fine mediocre-film. Now, it's just a decent film to watch on a slow Netflix day.

Elysium - Ack...Poor People!

Neil Blomkamp is a good director. District 9 was a great movie made for practically $0 (in Hollywood standards), and did great at the box office. He was supposed to direct a Halo film, but that never took off, so he spent time directing and writing Elysium. Neil Blomkamp is not so great at writing.

Elysium suffers from a few plot holes that took me out of the movie a few too many times. Normally I can let it slide when something just doesn't make sense, but the holes here are so gaping it made it difficult for me to stay focused on the action, which really was quite good.

Elysium follows Max (Matt Damon), a rehabilitated ex-con who is now working as a low level button-pusher for Armadyne (I really love it when futuristic companies use "dyne" in them) a weapons/robotics/drone manufacturer. Bad stuff happens to Max and he has to get on to Elysium, an orbiting Halo-like object where 8,000 rich folks live away from the gross poor people, and where they have little medusa-like chambers that can heal any ailment, which is what Max now needs.

Armadyne is owned by John Carlyle (William Fichtner, who I continue to love). He hatches a plan with Delacourt (Jodie Foster), the Secretary of Defense to topple the Elysium government in exchange for Delacourt taking control of the government and Carlyle getting all the tasty government contracts that every weapons manufacturer desperately wants. Through some weird brain stuff that isn't really well explained, the plans get in to Max's head and now he has to get to Elysium to save himself, and his childhood sweetheart's kid, who has cancer.

Elysium is where the majority of my continuity issues take place. The world below is portrayed as a huge shit-hole, where everyone speaks Spanish, there are no jobs, and everyone is sick and dying, or on probation. Elysium is a high society place where they only listen to classical music and whenever an undesirable (read: poor person) appears, they freak out and run in to their fancy houses. These fancy houses are where they have their healing pods, which is what the poor folks want as well, because as stated earlier, most folks on earth are sick or diseased.

No one on Elysium has a home defense drone or robot. So when the poor folks break through their glass windows, they just waltz right in and with the help of some poorly explained DNA-scrambler get treatment. Home defense drones are the future. Get a home defense drone. It will prevent poor folks from getting in to your house and using your machines to fix their ailments. Poor people should all die. Duh, they are poor. That's the general consensus on Elysium.

There's also a main character, Spider (Wagner Moura), who I couldn't understand really well, but he was essentially a slum lord down on earth that makes money by smuggling people to Elysium. He helps Max get up there. Personally, if I was writing this thing out, I would have made Spider a former Elysium citizen, outcast due to his gambling habits or other generally frowned-upon activities, who helps the regular poor folks get back up to Elysium to help them and also get back at those no-good rich folks. That would have made for a much more dynamic and interesting character. Unfortunately, Spider isn't. But he's really good at yelling and acting dismayed.

That's really a writing issue though, which is where I had the most problems with the movie. Blomkamp does a decent job of introducing a futuristic world (though I take issue with pick-up trucks and Nissan GT-R's still being serviceable in the year 2154), but he doesn't do enough to flesh it out. Elysium is 109 minutes long. If it had an extra half hour, or even 15 minutes dedicated to explaining how Elysium was built (there were some physics things I took issue with that could have been explained in a few sentences), and giving a bit more depth to the various characters, the film would have been much, much better. As it is is though, Elysium is a decent action movie with good effects, but little else.

3/5 from me for good action, effects, and directing. I can't give it a better score though because the writing did detract from the greatness this movie could have had. I hope there's a director's cut in the future with an hour more of back story, but I doubt that will materialize, which is a damn shame. It's a neat premise.

Dollar Shave Club - The Truth Comes Out

And the truth is, I'm not really good at shaving.

Last week, after seeing the Dollar Shave Club pop up in my Twitter feed about half a dozen times, I decided to give it a try. This was a bit odd for me. Why was this odd? Well, because I don't really shave often. In fact, I try not to shave at all. Sure I trim and keep things neat, but I think my face looks silly without any facial hair on it (see pictures below for examples). While not having the need or desire to shave often, I decided to join the club to see what all the fuss was about, plus, I figured I'd go clean shaven for the month of June, since it's hot and stuff.

