Htc One M8 Review :- A New Smarter Phone but not the Game Changer
The HTC One was one of our favorite smartphones of 2013. It featured a gorgeous industrial design, a fantastic display, great camera and top-of-the-line performance. HTC poured its heart into it, as evidenced by nearly every aspect of the device. The phone exceeded nearly all of our expectations, but that also left a big problem: We now expect history to repeat itself. After all, if the original One was such a great device, its successor should, in theory, be even better, right?
The answer is yes: It has a larger screen, offers two curious-looking rear camera sensors, boasts an improved version of HTC's Sense UI and features a chassis with even more metal. It appears, then, that there's a lot to love here, but it's difficult to take our breath away twice in a row. Here's what impressed -- and what didn't
In the last two years, the company has cranked out beautifully crafted unibody devices like the One X, One S and Windows Phone 8X
There's no mistaking the fact that the new One (aka the M8) inherited a lot of traits from its predecessor, including BoomSound speaker grilles, a curved back and horizontal stripes. After all, if it ain't broke, why fix it? And believe it or not, the phone is made from even more metal than last year's model: roughly 90 percent of the chassis is made from aluminum, compared to 70 percent for the M7.
All told, it's incredibly polished -- almost too polished. As beautiful as the new One is, it's as slick as a bar of soap. Not only is the new finish slippery, but the One also has fewer places to get a firm grip since it evolved from a 4.7-inch screen with blunt sides to a 5-inch screen and sides with sharp curves. I can't find a place to rest my fingers without feeling like they're going to slip off, so keep in mind that you'll need to be careful with the phone if you buy it. It's comfortable enough to hold -- so long as can get a good enough grip on it.
If you used the original One, the back of the new model will look quite familiar -- arched back, flash, camera, logo, horizontal stripes, another camera. Wait, what? Yep, there are indeed two "cameras" on the back, as well as two LED flashes, but we'll go into more detail in a later section. Turning the phone over to the front, you'll see a much-improved 5MP front-facing camera near the top, as well as virtual navigation buttons and a logo below. There's also BoomSound, which earned our praise last year. This time HTC promises richer and louder sound by using a new amp, throwing in a new DSP and deepening the chambers housing the speakers.
If you liked the 1080p Super LCD3 display on the original One, be prepared for essentially the same experience. The M8 retains its predecessor's resolution and display tech, but steps up to a slightly larger 5-inch screen. Display snobs will note that this results in lower pixel density, but unless you're looking at the two displays side by side, you're probably not going to notice. As on last year's model, the panel looks sharp, bright and vibrant; viewing angles are wide and the display is easy to see in direct sunlight as long as you push the brightness up to 75 percent or higher.
The screen itself is protected by a slab of Gorilla Glass 3, which is, of course, designed to be scratch-resistant. Since the glass is raised a bit above the rest of the phone's body, should we be concerned about possible chips? Croyle tells us that the answer is no: The company applied a special protective coating to prevent additional scratches and impacts that may normally weaken the glass.
| HTC ONE (2014) | HTC ONE (2013) | |
|---|---|---|
| Dimensions | 146.4 x 70.6 x 9.35mm (5.76 x 2.78 x 0.37 inch) | 137.4 x 68.2 x 9.3mm (5.41 x 2.69 x 0.37 inch) |
| Weight | 5.64 oz. (160g) | 5.04 oz. (143g) |
| Screen size | 5.0 inches | 4.7 inches |
| Screen resolution | 1,920 x 1,080 (441 ppi) | 1,920 x 1,080 (468 ppi) |
| Screen type | S-LCD3 | S-LCD3 |
| Battery | 2,600mAh (non-removable) | 2,300mAh (non-removable) |
| Internal storage | 16GB (32GB version coming) | 32/64GB |
| External storage | MicroSD (up to 128GB) | None |
| Rear camera | 4MP UltraPixel, f/2.0, 2.0µm pixel size, 1/3" sensor size, 28mm lens | 4MP UltraPixel, f/2.0, BSI, 1/3" sensor size, 2µm pixel size, OIS |
| Front-facing cam | 5MP, f/2.0, BSI, wide-angle lens | 2.1MP |
| Video capture | 1080p | 1080p, 30 fps |
| NFC | Yes | Yes |
| Radios |
GSM/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900) (All); CDMA (800/1900) (Verizon, Sprint).
HSPA+
EMEA: (850/900/1900/2100) with HSPA+ up to 42 Mbps
Asia: (850/900/1900/2100) with HSPA+ up to 42 Mbps AT&T: (850/1900/2100) with HSPA+ up to 21 Mbps Sprint: (850/1900/2100) with HSPA up to 14.4 Mbps Verizon: (850/900/1900/2100) with HSPA+ up to 14.4 Mbps T-Mobile: (850/AWS/1900/2100) with HSPA+ up to 42 Mbps
LTE
EMEA: (800/900/1800/2600)Asia: (700/900/1800/2100/2600) AT&T: (700/850/AWS/1800/1900/2600) Sprint: FDD (800/1900), TDD (2600) Verizon: (700/AWS/1800/2600) T-Mobile: (700/AWS) | Depends on the market |
| Bluetooth | v4.0 with AptX | v4.0 with AptX |
| SoC | 2.3GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 (Asia variant uses 2.5GHz); Adreno 330 GPU | 1.7GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 (APQ8064T) |
| RAM | 2GB | 2GB |
| SIM slot | Nano-SIM | Micro-SIM |
| Connectivity | MHL, DLNA, IR, HDMI, GPS/GLONASS | MHL, DLNA, IR |
| WiFi | Dual-band, 802.11a/ac/b/g/n | Dual-band, 802.11a/ac/b/g/n, WiFi Direct |
| Operating system | Android 4.4.2, Sense 6.0 | Android 4.1.2, Sense 5.0 (at launch) |
Under the hood, the M8 comes loaded with a 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 chipset (it's 2.5GHz in certain regions), 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 2,600mAh battery, dual-band 802.11a/ac/b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 with aptX. Data connectivity depends on which of the six variants you get: You can choose among versions for each of the four major US carriers, one for Asia and another for all of Europe/Middle East/Africa. (Both of our review units were the latter.) All six will feature the same quad-band GSM/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900), but it gets tricky from there -- we'll lay them all out in the table below, so check it out if you demand a special set of frequencies or support on a specific carrier.
