HTC One (M8) Review

With the release of the new flagship One device, from HTC labeled the HTC One (M8), as always, there are very high expectations, especially since this will be their major attraction for the season. However, with the burden of the original HTC One not turning a good hype to high sales, the One (M8) will have a lot to prove this time around.

The HTC One (M8) seems an improved smartphone as compared to its highly regarded earlier version. With a design that was instantly recognizable and unique to the original One, the predecessor to this set, was widely considered as a beautifully designed phone, and the One (M8) has perfected the design along with a number of additional modifications in other areas.

The HTC One (M8) even brings in the best and most powerful hardware in the market, and has increased the screen size, while taking in the capacitive keys inside the screen to keep the overall size in check. Additionally, on the software side, HTC brings in the Android KitKat, the latest OS from Android, along with a new version of the Sense UI for improved usability.

HTC has looked to cover up on most of the weaknesses of the original One, with the chipset upgrade on the top of everyone’s list HTC has also thrown in the capability of memory expansion, and the improvement in efficiency is an added benefit.

Of course, one of the main weaknesses with the One was the camera, and the same question will hang over the One (M8) too. The HTC One (M8) has again been furnished with the same 4 MP snapper with the same pixel count – HTC has taught more tricks to its camera though still one would wonder, all the issues with the first such snapper, why would HTC stick to it, especially when the competition is going to cameras that are 5 to 10 times the resolution. Lets see how the snapper, and the overall smartphone pans out.

While unboxing the HTC One (M8), you will get everything inside the retail box that you need to get started with this phone.

• HTC One handset
• An A/C adapter (will use the USB cable for charging)
• MicroUSB cable connector for A/C adapter for charging
• SIM and microSD ejector tool
• Stereo earphones

HTC One (M8) has a 5" display of Full HD resolution standing at 1080x1920 pixels, and 441 ppi – a decent increase to the display size, which takes in the buttons inside the display. The original One had a quality display, and over the years, we have seen quite handsome displays from HTC, so it was no surprise that the smartphone has come with one of the best 1080p displays that we have seen, with excellent viewing angles width, and great sunlight legibility. The contrast levels are very good, though we thought it was a bit short on AMOLED. The display is covered, understandably for recent devices in this price bracket, with Gorilla Glass 3.

HTC has taken up the classy and stunning design of the original One and taken it to an even higher level, thanks to the increase in the metallic ratio, and beautiful curved metal edges, which are a massive improvement over the frame of polycarbonate used for the original One. The device is splendid, and the finish puts it easily in league with the some of the other dedicated premium brands.

The display has been increased very slightly (0.3 inches to be exact), and the buttons at the bottom have been taken inside the screen to provide for a larger display. Also the bulk could come into question, with the size standing at 9.3 mm, while competition is trying to move into the other direction by shedding weight.

The front camera is at the top of the screen, to the right of the speaker grille, with the standard sensors for proximity and ambient light. The speaker grille on the top of the screen works as an earpiece for calls, as well as accommodating the LED for the status. At the bottom of the screen is the HTC logo followed by the speaker grille, inside which the mouthpiece is present, to make use of the available space in a classy way. On the left side is only one slot present, for the nano-SIM card, while on the right side the volume rocker and the microSD card is present.

The top of the device has the IR port accompanying the power / lock key, while the bottom has the 3.5mm audio jack and the charging / data port. The back of the set contains the main snapper at the top, and the much discussed dual camera in the generic camera location accompanied by the dual LED flash. The lines that are made to look like they cut through the metal are also serving the purpose of antennas for the smartphone.

Hands on, the HTC One (M8) is a wonderful piece of work. The back curves, the roundness of metallic edges and the well placed navigation buttons provide a wonderful feel. The excellent planning and gorgeous presence of the original One is still present, and actually enhanced by the modifications, and the color.

