HTC One (M8) - $700 (unlocked)
- 5.0”, 1920 x 1080 LCD display (441 ppi)
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC
- 2.5 GHz quad-core CPU, Adreno 330 GPU, 2GB RAM
- 16/32 GB internal storage, microSD card slot
- 4 MP camera, 1/3” sensor, f/2.0 lens, 1080p video
- 1080p depth sensor
- 2,600 mAh, 9.88 Wh battery
- LTE, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC
- Android 4.4 ‘KitKat’
- 154 grams, 9.4mm thick
In 2014, HTC is releasing the HTC One. Not the same HTC One from 2013, but the all new HTC One. Or the HTC M8. Or the 2014 HTC One. Or, officially, the HTC One (M8). It’s a confusing naming choice from HTC, who want to show that this device expands on the concepts introduced last year, and is not a completely overhauled flagship. It’s evolutionary, not revolutionary.
The evolution of the HTC One takes many forms. There’s more aluminum than the original model; the display size has been bumped from 4.7-inches to 5-inches; the Ultrapixel camera has morphed into the all new Duo Camera array; there’s a faster Snapdragon 801 chipset inside replacing the Snapdragon 600; there’s a refined Sense 6.0 interface atop Android 4.4; and much more.
Nothing is ever a straight-up win in the smartphone universe though: HTC can pack all the fancy features it wants into the all new One, but poor execution can keep the phone from succeeding. How does the new HTC One (M8) stack up? Let’s find out.
Design
No company has managed to match HTC in Android hardware design. The HTC One from 2013 was a magnificent specimen, featuring a zero-gap aluminum back plate, slick Gorilla Glass-covered display and polycarbonate inserts to give wireless radios room to breathe. Out of all the Android devices I held throughout the year, the HTC One felt the best by far.The all new HTC One takes the aluminum concept seen on the original HTC One, and expands upon it. Wrapping around the edges of the device, the curved aluminum shell is now closer to a ‘unibody’ than ever before. You’ll still see two strips of black polycarbonate material at the top and bottom of the gunmetal grey handset, again so that Wi-Fi and LTE can actually function, but the edges now feel just as slick as the rear.
Click on any photo to enlarge
If you would rather a silver HTC One M8, don’t fret, because silver will be one of the three color options available for the device, essentially mimicking the 2013 HTC One’s look. Alongside gunmetal grey, you’ll be able to pick up the device in amber gold as well.
The area where HTC has really improved the One M8 over the One M7 is in how it feels: this is a phone that I just want to pick up and hold all the time. It truly feels incredible, not only from the premium-grade metal exterior that oozes quality, but also from the subtle changes to the curvature of the device that makes it fit perfectly in my hands.
Until now, I had never held a smartphone that’s so ergonomic and so well sculpted, yet so beautiful from every angle. It’s truly an achievement, and a testament to the HTC design team’s vision; they are at the absolute top of their game, and it will be very hard for any company to match the quality demonstrated here.
What’s even more compelling about the HTC One M8’s design is that it feels slimmer than the One M7, despite coming in 1mm thicker. You can barely notice the extra 11 grams of weight added to the smartphone either.
The beautiful One M8 design isn’t without a few oddities though. The physical buttons found around the edge feel very solid to operate, but I don’t understand why HTC continues to put the power button on the top. The One M8 is a tall smartphone, and the power button is tricky to reach, especially when you’re trying to turn off the display.
The height of the One M8 also seems taller than necessary. The device packs a larger 5-inch display with on-screen buttons, so the capacitive buttons around the HTC logo have been removed from the front. However, the large panel with the HTC logo still remains, adding to the handset’s screen bezel and height without providing any obvious benefit.
The good news, though, is that these two minor oddities don’t really matter. You can now power on the display simply by double-tapping on the Gorilla Glass panel that protects it, significantly reducing the inconvenience of reaching for the power button. As for the height, does the extra 9mm make a huge difference? Not at all, as the One M8 is far from cumbersome.
By going for an all-metal frame and Gorilla Glass 3 protecting the Super LCD 3 display, the new HTC One is tough. Throughout my period with the handset as my daily driver, the M8 resisted the urge to get scratched and remained in perfect condition. At an intimate launch event in Sydney I managed to sneak a peek at some of the HTC executives’ personal One M8s, which they had been rocking since before MWC 2014, and they too looked in perfect nick.
Looking at the highlights around the device, and on the back you’ll find classy, prominent HTC branding in the center, plus regulatory stamps towards the bottom. At the top is the brand new Duo Camera module, which is a combination of the Ultrapixel sensor from the One M7 (the larger lens) and a depth sensor (the smaller lens at the top). Initially, when leaked images of the device were being thrown around nearly every day, I thought the camera system looked odd, but it’s less unusual when you see the smartphone in person and it’s easy to get used to.
The left-hand edge of the One M8 is bare except for the well-hidden SIM card slot towards the top. The handset is one of the few to adopt nano SIM, so be prepared to grab a new SIM from your carrier if you’re coming from one of the many micro SIM devices out there.
