The HTC One V ($129.99) is a good midrange smartphone right now. It would've been a great phone last year. But as more 4G phones come to U.S. Cellular, it's going to feel old quickly. Don't get me wrong—it's still perfectly fine, with a lovely display and Android 4.0. But for just $70 more, you can get a lot more power, along with 4G LTE speeds, from a phone like the Samsung Galaxy S III ($199.99).

Design, Call Quality, and Network

The HTC One V  has an interesting look. It's made of a matte gray aluminum on the back and sides, along with a glass display. Pretty basic. Where it differs from other phones, however, is in the chin. Simply put, this phone has a massive, curved, Jay Leno chin. It sticks out about half an inch beneath the display, and serves as the gateway to your microSD card on the back of the phone. According to HTC, the chin is angled toward your face to improve call quality (more on that in a moment). Even so, as far as the design, this curve comes as a bit of a curveball, and may or may not be to your liking.

Though it sports a somewhat standard 800-by-480-pixel resolution, the smaller-than-typical 3.7-inch real estate of the super LCD 2 makes for a sharp 252-pixel-per-inch density. It looks sharp, and gets very bright. The 4.7-by-2.4-by-0.4 inch form factor is particularly comfortable to hold in one hand, and the phone is nice and light at just 4.1 ounces. There are three capacitive function keys right beneath the display, and typing feels fine on the phone's onscreen keyboard.

The One V is a dual-band EV-DO Rev. A (850/1900 MHz) device with 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi. Call quality is mostly good. Voices sound clear in the earpiece, though they are somewhat harsh at maximum volume. As for the improved call quality due to the phone's chin, calls made with the One V do sound quite good, with a full, natural quality. But background noise reduction is lacking, so that space was likely not put to use in the noise-cancellation department. Calls sounded fine through a Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset ($129, 4 stars) and voice dialing worked over Bluetooth. The speakerphone is also sounds fine, but isn't loud enough for outdoor use. Battery life was good at 6 hours and 47 minutes of talk time.

There's no 4G LTE support on the One V. While U.S. Cellular's LTE network is still in its infancy, and we haven't yet had a chance to test it, we expect it to offer much faster speeds than 3G. So if you want to make sure your phone is future-proof, you should look for something that supports LTE, like the Samsung Galaxy S III or the Samsung Galaxy S Aviator ($199.99, 4 stars).

Hardware, OS, and HTC Sense 4

The One V is powered by a single-core 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 MSM8655 processor. It makes for solid midrange performance, but it's a bit behind the times if you want to do any high-end gaming. You should be able to run most of the apps and games available in the Google Play store without a problem, but you may encounter sluggishness on more advanced titles.