HTC One (M8) comes with the latest offering from Android, the KitKat 4.4.2 accompanied with the latest Sense UI 6. The lock screen looks a bit different, but has the same functionality, with the clock, shortcuts, and alerts. Unlock has three options, swiping up goes to the last app used, swiping left to the home screen, and the right will go to the BlinkFeed. It can be unlocked when the display is turned off via a new feature added in Sense UI HTC has labeled this the Motion Launch feature, and this can also unlock the phone in a variety of ways – swiping up goes to main screen, swiping down will activate voice calling, swiping left takes users to the home screen, while swiping to the right will take users to the BlinkFeed. Lock screen can be awakened or turned off by double tapping the inactive display. However, double tapping on the home will not lock the phone.

The buttons are a new addition to the display via Sense UI 6. However, since the buttons are on display almost all the time, i.e. other than image view on full screen, video viewing or camera mode, this does not make for too much of a benefit for users.

The standard BlinkFeed is present here too, with the ability to aggregate content and notifications from sources and social networks into one place, and the added advantage to be able to search content. However, users who do not like this feature can use the other home screen panes as well. A new feature that HTC brings in is the power toggles option, added to the notification area. Also, the number of home screens available has been increased to six, of which five can be toggled while the sixth is reserved for BlinkFeed. Any of these home screens can be set as the default.

Widgets are available in an app drawer from where they can be pulled, and the app drawer layout has been modified to contain 3 items in 4 rows, which can be modified to 4 items in 5 rows as well. The sorting of items can be done as well, for example, alphabetically or chronologically. The task switching interface has been modified to a 3 x 3 view for the nine most recent apps the apps can be closed, but more recent apps do not appear, which is a bit frustrating. The settings menu is almost the same, only the color scheme and icon style is a bit modified. However, the lock screen styles are not modifiable this time around.

The dedicated Car mode is available and provides the commonly used features while driving present in the form of tiles, so that they can easily be accessed. The device also has an app to work as a restricted area for kids, which allows for profile creation, along with the ability to select which apps are available for which kids.

The People app is more or less consistent to its predecessors, though minor changes have been made to the visual. The same can be said about the dialer.

The smartphone has some interesting tricks, with the automated call receiving when phone is held to the ear and silencing by putting the set face down. The front facing BoomSound stereo speakers on the HTC One (M8) are pretty good, the sound louder and clearer. While it is slightly, behind its predecessor, it still is remarkable.

The image gallery is generic to HTC, arranging images into Albums, which can be organized on multiple criteria, like for example, by date or location where they were taken, among others. The basic image editing options are present here as well. The device does not have a generic app for a video player, though the videos can be played from the gallery, with a simplistic layout and basic design. The basic video formats are supported, and the video has BoomSound enabled when the video play is on speakers. The music player is the generic HTC player though, and has all the basics covered. However, the equalizer seems to be the only thing missing.

HTC One (M8) has a radio built-into it, with all the standard options like storing channels, present.

The audio quality on the device is better by leaps and bounds as compared to the counterparts present out there, including tablets and phablets. The second generation One device outshines its predecessor not only in the audio level, but also in terms of audio clarity.

Google Chrome is the standard browser, and has the same clean layout – the URL bar with basic options, as well as the tab switch options are same as earlier HTC smartphones, as is the ability to sync with the computer versions of Chrome using the Google account credentials.

The One has Google Drive pre-loaded, and all the generic features like the documents, forms, presentations and spreadsheets become available. On the mobile version though, only documents and spreadsheets can be created additionally images can be taken and get converted to pdf automatically. The calendar and clock apps are standard, with all the generic options present. Multiple alarms are supported. The HTC Tasks app is present too, and even though it can access tasks in Google Tasks, it still has location based reminders support absent, similar to some other device based apps. The weather app is also pretty similar to the legacy HTC app, which has always been a popular one among users.

HTC One (M8) comes with GPS supporting GLONASS which improves location locking combined with A-GPS, almost instantaneous location locks can be achieved. This helps hugely when the Google Maps and similar apps are under usage, since the location lock provides for a quicker and seamless navigation / instructions, and providing buildings displays in 3D, while the rotation views can be used in some areas for better location recognition. The routes option is still present, and route correction can be done without data connection once set. Vector maps used in the app allow for offline usage, though search and additional features are not present offline.