On the right is the metal volume rocker and another slot, this time for a microSD card. It seems HTC listened to consumer feedback surrounding the original HTC One and decided it wouldn’t be too hard to incorporate a second slot into the unibody, allowing you to expand upon the device’s 16 GB of internal memory with ease.
The bottom edge features the microUSB 2.0 charging and data port, as well as the 3.5mm audio jack, both offset to the right-hand side. The top is where you’ll find the power button surrounded by black plastic, which is presumably to give the illusion that the infrared LED for controlling TVs is hidden beneath. In actual fact, the IR LED is in the home button, just like was the case on the HTC One M7.
On the front of the HTC One M8 you’ll find the five-inch display set into a black glass panel, and flanked by the BoomSound speakers. Unlike on the M7, the two speaker grills on the M8 aren’t of equal length, with the top grill being shorter to accommodate the large front-facing camera and sensor array. The difference in length is of little functional consequence – the speaker itself actually sits to the left of each grill, rather than in the center – unless you suffer from unfortunate OCD.
The BoomSound speakers are now 25% louder than in the original HTC One, and combined with an improved DSP, software and amplifier, sound even better. The One still suffers from a lack of bass from the speakers, but it produces by far the best sound I’ve heard from a smartphone; it delivers enough depth that I can actually listen to music without wanting to immediately die.
Hidden in the top right of the upper speaker grill is the ever-handy notification light, which continues to be one of my favorite features of Android smartphones. As far as I can tell this light only glows yellow-green and red.
Display: Super LCD 3 Returns
On the HTC One (M8) the company has gone for a 5.0-inch Super LCD 3 (IPS Pro TFT LCD) panel with a resolution of 1920 x 1080. As the display uses LCD technology, there’s no fancy subpixel matrix to deal with, instead we’re left with the tried and true RGB matrix. With total screen area of 68.9 sq. cm packing 2.07 million pixels, the display has a density of 441 pixels per inch (PPI).
If anyone is curious, it appears Japan Display Inc. manufactures the HTC One (M8)’s panel, which isn’t surprising considering they also made the majority of the M7’s displays. I wouldn’t be shocked if this was the same display seen in the HTC Droid DNA and HTC Butterfly, but it could equally be an updated model. The touch controller is provided by Synaptics.
First off, as I mentioned earlier, HTC has switched from using capacitive hardware buttons to Android’s onscreen buttons. In some respects, this offsets the increased display size, as a 5.0-inch panel with onscreen buttons takes the screen down to an effective 4.7-inches with a resolution of 1776 x 1080.
Android’s onscreen buttons in Android 4.4 ‘KitKat’ aren’t as simple as they were in previous versions, though. Developers are no longer restricted to a black bar for the onscreen buttons; there’s now an option to display content underneath a translucent navigation button bar, which is great for displaying upcoming content when scrolling through things such as BlinkFeed. There’s also a new immersive mode, which can hide the buttons altogether where necessary.
These enhancements make the 5-inch display more flexible. When watching movies, playing games and reading books (all situations which use the immersive mode), you get more screen real estate on the M8 compared to the M7. In a smattering of other apps you’ll see content underneath the buttons, and in the rest you’ll be using around 4.7-inches of the display. Not to mention, the extremely useful Recent Apps button returns, providing fast access to the main multitasking interface.
5-inch 1080p displays are nothing new, but they continue to impress in terms of sharpness and clarity. The detail present when looking at images on the Super LCD 3 is fantastic, and you have the ability to watch Full HD videos natively. But the sharpness is most noticeable when viewing text on the display: there are no jagged edges around curved letters, and thin fonts such as Roboto look stunning with such a high pixel density.
When the HTC One (M7) launched at the start of 2013, the Super LCD 3 display it packed was unrivalled in display quality. Everything on it looked awesome yet balanced, and the viewing angles were the best I had ever seen. Now, it’s more than a year later, and the competition has heated up with the release of the Apple iPhone 5s, LG G2 and Google Nexus 5, all which pack fantastic displays.
Like the M7, the Super LCD 3 display on the M8 looks awesome, but it no longer has a clear edge on the competition. Colors are well saturated and contrast is high, but the Nexus 5 and LG G2 appear to beat it on accuracy and overall gamut. You’ll get deep blacks and bright whites from the HTC One M8’s display as well, thanks to an even and strong backlight.
There are few layers between the display itself and the Gorilla Glass 3 that protects it, which helps cut down on reflections when trying to view the display in areas with strong backlighting. The screen can go quite bright where necessary, and automatic brightness adjustment is one of the most responsive I’ve seen.
The small gap between display and glass also provides viewing angles as astonishing as the original HTC One. You can easily view the One M8’s panel from nearly every angle with very little change in brightness and virtually no shift in color. It really makes it feel like the software is running on the glass, rather than a projection from underneath.
