The HTC One XE, the first phone with integrated Beats Audio, promises to deliver “studio-quality audio.” The One XE Android smartphone is the first fruit of HTC’s partnership with Dr. Dre’s Beats Audio, and should arrive later this month in Europe and Asia. Unfortunately, there’s no word on pricing or availability for U.S. audiophiles.

The HTC One XE is very similar to its predecessor, the One. It has a 4.3-inch display, runs Android 2.3 with HTC Sense UI 3.0, has an 8-megapixel camera on the back with 1080p HD video recording and dual flash, as well as a front-facing camera for video calls.

The XE runs on a faster processor though, a dual-core 1.5Ghz (there’s a 1.2GHz dual core on the One) and it has 768MB of RAM, as well as a slightly larger battery.

Audio Technology Features
Besides the faster processor, what makes the One XE special is the audio technology built in. When used with the bundled Beats in-ear headphones (with nice red accents, also present on the aluminum body of the handset), the One XE automatically switches to a personalized sound profile that is meant to significantly improve audio quality, regardless of which music service you use.

Once you plug in the Beats headphones in the One XE, you will be prompted to enable or disable the audio enhancements. If enabled, a Beats icon will reside in the notification bar of the smartphone for quick access. It’s unclear whether the Beats audio enhancements will work with third-party headsets.

Dr. DreTo round-up the experience, HTC is also bundling a microSD card (8GB or 16GB, depending on the region the phone is purchased in) for music storage, while the Beats by Dr. Dre in-ear headphones will serve as a remote control via the play/pause/skip music controls and as a hands-free headset during phone calls.

Beats Electronics is a U.S. headphones company rap artist Dr. Dre helped found. HTC invested $300 million in the company last month in exchange for an advantage over other Android handset makers trying to differentiate themselves on the increasingly crowded smartphone market. Beats also has a partnership with HP to build in the technology into the Envy line of laptops, such as the Envy 14.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/240099/htc_One S_xe_first_smartphone_with_dr_dres_beats_audio.html

All hype. Same processor, just rated differently. My student is the dept head of the Snapdragon team at Qualcomm here in San Diego. They make the CPU. They rate some at 1.2 and others at 1.5, but they're the same chip set. Absolutely no difference he tells me.

As for the Beats Audio software... well, have you heard it? I have. No change from the standard Android player IMO. Still very flat, no EQ enhancement, no bass boost. And all headphones can do is carry the source signal and reproduce it to your ear. Some do a cleaner job of it, but headphones (by definition) cannot change the source integrity.

if you really wish to *change* that flat Android audio signal, buy MixZing Premium (in Market) for a couple bucks. Has a 12 band slider EQ with Gain, memory settings, playlists, etc. This will knock your socks off!