The Google Play Store is upgraded with the KitKat, with the store organized category wise and then into different break downs among each category as well. This organization seems very intuitive, and keeps things from getting messy, while also increasing the reach to different apps.

The second generation One device has a quad-core Krait 400 CPU powering the 2.3 GHz Snapdragon 801 chipset, catering to Adreno 330 GPU. The complete package is the latest in hardware and is found only in the top of the line products which shows HTC is very serious in seeing its One line experience huge success. The device performs as perfectly as any with the back end power to cover up even more.

HTC One (M8) performs as best as that we have found so far, and considering the chipset 801 is a minor upgrading for the 800 chipset, the boost provided is much larger than expected, and more than welcome.

The new smartphone under the One umbrella has stuck with the 4 MP shooter that came around with the original One, with the same sensor as well, and the same ratio. The sensor has a maximum resolution of 2688 x 1520 for 16:9 while 2048 x 1520 is the max for 4:3, which drops the resolution to an even lower level of almost around 3 MP. The device, though, comes packed with a front snapper of a better resolution of 5MP, which shows HTC is focusing more on selfies, and still extending its experimentation with the main snapper at the same time. The switch between cameras is also very simple, with a simple swipe while in camera mode.

The back camera has a support in the form of a secondary camera, that is situated in the standard location for snappers. However, this one acts merely as a support to the primary snapper, fetching information as per the range on which the image is being taken. This means that supporting information for the image is stored via this camera, and this allows for multiple effects that can be done on the image, like an additional layer of depth, image refocusing, background blur, among others.

However, the OIS that was being used in the legacy One was no longer applicable in the dual camera mode, and so the smartphone only caters to the digital image stabilization (which was made possible by the new HTC ImageChip 2, reducing noise, improving sharpness and overall image quality in the process), though HTC says it is on par with the OIS of yesteryear. The newly adopted autofocus system makes performance improvement too.

HTC One (M8), as is coming to be the norm these days, is again, accompanied by a dual LED flash, with one LED catering to warm and one to cool. The combination of light effects from both the flashes a much more natural image quality is reached. Camera can also be directly opened with unlock by clicking any of the volume buttons.

The HTC came out with One, using the Ultrapixels tech layered on its 4MP snapper, thinking that it could salvage some of the pundits that are going against HTC because of a lack of performance in cameras. However, while the gap last year was around between 1 MP mainly, this time around, the competition has stiffened with devices boasting even 20 MP cameras on some. These cameras are simply too much for the 4 MP snapper to compete with, and with the intelligent processing coupled with the automated improvements in low light shots, the 4 MP on this entrant from HTC is just too far off. Of course, the ultrapixels make the noise lower, and the images better, but the cameras of this year are already taking care of that intelligently. The secondary range finding camera too, fails to impress on most counts, since the need for the two cameras on the back are more than being handled easily with the cameras that are currently in competition.

The camera UI has been remodeled in sync with the overall UI, with the default aspect ratio still being 16:9 for both snaps and videos. The multiple shooting modes include the generic Still Camera, Selfie, Dual Capture (which snaps images from front and back snappers at the same time), Video, Zoe Camera, as well as the Panorama. Zoe Camera records a brief video and some images to create an animated photo reel available in the Zoe app. The length of the videos can be increased from the standard 3 second, to longer.

The images for the 4MP version, i.e. the normal images taken have a visible difference from the original One in daylight, and though the best 4MP shots we have seen, we still don’t think they could compare to images from competition. Even the 3MP shots, for the 4:3 ratio, seem to be almost at par with the 4MP shots. However, in a little low light, we found that the flash didn’t provide the exact natural look that we expected. The HDR shots too, has too bright shadows, which overcompensate the highlights. Even the panorama didn’t have enough pixel count.