The Synaptics-powered touchscreen is responsive and easy to use, although there is no glove mode that would boost the power of the electrostatic field so it can sense fingers through material. The feature has become popular since its inclusion in Nokia’s Lumia line, but not a critical omission.
Software: Sense 6.0 and Android 4.4
With each smartphone since the HTC Hero, the company has improved the design and usability of Sense, the skin slapped atop Android on their products. Sense 6.0, which is found on the HTC One M8, is easily the best version yet.For the first time in the history of Sense, HTC’s custom experience actually blends in well with the other elements of Android 4.4.2, which the handset runs out of the box. The designers at HTC have finally realized that the gradients of Sense don’t mesh well with the flat, modern look of Android 4.0+, so you won’t find one in the software of the HTC One. Everything is now flattened and looks surprisingly slick.
Thin fonts, pastel highlights and signature HTC elements make up everything from dialog boxes in apps to the settings and notification panes, which blend in reasonably well with Google’s apps like Now and Gmail. It’s not a perfect combination – it’s seemingly impossible to visually differentiate from stock Android while still meshing well with stock apps – but it’s the nicest OEM skin I’ve used so far.
Sense 6.0 on the HTC One M8 isn’t just skinning for the sake of skinning though. One of my favorite feature additions to the software stack is Motion Launch, which allows you to quickly turn on the device and access various apps and areas without having to press the power button. For example, you can double tap the display to wake it, swipe up to unlock, swipe left to access BlinkFeed and more. With Motion Launch, unlocking the HTC One is faster than ever.
Motion Launch can also be used for two other handy functions. If you pick up the phone in landscape orientation then press the volume button, the camera launches. Or if you’re receiving a phone call you can put the phone to your ear and it will automatically answer.
The lockscreen is a fairly standard affair for a skinned UI. Your docked app tray transfers over to the screen so you can easily swipe to access your favorite apps. Like with Motion Launch, you can either swipe left or right to access BlinkFeed or the homescreen panels respectively, and there’s no way to add lockscreen widgets (aside from those such as music and weather that are automatically shown).
The notification pane and homescreen panels operate just as you’d expect from an Android 4.4 handset. The editable quick settings panel is available through a tap of a button in the notification pane, and there’s a smattering of quite okay HTC widgets to use if you so choose. Swiping up from the navigation button bar will launch Google Now, as expected, and the Recent Apps window has been skinned but gains no additional functionality.
One of the big changes from the HTC One M7 is that BlinkFeed is no longer the default homescreen panel; instead it sits as the panel farthest to the left, and can be removed entirely if you don’t find it useful. When on the BlinkFeed panel content extends behind the dock and navigation bar, which is a nice effect.
BlinkFeed itself has received a significant update. It’s easier to use than previous iterations thanks to a simple swipe-out panel for digging deeper into content, and there’s more customization options to enjoy. You can add specific topics to BlinkFeed like before, but now you also have the option to add custom topics and RSS feeds, making it a more versatile news reader than ever before. HTC boasts over 1,000 content partners for BlinkFeed, and an API will be available for developers to add their own content into the BlinkFeed stream.
Most of the standard Android applications – including Calendar, Messages, Mail, Internet and Phone – have been pleasantly skinned, but add few (if any features). The People app integrates well with social network data, as you’d expect from past HTC applications. There are also a smattering of non-standard apps that HTC has bundled, such as the self-explanatory Stocks, Weather, Flashlight and Tasks apps.
It’s curious to see both Chrome and Internet included out of the box, as two browsers are unnecessary, and Chrome packs a wider variety of useful features. Interestingly, in some situations the Internet app performs better than Chrome (such as in the Peacekeeper benchmark), but I don’t see why you’d use it, especially if you’re a Chrome user on other platforms and want the synced data.
Gallery and Music are two solid additions to the HTC One M8. The latter features a decent interface and a cool visualizer feature with a lyric overlay, while the former is packed full of features. The Gallery app automatically compiles slideshows based on date, location or album, and can also match similar photos with reasonable accuracy. It provides a basis for all photo editing as well, which I’ll discuss later in the review.
HTC Connect is a feature that makes it easy to stream content from the HTC One M8 to other devices through Bluetooth, DLNA or Miracast. By three finger swiping up when you’re in certain apps with media content, such as the Music app or YouTube, you can wirelessly share the content with compatible devices.
HTC has also revamped Sense TV. Not only can the app control TVs and other devices through the infrared LED in the power button, but it also acts as a TV guide and social hub during your viewing time. The app is well featured enough that it could easily replace a dedicated universal remote or TV guide, and even integrates live sports for many codes around the world. Unfortunately not every TV provider is supported (cable networks in Australia don’t appear), although the main providers have been included.
The keyboard included on the HTC One M8 is one of the best OEM keyboards going around on Android devices, as it’s large, easy to use and has a decent prediction engine. There’s no swipe functionality in this particular keyboard, although you’re free to download a third-party alternative from the Play Store if the HTC offering isn’t to your liking. I’d recommend either the stock Google keyboard or SwiftKey.
