Hands on with the TELUS HTC One in black

Here it is, folks, the most attractive smartphone in Canada.

The black HTC One is available exclusively at TELUS for the same $149 price (on a 3-year term) as its white-silver counterpart.

The colour isn’t exactly black — more like a matte graphite flavour — but it’s most certainly gorgeous. Only problem is that its darker aluminum surface appears to show finger oils more readily than its silver counterpart, but otherwise this is the same phone you know and love.

Other than the one TELUS addition, App House, this is a pretty clean-looking software experience. You’re running Android 4.1.2 with Sense 5.0, which gives you BlinkFeed and that awesome UltraPixel camera software.

We’ve been running the official international Android 4.2.2 software on our silver HTC One for some weeks now, so it’s a bit disappointing to have to work with Android 4.1 and its limitations. The main improvements HTC implemented in the newer version are more aesthetic than anything — a translucent status bar; the ability to remove the virtual menu button; a quick settings toggle in the notification shade — but there are also optimizations to the camera, BlinkFeed and the launcher.

Hopefully it won’t take TELUS (and the other carriers) much longer to update the device to the latest version.

The HTC One is still one of the best Android devices on the market, and the black variant is so attractive, and feels so nice to hold, that it was worth the long wait.

Check out our full review of the HTC One.

Pure Mobile has some great cases on sale now for the HTC One. Check them out here.