The One video recorder can capture 1080p videos at the rate of 30fps, in MP4 with AAC stereo audio, with a video bitrate of 19.6 Mbps. The autofocus can be used continuously, and there is an option to lock this during recording. The video capture can be done in HDR mode too, though that reduces the field of vision. The videos captured are pretty nice and smooth, with a lot of fine level detail, though the shakiness can be felt due to an absence of OIS.

The HTC One (M8) has a host of connectivity options, starting from the complete 2G, 3G and 4G connectivity (HSPA speeds of up to 42 Mbps for downloads and 5.76 Mbps for uploads for 3G while the 50 Mbps upload and 150 Mbps download for 4G).

Local connectivity is present via Wi-Fi, DLNA and Wi-Fi Direct, so that content sharing is easy. Additionally we have Bluetooth 4.0 with the aptX built-in.

An addition to the connectivity is the menu that pops up once the HTC One (M8) is connected to computers – the connection to the computers can be from Portable Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth tethering, and USB. The device has NFC connectivity present, with Android Beam, and this works seamlessly.

A microSD card slot has been added to the offering from HTC, and this supports cards of up to 128 GB, and in parallel, and comes with a Google Drive space of 50GB which is free for two years. The portable hotspot from HTC is also present, which caters to WPA2, WEP and WPA encryption. There is a built-in IR port on the top, which works splendidly with a marvelously designed remote app, providing control over a wide range of equipment. The port on the device is an MHL port, and plugging in any MHL dongle the HD video can be projected over standard HDMI, and since the interface of the phone is displayed on TV, and the phone display is 1080p, the viewing on HDTV’s is a wonderful experience.

The second gen One smartphone has come out with a battery that is only a slight increase from its previous version – considering it has to power a more demanding chipset and a larger screen, we thought the performance overall would be similar to the original HTC One. However, we were pleasantly surprised to see that there was a huge improvement in the endurance rating, taking a leap to 71 hours, from the previous 48 hours rating.

The 3G call performance of the HTC One (M8) has gone up from around 14 hours to 20 hours – there is improvement on the video play and web browsing going up to 11 hours and 9 hours respectively. HTC has also introduced the Extreme Power Saving mode, which HTC claims can make even a 5% battery charge to work for almost 15 hours – of course, this will allow only the very basic features, like calls, text messaging and emails to work in this duration.

As is visible from the above review, the One live up to some expectations, while fails some as well. Below are some of the very shortcomings that the device does possess:

• The 4 MP back snapper is too low to even face current competition
• No image stabilization or 4K recording goes against the smartphone
• Battery is not replaceable

The HTC team has put in a lot of effort to design a classy, sophisticated and a more than capable phone, which does comes under the ideal definition of the term “flagship device”. The newest addition under the One umbrella has looked to cover up the weaknesses while also improving on its strengths. The improvements include a better metal body with the ability for memory expansion included in the device.

The HTC One (M8) has an improved Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 and the Sense 6.0 over the Android KitKat purrs along as smoothly as we have seen it ever done. The updated gesture and notification toggles will do very well to improve usability, and HTC is also working with Google for support of its dual camera to Android.

Unfortunately, the camera improvement concept that was taken up with HTC One, one being that the pixels would be increased in size did see that it was thrown around in the camera category by its competitors, and HTC could have gone with the option to revert its camera to the original position – instead, HTC has taken up the same direction once again, and we fear that things might get uglier this time around for HTC, with one of the major reasons being that while last year, the competition at launch time was with 8 MP devices mainly, this year the competition is with camera of up to 41 MP, and a 4 MP snapper, with technology that is already not welcome in the market, well, HTC could have done better to understand all this. Still, with a 5MP front facer, if most of your pics are selfies that are shared on Facebook or other sites, the HTC One (M8) is fine for you, especially with the improved front snapper.

The competition in the top tier of smartphones seems to be getting tougher every day, with new features and enhancements trying to edge out competition for the top slot. For HTC, though it came out early, the camera might ruin sales for the HTC One, though the beautiful and improved metal body combined with the enhanced sensors might make it for HTC too. How this race pans out, we will see in the coming days.