I should say that after I posted that I had joined  the club, I got a lot of folks writing me back and asking me to write about my experience, so here you are!

Everyone loves being a part of a club!

The club has a few different levels of membership. The base level is literally one dollar, as advertised. You do have to pay shipping and handling, but you get 5 2-blade cartridges sent to you every month, plus the shaver itself which you swap out the cartridges on. The second tier is a 4-blade razor, which you get 4 of per month. That level is $6/month but shipping is included and you get a better shaver which pivots real smooth. Tier 3, the final "fron-tier", is $9/month but you get 4 6-blade cartridges and a more fancy pants shaver. Signing up was relatively painless, you select the tier, input your preferred payment method and shipping address, and you're off to shave town!

I went with option number 2, because I'm neither fancy pants enough to get the 6-blade razor cartridges, nor do I trust myself enough while shaving to use two blade, so I decided the mid-tier was perfect for me. I also opted for Dr. Carver's Shave Butter. Mainly because I had no shaving cream and I enjoyed the idea of a butter for my face (I'm a big Paula Dean fan).

My first package! Yummy shave butter.

I got my package about 3 days after joining the club (not including the weekend), which seemed pretty darn speedy. The box was adorable and had some little membership cards and funny placards inside of it, which I really appreciate. A sense of humor is essential when starting an online business, at least one that specializes in funny ads and sending shaving gear to the masses, and these guys have a lot of it. My favorite little quip was on the back of the cartridges, "Patent law is dull, your razor shouldn't be". Nice.

The original Dollar Shave Club commercial.

So how was the actual shave? Well, like I said earlier, I'm not that great at it. It started out fine, but ended in a bloody mess. I half expected this, but I had forgotten just how much the face actually bleeds when you slice it with a sharp (very sharp) razor. For seasoned shavers this will be no problem. They'll get a close shave with minimal blood loss, and they'll love the product and feel of the blade and shaft. I found myself enjoying it as well, liking just how smooth my face felt after each stroke, though I was trying to work around the Quentin Tarantino-esque river of horror running down my face.

So here's the pictures (I didn't post the graphic ones, you're welcome):

The handle/shaft/whatever-you-all-it and razors.

Patent law IS dull.

Before - pretty beard face.

After (so smooth) - Also, holy crap, look at that honker.
(Wait a minute Yev, you lost the shirt...oooh la la!
Yes, too much blood!)

Slightly After-after.

Next Day...notice the cuts.

Is the Dollar Shave Club just for men? No, absolutely not. The razors are so good that they'll work for women, or on any part of the body. Something that the Dollar Shave Club mentions and tries to remind folks of. They even go so far as to say that it's the last time you'll need to buy any razors, and for $6 or $9/month you could share and never run out again.

They do have a new "just for men" product though. Buttwipes. They were announced this morning and I'm keen to add them to my next order.

Buttwipes!

I'm not good at shaving. This might be for a variety of reasons. My childhood left me with a series of scars on my face, and usually they aren't noticeable, since I'm wrapped in beardy stubble. When shaving it turns out that you have to be really careful around scars. This is a fact I shall now take with my on my next shaving adventure later on this week as I continue down my clean shaven June.

Stay tuned for my review of the Dollar Shave Club Buttwipes and comment/share/like if you enjoyed the read!

Hemlock Grove - Oh Bother.

I like this type of subject matter. Creepy things happening in a small town. Supernatural creatures mingling with ordinary people who have no idea about supernatural elements. Weird scientific experiments. All these things make me happy, and made me really curious about Netflix's new original series, Hemlock Grove.

(NSFW - Red Band Hemlock Grove Trailer)

Unfortunately, Hemlock Grove doesn't deliver, and for some really weird and seemingly "no-brainer" reasons. Specifically, the writing, directing, and acting. "Wait a minute," you're thinking, "that's pretty much everything that makes up a movie or TV show!". You're right, which makes it so hard to watch.