In the settings you’ll find the useful Do Not Disturb mode, which blocks incoming calls, shuts off the notification LED and mutes the handset. This can be particularly handy if you’re entering a meeting, or just want some peace and quiet while you sleep. You can schedule times for Do Not Disturb mode to automatically active, and there’s also a timer option if you decide to enable it manually and want it to deactivate after a predefined time.
Capping off the features in the HTC One M8 that I want to discuss is the theme selection menu. Throughout applications and the OS you’ll notice certain color highlights that correspond to the type of app you’re using. By default, these are set to blue for communications apps, green for data apps like Weather, orange for entertainment apps, and black for settings.
In the theme settings menu you can change the highlights to a few pre-set options, all of which look quite nice. There’s also an option to disable highlights altogether if you’d rather live in a black-and-white world.
Performance: The Qualcomm Snapdragon 801
ARM hardware partners are moving at an ever-rapid pace, seemingly releasing a new, faster chip every few months. At MWC 2014, which concluded just over a month ago, popular ARM hardware vendor Qualcomm released their latest high-end SoC – the Snapdragon 801 – to tide us over until the Snapdragon 810 and 64-bit chips are ready. This SoC is what you’ll find inside the HTC One M8 and other Android flagships launching at the start of 2014.If you’re thinking that the Snapdragon 801 isn’t a huge step over the Snapdragon 800, you’d be correct. The 801 expands on the foundation laid with the 800 by packing the same quad-core Krait 400 CPU, the same Adreno 330 GPU, and the same 32-bit dual-channel LPDDR3 memory controller. Clock speeds for all these items have increased, but the effects of this shouldn’t be massive.
However, we are talking about an upgrade to the HTC One M7, which was announced in February 2013 and powered by the Snapdragon 600. When we started to see the first wave of Snapdragon 800 devices later in the year there was a sizable performance gap between the two SoCs, so I’m expecting to see something similar going from the M7 to the M8.
Interestingly, there are two variants of the HTC One (M8) in the wild: the international version, which packs the Snapdragon 801 MSM8974ABv3 clocked at 2.26 GHz, and the Asian model with a Snapdragon 801 MSM8974ACv3 clocked at 2.45 GHz. HTC kindly provided me with the latter model, which should be even faster than the Snapdragon 800 and give more meat to this performance section.
You’ll also find the GPU clock speed has been raised to 578 MHz, and the LPDDR3 memory controller now clocked at 933 MHz for 14.9 GB/s of bandwidth. As far as I’m aware, eMMC 5.0 is not utilized on the all new HTC One. You can compare the device to the HTC One M7 and the Snapdragon 800-powered Nexus 5 in the table below.
| Specs | HTC One (M8) | Google Nexus 5 | HTC One (M7) |
| SoC | Snapdragon 801 MSM8974ACv3 | Snapdragon 800 MSM8974AA | Snapdragon 600 APQ8064 |
| CPU | 4x Krait 400 @ 2.45 GHz | 4x Krait 400 @ 2.26 GHz | 4x Krait 300 @ 1.7 GHz |
| GPU | Adreno 330 @ 578 MHz | Adreno 330 @ 450 MHz | Adreno 320 @ 400 MHz |
| Memory | 2 GB dual-channel LPDDR3 @ 933 MHz | 2 GB dual-channel LPDDR3 @ 800 MHz | 2 GB dual-channel LPDDR2 @ 600 MHz |
| Storage | 16/32 GB internal + microSD | 16/32 GB internal | 32/64 GB internal |
| Wi-Fi | 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac | 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac | 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac |
| Bluetooth | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 |
| LTE | Category 4 | Category 4 | Category 3 |
| Other | NFC, IR, MHL, GPS | NFC, MHL, GPS | NFC, IR, MHL, GPS |
| Display | 5.0” 1080p LCD | 5.0” 1080p LCD | 4.7” 1080p LCD |
| Battery | 9.88 Wh (2,600 mAh) | 8.74 Wh (2,300 mAh) | 8.74 Wh (2,300 mAh) |
| Camera | 4 MP 1/3” sensor with f/2.0 lens + depth sensor | 8 MP 1/3.2” sensor with f/2.4 lens, OIS4 | 4 MP 1/3” sensor with f/2.0 lens, OIS |
One downside to the replacement of large internal storage with a microSD card slot is you’ll now have two storage locations in the device, which is a clunky experience on Android. Internal NAND also tends to be faster than microSD card storage, which makes it a better choice for app storage. With that said, companies overcharge extra storage options to ridiculous extents, so the microSD slot is more than welcome.
Before I had hands-on time with the HTC One M8 I was curious to learn whether the Snapdragon 801 was noticeably faster than the Snapdragon 800 or Snapdragon 600. On paper, the SoC is definitely faster, as you’ll discover in the benchmarks below, but it’s becoming increasingly hard to tell just how capable it is during regular usage.
