Lesson learned perhaps too late
I like HTC and the Sense overlay they used. It made Android look far better in the early days and added functionality like combining contacts from various places as well as the first very usable copy and paste solution. Unfortunately they blew it last year with a ridiculous amount of releases that put off a lot of buyers. They even put me off with that and I was considering waiting for the Galaxy S3 but their presentation at MWC and essentially saying "we get it now" with far fewer releases this year outside a core set were enough to tempt me to get the One X. Am I happy with it? Overall yes. It's a solid phone, very well built and good spec that should see it last a while.
Unfortunately for HTC I was already a fan of their phones and only just stayed with them. Any other buyers bitten by the stupid amount handsets they released last year will likely not give them another chance and that's a shame. Not because of what they originally brought but because they're trying to stay relevant alongside Samsung who can throw so much money at their products.
Feature for feature it matches the Galaxy S3 with a 0.1" screen difference. They're terrible at marketing. The only advert I remember for the One series is of a skydiver taking a photo during freefall and nothing else anywhere yet Samsung adverts are all over. They'll have to take some pretty huge and potentially expensive risks to keep going. Their big push with the One series was ImageSense and it's a pretty big failure in my opinion.
The camera takes images with huge artifacts and noise even at modest lighting levels that appear not much different from my Desire HD's camera. It was shown when some sample images were uploaded prior to release but put down to compression and I didn't believe it then. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and it cost me. You can't release a product with advertising aimed at one standout feature that fails to live up to the claims. It's better than previous HTC efforts but considering how poor those were it wasn't difficult. I don't think it should be judged on one feature but they will be held accountable (in sales) for a poor feature.