Lets start with the acting. You think with folks like Famke Janssen, Dougray Scott, and well those are about the only folks I knew from the show, the acting would at least be decent. This might be a directing or editing fluke, but all of the dialogue seems rushed.  The worst offender is Bill Skarsgard. This is Alexander Skarsgard's brother. Alexander is best known as Erik Northman in True Blood. I know they are both from Sweden, and English is not their first language, but Bill is truly painful to watch in the show. Ever seen he had I found myself cringing, wishing for it to be over. The rest of the actors, probably more seasoned seem to be phoning it in. Famke Janssen's main goal in each scene is to look seductive. That's it. For someone who's been around for a while, you'd expect her to do a bit of acting. Nope. The best acting comes from folks that are (spoilers) about to die. And even that doesn't happen horribly often.

The directing choices are equally odd. The cuts to scenic views of the town feel like they are just there to stretch the clock out. Flashing back to previous conversation to help the viewer remember all of the horrid dialogue from before is also an often used tactic. All that does is make me feel stupid. If you need to keep reminding me of what happened earlier in the show, fix your writing.

Speaking of writing, it's very lazy. Characters are written just to exist. One of the sub-plots is Famke Janssen's character Olivia having a drug problem. The drug is one that you use a eyedropper for and administer it in to your eyes. Why is this important? It isn't. And it's never explained throughout the show. You just see her taking it, and then getting a euphoric look on her face. That's it. It's a shame too, because it's almost like there are way too many writers, writing too many parts and plots, and it doesn't come together at all. Some writing shows signs of brilliance, but it's surrounded by disjointed, clumsy plot points. I think the show is a casualty of "writing by committee", which sounds great, because you get a lot of input, but without anyone really overseeing how everything ties together, it makes the show fairly hard to follow.

What is the plot? Well in the town of Hemlock Grove, a pair of gypsies move in. They are immediately despised by everyone, including the Godfrey's, who are the town's rich folks and own a scientific lab (Godfrey Institute) on the outskirts of town. There's a murder most foul, and a rumor spreads that it was done by one of the gypsies, Peter Rumancek, and that he was a werewolf. He befriends one of the Godrey's, Roman, and they make a weird pact based on a dream both of them had to find the werewolf and kill him. Shelley, Roman's sister, is a "Frankenstein's Monster" type character, who can't talk, but has a weird relationship with her uncle, Gordon, who is sleeping with her mother, Olivia. None of this really matters though and serves as plot filler. The town and murders are investigated by some weird church organization who want to stop the killings and destroy werewolves, and the Godfrey Institute is doing weird experiments on people, about something called Ouroboros. Does that play in to the core story? You guessed it! Nope. Are they setting themselves up for season 2? Yup. Is that a good writing choice? Nope.

The season revolves around Peter and Roman teaming up to find and capture the killer werewolf. That's the plot in a nutshell. I wish it was that simple in the show. It would have been a lot more entertaining. Instead it's a convoluted mess. Sad day for me.

If I were to give it a rating I'd say 2/5? It shows flashes of brilliance, but the acting, writing, and directing choices make it a chore to watch. If there's a season 2 I'll give it a chance to see if they've learned anything, but if the producers remain the same, I fear the show is doomed to fail.

Iron Man 3 - Now With More Tony!

The third installment in the Iron Man series contains a whole hell of a lot of Iron Men. However, you get to see way more of Tony Stark in this one, and that's a good thing. The Robert Downey Jr. factor is what made the original Iron Man such a hit, and in my opinion, he added the much needed levity to The Avengers. Having a lot more Robert in the movie is great, though, I've heard some people complaining. Those people are entitled to their own wrong opinions!

Iron Man 3 - Poster

Anyway, I saw Iron Man 3 twice in theaters, in 3D and in regular D. With this particular movie the 3D didn't add anything, just gave a bit more depth, so if you're worried about the shekels in your pocket, go ahead and skip the 3D costlier version, you'll still get lots of awesome explosions.

The plot here is pretty standard for an Iron Man flick, someone is really pissed at Tony Stark. In this case it's The Mandarin, played interestingly by Ben Kingsley. When I first saw the trailer for Iron Man 3 and heard him say, "You'll never see me coming...", I thought the delivery of that line meant that this villain would be like Heath Ledger's Joker, however Ben Kinglsey comes off a bit more like Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow, which is great. So, The Mandarin doesn't like Tony Stark and goes after him. That's pretty much the plot in a nutshell, but a few fun twists make the story play out really well. One of the twists is that following the events of The Avengers, Tony is suffering from a bit of PTSD. This makes the snarky Tony feel a bit more human, which is a welcome change from the ever wise-cracking Tony that we're used to.