The HTC One M8 is undeniably a fast smartphone. Everything from loading apps and browsing the web, to navigating the operating system and multitasking, is ridiculously speedy and very fluid. It definitely appears to have a performance edge over the original HTC One, especially in app loading, but it’s a subtle difference rather than a wide speed chasm. Comparing the real-world speed of the HTC One M8 to a Snapdragon 800-powered device like the Sony Xperia Z1 Compact is even trickier, and to be honest, I can’t really discern which is faster.
Gaming is a slightly different story, as the 578 MHz Adreno 330 GPU is significantly faster than the Snapdragon 600’s Adreno 320. The HTC One M7 was no slouch in most handheld games, but occasionally the 1080p display would stretch the rendering capabilities of the graphics core. This is no longer the case in the M8: I simply can’t find a game on the Play Store that stretches the Adreno 330 in either the Snapdragon 800 or 801 to its absolute limits.
As other publications have noted, the HTC One (M8) is a benchmark cheater, which is disappointing but not overly surprising to discover. Out of the benchmarks we perform, 3DMark, GFXBench and Vellamo appear to be affected, with the device artificially boosting the GPU’s core clock up to the maximum 2.45 GHz when it detects benchmark applications have launched.
This appears to be slightly different behaviour than for the MSM8974AB model, which simply uses a more aggressive governor when benchmarks are detected, rather than forcing the CPU to run at maximum frequencies. Either method is unacceptable, but as most devices contain some form of benchmark cheating code, it evens the playing field somewhat.
Interestingly, HTC will actually make the benchmark cheating behaviour available in all apps through a setting in the hidden developer options. On the Asian review model I received, the ‘feature’ was unfortunately missing.
In Peacekeeper, the HTC One (M8) is the new fastest Android device we’ve tested at TechSpot, falling 30% behind the iPhone 5s, but 28% ahead of the next-fastest device: the Snapdragon 800-powered Galaxy Note 3. The Snapdragon 801 MSM8974AC’s clock speed is only 10% higher than the 800, and there’s 16% more memory bandwidth, so gains are a little higher than expected. The One M8 is 49% faster than the One M7 in this test.
Kraken tells a different story, with the HTC One (M8) performing on-par with the Sony Xperia Z1 in this largely CPU-bound benchmark. We’re also seeing significant performance gains compared to the original HTC One.
Vellamo’s HTML5 test is a curious one, because it appears the benchmark optimizations have completely failed, and performance has actually regressed compared to the HTC One M7. In the Metal test, though, performance is as expected: 3% faster than the Galaxy Note 3, and 69% faster than the One M7.
In 3DMark we’re seeing the One M8’s upclocked GPU flex its muscles, topping the charts with a score 12% higher than the Galaxy Note 3. The GPU is actually clocked 28% higher, but I doubt it’s running at its maximum frequency throughout the entirety of the benchmark’s run, especially through the CPU-heavy physics section.
Taking a look at results for GFXBench and with the Adreno 330 inside, the HTC One M8 is the first device with a 1080p display to hit 30 frames per second in the onscreen T-Rex HD test. It performs 8% faster than the Galaxy Note 3 offscreen, and 15% faster onscreen thanks to the onscreen buttons reducing the overall rendering resolution.
I’ve also included GFXBench’s new OpenGL ES 3.0 benchmark ‘Manhattan’, which is new in GFXBench 3.0. I’ve been testing this benchmark with a few devices behind the scenes now, and it’s certainly a stressful one (it refused to load on the Moto G). Like in T-Rex HD, the One M8 shows that it’s the fastest GPU overall in fixed-resolution scenarios, but falls behind in onscreen tests having to render to a near-1080p display.
Another set of benchmarks I’ve been preparing behind the scenes is a sequential and random read/write test for a smartphone’s internal NAND. Here you can really see the differences between the HTC One M8 (which tops the charts) and the HTC One M7, the latter of which is much slower across the board.
Topping it all off is the USB file transfer test. The HTC One M8 is limited to USB 2.0 transfer speeds, so it fails to match the Galaxy Note 3.
Throughout my usage I had no trouble with Wi-Fi 802.11n on either the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz bands, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS (which locks quickly) or NFC. There’s also the IR LED hidden inside the power button, which can be used to control TVs through the aptly named ‘TV’ app on the handset
Duo Camera and Camera Features
Perhaps the biggest upgrade that can be found on the HTC One M8 is the Duo Camera. The ‘Ultrapixel’ camera from the HTC One M7 can still be seen on the rear of the M8, but it’s now accompanied by a dedicated depth sensor which you can see above it. The sensor itself is nothing more than a 1080p, 2-megapixel OV2722 unit from OmniVision, which provides extra data that the device’s software uses for a selection of effects.The information from the depth sensor is stored in each photo’s EXIF data, so every shot that’s taken by the HTC One M8 is in JPG form, but contains everything necessary to apply cool effects. The data appears to take up an extra 500 kB of space, and there is no way to disable the depth sensor in automatic shooting mode.
