The HTC One Max ($299 on Verizon, $249 on Sprint) is a 5.9-inch colossus among regular smartphones. Although difficult to operate with one hand (especially if you have small hands), the Max has solid build quality, a gorgeous screen and excellent battery life. However, its marquee feature -- the fingerprint scanner -- disappoints.
You can program the scanner on the back to unlock the phone and launch specific apps, but it's difficult to find with just touch. It's also not as reliable as the iPhone 5S' TouchID sensor.
The 5.9-inch screen of the Max has full HD (1,920 x 1,080) resolution, giving it a pixel density of 373 pixels per inch.
For the Max, HTC moved the One's power button from the top to the side. However, there's still an infrared port so you can use the phone as a remote control.
Here's the power button along with the volume controls.
The only thing on the left side is the toggle that will pop off the back cover.
The bottom of the phone has the microUSB power/data port as well as one of the microphones.
This might come off as sexist, but the HTC One Max is not a phone made with women in mind — other than, perhaps, members of the WNBA.
While the aptly named Samsung Galaxy Mega with its 6.3-inch screen is slightly taller and wider, the 5.9-inch Max is thicker and, at 7.65 ounces, possibly the heaviest smartphone on the market today.
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In other words, the HTC One Max is one large, ungainly smartphone, tough to stash anywhere except inside a men's suit breast pocket or a handbag. For the surest grip and carefree handling, the Max requires a larger maw than even I possess.
But like it's progenitor, the original HTC One, the Max — despite the disappointment that is its iPhone-copycat fingerprint scanner — is a solid smartphone with impressive build quality. As a reviewer, it's hard to shift from its generous display to a smartphone with a smaller screen, especially iPhone's suddenly inadequate 4-inch display.
It's also difficult to directly compare Samsung's Mega to HTC's Max, however, since only one national carrier — Sprint — carries both phablets. At $249.99, the Max is $50 pricier than Mega at Sprint. Verizon's version of Max is a hefty $299.99, while AT&T's Mega is free (with a contract).
Like the two smaller members of the HTC One family, the original and the adorable (if redundant) 4.3-inch HTC One Mini, the Max is built like a battleship, a seamless silver-and-white amalgamation of aluminum with a bit of plastic framing.
The Max measures 3.25 x 6.48 x 0.4 inches. It barely fits into the front breast pocket of a sports coat but unseemly peeks out the top by about an inch. Its size does make Max easier to grab from the jacket's roomy inside breast pocket or one of the outer pockets than a normal-size smartphone.
Like the other two Ones, Max includes front-facing HTC BoomSound amplified stereo speakers that provide the clearest and loudest smartphone sound I've heard for either video viewing or using as a speakerphone.

Image: Mashable, Stewart Wolpin

On the perimeter, HTC logically moved the One's on/off button from the top across from the headphone jack to a more convenient position on the right side beneath the volume toggle. In the place of the top on/off button, Max leaves the TV infrared transmitter that, combined with the HTC TV app, turns your phone into a living-room remote control. On the left side is a toggle that releases the back cover, under which is the SIM card, battery and the microSD card slot.
Instead of quad-core engines, both the Max and the Mega are packed with "just" dual-core brains, a Snapdragon 600 1.7GHz in the Mega and a Snapdragon 400 1.4GHz chip in the latter — a shrinkage likely made to recoup battery life sucked away by the phablets' giant displays. These processing differences are barely detectable only in highly intensive operations such as gameplay.
The power conservation works. The Max packs a copious smartphone battery with 3,300 milliamp-hours of energy; the Mega is close at 3,200 mAh. In normal everyday usage, I had no problem coaxing a full day's usage, dipping into the red zone only after dinner.
The Max's "Super LCD 3 HD" (1,920 x 1,080) screen, like its smaller siblings, offers wide viewing angles and adequate performance in daylight, with higher resolution than Mega's 1,280 x 720 Clear LCD screen. Although less than the original One's 440 pixels per inch, Max's 373 ppi outpaces even the more compact iPhone 5S Retina screen's 326 ppi. Like the processor parsing, it's practically impossible to discern these negligible pixel density differences unless you do intense side-by-side comparisons.
The size of the screen lends the Max the capability to be a credible productivity app companion, especially for spreadsheets and presentations. I stress "credible." For reviewing documents, the Max is fine, but you'll still want a tablet or laptop to do any serious work. Included on the Max for these office tasks is Polaris Office 5.
Beneath the screen, straddling the HTC logo, are the Home and Back touch controls. As with the other Ones, neither key is backlit, and their thin outlines render them nearly invisible. You end up tapping in their general vicinity and hope; I miss around half the time, necessitating second taps.
The Max also beats the Mega on built-in user storage, 32GB to 16GB, respectively.
HTC has carried over all the useful features that marked the HTC One as superior to its competitors, particularly the Samsung Galaxy S4. These features include Zoe, the 3-second video/still photo feature, the aforementioned (but limited) HTC Sense TV app (it's missing many essential cable box control keys such as "Guide"), and the handy home screen news feed called BlinkFeed.
Also carried over to the Max is the One's "Ultrapixel" camera, which is technically "only" 4MP but still shoots brighter low-light photos than most 8- or 13-megapixel imagers. All of these One features and functions are covered in Mashable's HTC One review.
Max includes a couple of exclusive features, neither fully baked: a fingerprint scanner and the "Lumen" onscreen toolbar.

Image: Mashable, Stewart Wolpin

Obviously trying to capitalize on the buzz generated by Apple's iPhone 5S fingerprint reader, HTC has prematurely placed its own fingerprint scanner on the rear of the Max. Apple delayed implementing the scanner for nearly a year to make sure it worked. It's too bad HTC didn't have the same "we sell no scanner before its time" patience.
You can program any one of your 10 fingers for scanning, up to three total. The setup process is as quick and easy as it is on the iPhone 5S, and you can assign a password just in case the scan fails (and you'll need it). You can then program the scanner to unlock the phone and to even quick-launch an assigned app.
Except, because the scanner is on the back and the Max is so large, it's hard to find the scanner without looking at it. And even if you placed and slid your finger past the sensor correctly, it works only around half the time. I often frustratingly had to slide my digit multiple times along the fingerprint scanner to get a positive response. Thankfully, you can disable it.
The Lumen Toolbar, a handy row of app icons that scrolls along the bottom of the screen, is a quick and easy way to access a dozen other apps of your choosing without first returning to the home page and hunting them down.
Sadly, the Toolbar appears only when you're in a Web browser instead of any app you choose. I'm also unsure why it's called a "Lumen" Toolbar – it's no brighter than anything else on the screen.
The HTC One Max is physically imposing, and it's hard to recommend it to someone who isn't confident in their ability to grip it firmly. Just like a Whopper, it takes two hands to handle and manipulate it. Without an adequate hand wingspan and a corresponding roomy pocket, you'll expend too much emotional energy worrying about dropping it.
Operationally, Max is speedy and its screen area makes everything you do easier to see and read. Fingerprint scanner notwithstanding, the HTC One Max is a joy to operate, if a pain to hold and carry.
What's Good
Large, bright screen
Solid build quality
Long battery life
What's Bad
Poorly thought-out fingerprint scanner
Difficult to grip with smaller hands
Bottom Line
The HTC One Max is too big for its britches and for most pockets, but for those with sizable paws it has a stellar screen with plenty of real estate for work or play apps, not to mention great battery life.