Fret not, there are still plenty of wisecracks. Don Cheadle plays Colonel Rhodes, the guy in War Machine suite, except this time around War Machine has been re-branded by the United States government to give him a more "fluffy" name, Iron Patriot. Gags like that are plentiful, and Jon Favreau along with Gwenyth Paltrow provide some fun side-commentary as well.

One of the biggest surprises of this film was the writing. A lot of the little sub-plots and scenes get little throw-away lines of dialog to explain them, and I didn't even notice them until my second viewing. It's the little things that matter in big-budget movies like this, and writing one line of dialog that helps guide folks from one scene to another is something that I greatly appreciate.

4.5/5 from me. If you like the first two Iron Man movies, you'll like this one. I enjoyed it a bit more than two, but a bit less than The Avengers (which I think is one of the most well put together super hero flicks ever concocted). Go see it with some popcorn and a soda, and stay until after the credits, there's a fun little Easter egg.

A Day With The One - First Impressions of the HTC One

The One is one of my favorite Jet Li movies, but it’s also a neat phone by HTC. I've been excited about this phone for a while now, and it is turning out to be a great upgrade to my HTC EVO 4G LTE (quite possibly the worst phone name ever, which is Sprint's fault). Full disclosure, HTC did send me this phone to play around with. With that out of the way, how about some first impressions?

I think "quite brilliant would be better"

Right out of the box, the phone is damn pretty. The build quality is outrageous. The phone feels amazing in your hand. The rear of the phone is slightly curved and just feels “nice” in your hands. It is entirely made of aluminum and it just oozes sexy. It reminds some folks of the iPhone and I wager that the build quality is on par with it.

The screen is gorgeous. The HTC One is using a Super LCD 3 screen and does full 1920x1080. The pixel count is high. How high? Well it’s 468ppi. What does that mean? It means that the screen is very sharp. The iPhone 5 is 326ppi while the Samsung Galazy X 4 is 441ppi. Why is pixel density important? It makes things lovelier to look at (more difficult to detect pixels). Do average folks care? Not really, but it makes the display strikingly crisp.

The phone is snappy. The One ships with a Snapdragon 600 processor and it’s a big improvement over the CPU in my HTC EVO LTE. The UI flows more smoothly and the apps seem quicker and more responsive. I’m sure it’s great for games too, but I don’t play many mobile games, so...meh.

In addition to the fast CPU and snappy UI, Boomsound is also present. What’s that? Boomsound is two front-facing speakers with built in apps. What does that mean? It means that if you aren’t careful, you’ll wake up to the loudest alarm clock you've ever owned, as I did the morning after getting this device. It also means that speaker calls and videos can get loud, and with pretty good quality. There’s some distortion at the highest volume depending on the song style, but it’s still head and shoulders better than anything I've ever experienced from a smartphone.

One of the more interesting things that I noticed that was rarely discussed in the reviews I read and the press release was the IR blaster that the phone has in it. What that means is that the phone can control your TV, and it did! Last night I spent the entire evening without lifting my remote control, and it was glorious. The app interacts with most television manufacturers (I have an LG and a Vizio, it worked with both), and once you hook up the provider that you have, it gives you a little breakdown of what’s on television and allows you to favorite shows and set reminders. But wait Yev, I don’t have cable! No problem, neither do I. The channels I set up with the app were OTA (over the air, found via antennas). It still worked like a champ, though took a smidge more configuration as I had to go through many more channels and select the ones that actually appear on my television. The TV app/feature is under-appreciated and I wanted to make sure I gave it a large shout-out.

HTC TV - an unsung hero of the HTC One

Blinkfeed is one of the differentiations that HTC hopes sets the phone apart from its counterparts. Blinkfeed pulls the data from your social networks (Facebook, Twitter) and shows them on one of your “home screen panels”.  Unfortunately, while I believe in Blinkfeed in theory, in practice I found it kind of annoying. I’m a power-user when it comes to social apps and having a central repository for select social updates just doesn't do it for me. I’m always inside the Facebook and Twitter apps anyway, so it didn't really provide any value for me, and not being able to remove it from the panels is aggravating, as that is prime phone real estate. That said, I think a lot of “average” users will enjoy being able to get a random assortment of their social posts in that feed.