That said, there are some situations where the depth data is not stored. If you take a macro photo, a photo in low light, or a photo with the flash on, the depth camera is not used and you can’t apply the effects. Similarly, if you apply filters or use a shooting mode other than auto, depth effects aren’t available.
The premier effect available on the HTC One M8 is called Ufocus. When you select to Edit the photo and click Ufocus, the depth data is used to keep some areas in focus while others are defocused using simulated bokeh. It’s possible to select the area on the photo that’s kept in focus, which provides a Lytro-like focus-after-shooting effect.
Standard photo without affects applied
However Ufocus doesn’t work by capturing photos at multiple focus
points, instead the depth of field effect is entirely simulated using
edge detection and the depth sensor’s data. This means that if you take a
photo where you’ve missed focus, or you take a photo where the area
behind a subject is unfocused, it’s not possible to bring these areas
into focus.Despite these limitations, Ufocus is still a great feature when used in the right conditions. If you take a photo of a person, you can use Ufocus to highlight this person by applying bokeh to the background. Capture a photo of a flower, and you can make the shot look more DSLR-like with Ufocus. Or you can take a relatively plain photo and make it look more artistic by applying the effect to a certain subject or area of a shot.
Ufocus effect applied with simulated background bokeh
You’ll have a lot of fun playing around with Ufocus, but it’s not the only feature available on the One M8. The Foregrounder effect uses depth data to apply other effects to the area that would otherwise be defocused if you were using Ufocus. You can make the background of an image look like a pencil sketch, for example, while the subject appears natural. There’s only four filters to use in this mode, but HTC assures me that more will be included in a future update.
Seasons applies a 3D-like falling leaves/snow/petals effect, drawing on depth data to adjust the size of the rendered items. You can save the effect as a MP4 video, but it’s not one I’d use on a regular basis. Ideally I’d like to see the rendered leaves fall behind items through the use of edge detection and depth data, but this isn’t something that’s currently possible.
A 3D effect can be applied to 2D photos through the Dimension Plus effect, allowing you to tilt the device and see the photo at a different, although simulated angle. The effect is cool and seems to work well in ideal conditions – photos with close up subjects can look very distorted, for example – but I’m not sure why you would bother saving images that show a different, simulated perspective of sorts.
The final three effects revolve around people. Stickers is self-explanatory: you can add in silly hats and glasses to the image you’ve taken. Touch Up gives you the ability to touch up the faces of any person in a shot, by contouring faces and smoothing the skin (among other things). But the best of the three is Copy & Paste, which uses edge detection and depth data to add a person from one photo into another.
Imaging you’re enjoying a weekend away with some mates, but Jimmy couldn’t make it. You take a group photo but you don’t want to leave him out, so you select Copy & Paste, find a photo with Jimmy in it, select him and the One M8 automatically cuts him out. When you’re back in the group photo, you can add Jimmy in, and even layer him behind other people so it really looks like he was there. The feature works surprisingly quickly and delivers good results.
There are other minor features as part of the photo editor, including filters, photo frames and basic tools such as cropping, drawing and rotating.
Diving back into the camera app, and there are several shooting modes to talk about. Dual Capture takes a photo using the front and rear cameras simultaneously, while Pan 360 essentially takes a Photo Sphere as introduced in Android 4.2.
Zoe mode returns in the HTC One M8, but it’s slightly different to the implementation in the M7. The camera no longer automatically captures images and video before and after the shutter is pressed; instead you now can either press the shutter to capture a standard image, or press and hold to record a video. To differentiate Zoe mode from the Video mode, when you press and hold the shutter, full-resolution burst-shot images are captured alongside the video and combined into the one file in the Gallery app.
It’s an interesting shooting mode and might be useful for photographing fast action in particular, but it takes a back seat to the standard photo mode with its capturing of depth data.
The standard photo mode comes with a number of extra shooting modes including HDR, sweep panorama and a dedicated text capturing mode, to name a few. But the best of the lot is actually the manual mode, which like on Nokia Lumia handsets, gives you easy sliders to control white balance, ISO, shutter speed, exposure and focus. When selecting settings in this mode it adjusts the live preview in real time, which makes it very easy to see exactly what the camera is going to capture.
I’ll talk more about just how useful the manual mode is when discussing the quality of the photos themselves in the next section.
In the video mode you also get a range of extra capture modes, including slow motion video at 720p, HDR video at 1080p, and a 1080p60 fast motion mode. Like with the photo mode, you can apply filters in real time to video, showing off the processing power of the Snapdragon 801.