Finally, one of the more curious hardware additions are the low-powered, always listening "Smart Sensors." Accelerometers are nothing new, but HTC's can be used by apps all day long without significant drain on the the battery (as they don't fire up the processor etc). As HTC's opened up the API for these -- dubbed HTC's Smart Sensor Hub -- app developers will be able to hook into this information directly. In fact, HTC worked directly with Fitbit to create a custom version of its app that comes pre-loaded on the phone. With the M8, you don't need a Fitbit wristband to track your steps: the phone will do that for you, and update the Fitbit app directly.
Finally, one of the more curious hardware additions are the low-powered, always listening "Smart Sensors." Accelerometers are nothing new, but HTC's can be used by apps all day long without significant drain on the the battery (as they don't fire up the processor etc). As HTC's opened up the API for these -- dubbed HTC's Smart Sensor Hub -- app developers will be able to hook into this information directly. In fact, HTC worked directly with Fitbit to create a custom version of its app that comes pre-loaded on the phone. With the M8, you don't need a Fitbit wristband to track your steps: the phone will do that for you, and update the Fitbit app directly.
A good personal benchmark for any given chipset's power is how little we actually notice it -- it just works. In other words, it's so smooth and snappy that we don't have to pay attention to what's going on behind the scenes. That's the case with the Snapdragon 801 running the show; we had to try hard to catch any failures, and even then we couldn't find anything sluggish enough to nitpick about here. We tried our darndest to make it crash by loading it with countless processor-intensive tasks and graphics-heavy games, but it stood its ground like a stubborn cow. If that analogy doesn't do anything for you, we've also added our standard benchmarks to the table below.
| HTC ONE (2014) | HTC ONE (2013, AT&T) | SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quadrant 2.0 | 25,548 | 12,104 | 23,278 |
| Vellamo 2.0 | 1,804 | 1,435 | 2,501 |
| 3DMark IS Unlimited | 20,612 | 10,698 | 18,828 |
| SunSpider 1.0.2 (ms) | 782 | 1,238 | 537 |
| GFXBench 3.0 Manhattan Offscreen (fps) | 11.2 | 5.0 | 9.3 |
| CF-Bench | 40,223 | 26,854 | 33,785 |
| SunSpider: Lower scores are better, results compiled on Chrome. HTC Ones benchmarked on Android 4.4.2 | |||
Speaking of not noticing the chipset, there was one other aspect of the new One that we much prefer over its predecessor: It doesn't overheat. Even under intense loads, we were unable to heat up the M8 to uncomfortable levels, whereas it was a standard way of living with the M7 regardless of what we were doing on it.
As much as we like power, we love battery life even more. The M8 comes with a 2,600mAh battery inside, which is 300mAh larger than last year's version. Before reviewing the phone, we predicted that we'd see roughly the same life on this model as we did the M7, primarily because of the larger display and more powerful processor with a higher clock speed. The most important battery test we conduct on any smartphone is the real-life usage test -- ya know, actually using the phone as our daily driver. We tested the One for a week, and at the end of most days of moderate use we had around 30 percent left when it was time to go to bed.
On days with heavier use, the tank was much closer to empty, but we rarely had to run for the nearest outlet. In comparison, this is a vast improvement over the original One, which seldom got us through an entire day; it's still not quite as good as the Sony Xperia Z1, but in that case the smaller size is a major boon. This improvement was echoed in our standard video rundown test, in which our unit yielded nearly 11.5 hours while looping a high-def video eternally. Considering the M7 only made it 6.5 hours on the same test, we'd call that good news indeed.
Our European review units fared well in overall call quality, and BoomSound helped make the speakerphone easy to use for conference calls. Speaking of which, we could tell that BoomSound was louder than it was on the M7, and music sounds clearer. The only issue we had in performance was with the GPS; the blue dot froze on too many occasions, and although it typically caught up with us after 20 to 30 seconds, we sometimes had to exit out of Maps and restart the app to force it to find our new location.
THE COMPETITION
By the time you read this review, the new HTC One will already be available in select parts of the globe. As expected, the launch window of each market will vary, but it'll be immediately available in the UK and the US after the phone's launch. In the US, always one of the more complicated markets to keep track of, you can pick up a retail unit from Verizon before it's available on any other carrier. You can order it through AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint online today, too, but you'll have to wait until April 11th if you're the type of person who prefers to waltz into a brick-and-mortar venue to get a new handset. The phone will sell for $650 off-contract, whereas the on-contract price ranges from $200 to $250, depending on the carrier. If you're looking to tinker with your device or just prefer the stock Google experience, HTC's got you covered from day one: The Google Play edition will be available in the Play Store today for $700, and the Developer edition will be sold on HTC's website for $650.
This doesn't give HTC much time to sell the M8 before its arch-nemesis, the Samsung Galaxy S5, arrives on the scene April 11th. The two devices will be direct competitors, which means the underdog One will have to find a way to stick out. We'll publish a chart shortly that compares the two devices, so you can see for yourself which one has the right feature set for you (if either one fulfills your needs, that is).
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