Hands-On: HTC Desire 601 and Accessories
HTC is releasing a few interesting accessories this year for its smartphones. Here's a rundown of what they do.
BoomBass
The BoomBass is a Bluetooth speaker, but not in the sense you might think. Instead of replacing the One's dual stereo speakers entirely, the BoomBass is meant to complement them. It filters out all the low frequencies from the sound and passes them to the BoomBass, leaving the higher frequencies to pass through the One. According to HTC, the BoomBass covers all the frequencies below about 300Hz.
The BoomBass has a little shelf upon which the One can rest. Used like this, listeners will get the stereo BoomSound speakers and the BoomBass working together to provider richer, fuller sound. The BoomBass makes quite a difference and was able to really fill the small conference room I was in with plenty of sound and a surprising amount of bass. The BoomBass uses Bluetooth and NFC, and has several hours worth of battery life. It's a neat little accessory that might make listening to music when on the go a better experience.
Fetch
The Fetch is just what it sounds like: something to help you fetch your phone. The Fetch is a key fob similar to one you might use for your car. It has a key ring and everything. If you've lost your phone, press the button on the Fetch, and it will ring the phone so you can find it. The reverse is also true. If you've lost your keys (and the Fetch is attached to them), you can use an HTC handset to get the Fetch to beep so the keys can be found. The Fetch has one other cool function: it can act as a remote shutter release button for he smartphone's camera. This means you can put the camera somewhere and then fire it off from up to 45 feet away via the Fetch. There's an entire array of controls built into Sense that are used to manage the Fetch.
Mini+
Last, there's the Mini+. It is a miniature handset that HTC thinks some people might prefer to use for phone calls. It connects to the One, One Mini, etc., via Bluetooth and offers a whole range of features beyond just making phone calls.
The Mini+ is exceptionally small and light. It will fit anywhere on your person and is easier to carry about than a smartphone. It has a full numeric keypad, plus a D-pad and several other little control functions. The build quality of the Mini+ is excellent and it has a nice, premium feel to it. The buttons worked well and offered excellent travel and feedback. The buttons themselves have a rubberized coating that gives them some grip.
The Mini+ has a small 128 x 128 pixel black-and-white display that helps it interact with any Sense 5.0 smartphone. The Mini+ lets you see your call history, read and reply to text messages (via pre-recorded responses), control the smartphone's media player, control PowerPoint presentations, and even remotely fire the camera.
Here is a look at some of the alternate colors of the HTC One. The red version is being sold by Sprint, while the blue version is being sold by Verizon. They both look excellent in person.
And here are some shots of the Desire 500 This is a mid-range device that likely won't reach the U.S.:
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HTC One mini