Camera Quality: The Ultrapixel Factor
The main camera sensor on the HTC One M8 is the same ‘Ultrapixel’-branded OmniVision OV4688 unit that was seen on the M7. This particular sensor is 1/3” in size, and packs 4.1 megapixels (2688 × 1520) at a 16:9 aspect ratio with a pixel size of 2.0 µm. It’s paired with an f/2.0 lens with an effective 28mm focal length, and a two-tone dual-LED flash.Diving through the One M8’s firmware reveals the front-facing camera is Samsung’s S5K5E2 1/5” CMOS sensor. Unlike both rear sensors, the front camera has a native aspect ratio of 4:3, with a resolution of 4.9 megapixels (2560 x 1920) and 1.12 µm pixels. It’s also paired with an f/2.0 lens, but it has a slightly wider equivalent focal length of 24mm.
Click on any photo to enlarge
I’ll get the major complaint about the HTC One M8’s camera out of the
way before anything else: it only takes four megapixel images. HTC’s
reasoning for this is that most people take photos on their smartphone
and downsize them below four megapixels during the upload process to
social media. So instead of packing a high megapixel count into the M8
(and M7), they went for a large pixel size to improve low-light
photography.In some respects HTC’s points are valid – the large pixel size really does improve low-light performance – but in other respects they have failed to account for some critical facts. One such fact is that small smartphone sensors are almost always lacklustre at full resolution, meaning you need to downscale to achieve an acceptable level of quality. The higher the megapixel count, the better results you generally get from downscaling to social media size (1080p or less).
Another fact is that some people like to crop images and zoom in on certain areas. This is quite possible with 20-megapixel, 13-megapixel and even eight-megapixel sensors without a huge reduction in quality, but isn’t the case with HTC’s four-megapixel unit. Cropping photos taken on the One M8 will almost immediately highlight the low resolution of images as the lack of intricate detail comes to the surface.
It’s also crazy to think that an image from the One M8 won’t fill the entire display on some current laptops, such as the MacBook Pro with Retina display or the Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro. It also can’t capture 4K video not because of bandwidth constraints, but because the sensor actually isn’t large enough to capture a 3840 x 2160 (8.3 megapixel) frame.
In an ideal world, HTC would have responded to feedback from the One M7 and swapped out the sensor for something that’s more of a compromise. Maybe a 1/3” model with 1.5 µm pixels for a resolution of eight megapixels; or even a 1/2.3” sensor as seen on the Sony Xperia Z1, but with 2.0 µm or 1.5 µm pixels to deliver seven or 12 megapixels respectively.
When shooting in ideal conditions, the HTC One M8’s camera is quite capable. Unlike with the M7, the camera captures exactly what you see in the preview, and with essentially no shutter lag. Despite having the same sensor as the M7, the M8 has improved color accuracy and vibrance across the board, which results in photos that look less dull and washed out.
Shots from medium range to macro are the most impressive in strong lighting, thanks to a great level of sharpness at full resolution, accurate color reproduction, few artefacts and reasonable bokeh from the f/2.0 lens. White balance and exposure are sometimes questionable, but not to a disappointing level.
Click here to check out full sized samples from the HTC One (M8)
When taking wide-angle shots, the OmniVision sensor doesn’t have particularly great dynamic range, so highlights can be blown out and it can be hard to see the detail in darker or shadowed areas. Like past HTC cameras, it also struggles with perfect exposure in cloudy environments, which combined with the mediocre dynamic range can make photos look dull in these conditions.
Shooting in the HDR mode is effective and can significantly improve photos where dynamic range is an issue. There are limitations to HDR, such as the processing time, stability issues from the fact it takes two photos, and the lack of depth information capture, but it’s certainly a viable solution in some scenarios. Unfortunately, HTC’s camera app won’t automatically take HDR photos for you; you’ll need to manually select the mode.
Aside from some circumstances in strong lighting, the HTC One M8 really excels in moderate and low light conditions, thanks to the sensor’s large pixel size. Typically, photos you’ll get will be bright, balanced and well saturated, and only occasionally did I experience inaccurate white balance. Image quality seems to be particularly excellent when there’s artificial lighting, something that other smartphone cameras can struggle with.
The removal of optical image stabilization (OIS) from the HTC One M8’s camera module is an interesting choice, and it’s possibly due to the added cost and size. The sensor itself is actually more than capable of producing the goods at night: shooting at ISO 3200 and a shutter speed of 1/10s produces bright, decent images. But having OIS will always produce better images, as the camera can use longer shutter speeds (down to 1/3s on the HTC One M7) and lower ISOs.
Having OIS on the M8 would have validated the continuing effort to produce great results in low light. The large sensor size assists greatly when indoors and in low light, but the final piece of the puzzle feels missing in the One M8, especially as it was a feature of the M7.
The two-tone LED next to the camera – branded as “Smart Flash 2.0” by HTC – does improve the color tone of images taken with the flash, as the intensity of either the cooler or warmer LEDs can be adjusted to give the most accurate image. However, the sensor itself is excellent in low-light conditions, so it’s unlikely the flash will get much use.