Blinkfeed -  posts from all your social channels

The camera is another big differentiation between the One and other phones.  While most companies are upping the megapixels (Samsung Galaxy S 4 has 13MP, the Nokia Pureview 808 has 41MP), HTC is taking a step back and trying to remind folks that it’s not all about the pixel count, it’s about the pixel size as well. The One has a 4MP camera, but the megapixels are 3x as big as “traditional” megapixels. HTC is betting that the images this camera takes will be just as good if not better as the larger megapixel camera phones (especially in low light settings). The problem is, if you use the camera phone as your primary photography device, sometimes having a bit more definition is a good thing, but the One takes great pictures if your intent is to post them to Facebook or Instagram and when you blow up the pictures on a large screen they still hold up pretty well, until you zoom way in.

The other neat thing about the camera is that it can take little things called Zoe’s . What’s that? A Zoe is a collection of photographs that are taken one after the other to create a 3-4 second video that you can pull images out of. The idea is that any frame of the video can be pulled out and used as an image. It also takes about 1 second worth of pictures from before you pressed the button, so if you’re in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, you will still capture a smidge of what happened. Think of the children, doing adorable things, don’t want to miss that do you? Zoe’s can help. Why Zoe? It stands for zoetropic.

It can’t be all good can it? Well, no. The thing is that despite this phone having incredible hardware, great software, and a good camera, some of the missing items really bug me. For example (and this is nit-picky), I got really used to having my phone stay “on” and awake while it was connected to a charger. This functionality appears to be missing on the HTC One. Not being able to remove Blinkfeed is also a bit of an annoyance as I mentioned earlier. There is one other thing that caught me a bit off guard. I cannot re-size widgets, which has been in Android for a while now and was part of the functionality of my HTC EVO LTE, but is inexplicably missing from this device. Additionally pre-installed applications are also a big pain in the neck. A lot of While none of these are deal-breakers, I am hoping that they get fixed in a later update to the phone, which would hopefully bring back some of that functionality.

Overall this phone is awesome, but take that with a grain of salt. I’ve been in love with HTC design and hardware forever now (my first smart phone was the HTC Hero).  If you are up on your contract and are ready for a new device, go for this one. It’s one of the most beautiful phones that I’ve seen, and it flies.  I haven’t rated any tech gadgets on here, but if I start doing that in the future, this one will get a 4.5/5 from me. The only real downside is that the phone does get a bit hot (but it’s aluminum, which is a conductor) when used heavily (streaming video) for long periods of time, and of course the ever-present disappointment of cell phone batteries. Outside of those two things, this phone is amazing, and it makes me happy to put it in my pocket. Now I just need to wait for the version with a kickstand.

Pictures? Below!

For me?

What's in the bag?!

This! And it's lovely!

That phone is pretty.

The HTC One, unpacked, and the case that came with it.

Fits like a glove.

It's Alive!

I'm going to continue enjoying this phone, I recommend you pre-order it ;-)

***UPDATE***

As promised here's some pictures taken with the camera on the HTC One

Lynmar Estates Winery

This is not the greatest wine in the world. No. This is just a Tribute.

Wish ribbons at Cornerstone Winery

Dinner at the Girl and the Fig in Sonoma 

Golden Gate Bridge - Panorama

As you can see the camera takes fine photos. It's not great, and the 4MP becomes a very clear limitation when you try to open the photos on a large monitor and really get down in to them. I think what HTC is trying to say is, this is not a DSLR, you won't be taking this on photography expeditions, but it can replace your point and shoot if your intent is to just post to Facebook or Instagram. It does that very well. Is it on par with the HTC Evo 4G LTE (which used HTC's previous high-end camera tech and an 8MP camera? I think so. And the Zoe's are fun! Is it groundbreaking or earth shattering? Probably not, but if they can fit the same sensor tech in to the next camera, which will hopefully have a few more megapixels, that will be a good thing and will result in more vibrant pictures that stand up and work in larger sizes. However, as a point and shoot replacement, it works well (less things in pockets is a good thing).