So I’ve established there are a few inherent issues with the HTC One’s camera – the removal of OIS and mediocre dynamic range – but problems with metering is the one issue I find most annoying. Some of the photos above are substandard not because the sensor itself is incapable, but because the camera software and firmware isn’t properly adjusting settings for the conditions, especially as the camera appears to spot-meter rather than use a usually superior matrix-metering model.
Chuck the camera into manual mode, and you can achieve much better results than you can in automatic mode. For example when I was taking a photo of the flower seen above, the automatic mode chose ISO 125 and a shutter speed of 1/125s. The image was sharp, but not fantastically so, and conditions were quite cloudy, so I put the M8 in manual mode with an ISO of 200, shutter speed of 1/320s and adjusted the white balance so the image was warmer. The end result from these adjustments was far better.
HTC needs to tweak their camera software slightly to make images look as good as what’s possible in manual mode. The flower image is one example of many where I took a better photo in manual mode, but it’s a fiddly process and the automatic mode should ideally be just as good.
On the One M8 you’ll find a five megapixel front-facing camera, and it’s certainly unusual to see the device with a rear camera smaller in resolution than the front camera. In actual fact, the two sensors have almost equal resolution widths (2688 on the front vs 2560 on the back), but the five-megapixel front camera has a much higher resolution height as it’s 4:3 as opposed to 16:9.
Thanks to the five-megapixel front-facing camera the HTC One M8 is perfect for selfies, as it’s one of the best front-facing units I’ve seen. With that said, the overall quality is not as good as the rear camera in color saturation and sharpness, even though the resolution is higher. It’s definitely the best camera for photographing yourself, but it’d be stupid to use it for all shots just because it’s five megapixels.
As for video recording quality, there are four main recording modes, listed in the table below.
| Video Mode | Standard | Fast Motion | HDR | Slow Motion |
| Max. Resolution | 1920 x 1080 | 1920 x 1080 | 1920 x 1080 | 1280 x 720 |
| Recording FPS | 30 | 60 | 60 | 96 |
| Playback FPS | 30 | 60 | 30 | 24 |
| Bitrate | 20 Mbps | 20 Mbps | 20 Mbps | 12 Mbps |
| Codec | H.264 (High) | H.264 (High) | H.264 (High) | H.264 (Baseline) |
| Audio | 2ch 192 kbps AAC | 2ch 192 kbps AAC | 2ch 192 kbps AAC | None |
Despite recording 60 frames per second video at the same bitrate as 30 FPS in Fast Motion mode, the quality is still good, as you can see by downloading a sample here. If you need to record fast moving subjects, this is the best mode to use, and won’t consume any more storage space than 1080p30. However in most other scenarios I’d stick to 30 FPS for the extra quality per frame.
Battery Life
Packed into the HTC One M8 is a 2,600 mAh 3.8 V battery for a total capacity of 9.88 Wh, which is 13% larger than the HTC One M7. In HTC’s documentation for the all new One, the company claims this battery can last 40% longer, which is an interesting claim considering the physical difference. This difference could be attributed to the more power efficient Snapdragon 801 SoC, or improvements in display technology, but it’s something I’ll be testing.Generally I experienced better battery life from the One M8 than I did from the M7. With typical usage I would end a day with around 40% of the juice remaining to be used, which is a decent result. This is comparable to what I achieved with the Sony Xperia Z1 and its 11.4 Wh battery, but not as good as the LG G2’s highly efficient usage of its own 11.4 Wh battery contained inside.
The HTC One M8 packs two separate power saving modes. One is the standard power saving mode, which conserves CPU usage, reduces brightness and kills the data connection when the screen is turned off. It can save battery life where necessary, but it doesn't provide massive gains.
The other is the Extreme Power Save mode, which as its name suggests is a much more severe way to conserve battery life. When the feature is enabled, everything else is disabled, giving you access just to the essential features of the phone: calls, messages, email, calendar, and the calculator. By transforming the device into a souped-up feature phone, HTC claims you can get up to 30 hours of life from just 10% remaining charge.
While the feature definitely seems cool, I couldn’t test it because it wasn’t actually installed on my test unit. HTC assures me that the feature will be made available to devices worldwide through an over the air update, so don’t be surprised if it isn’t on your HTC One M8 out of the box.
Starting with this review of the HTC One M8, we’re adding to the set of battery benchmarks we run on devices. I’ve been building up a set of results over the past few months so we can compare the M8 to some other devices currently on the market.
In this test we're looping a full refresh of the TechSpot homepage at a 90 second interval (which simulates reading lengthy webpages like this review). Brightness is set to 50% and the SIM card is removed so cellular networks aren't used. Most devices seem to perform well in this particular benchmark, and the One (M8) is no exception. If you're reading many web pages on the device, expect pretty good battery life.
In GFXBench’s battery test, which runs a loop of the GPU-intense T-Rex HD test 30 times at 50% brightness before extrapolating how long the phone would last, the HTC One (M8) performs pretty disappointingly. What could be a culprit here is HTC’s benchmark cheating code that bumps the CPU up to 2.5 GHz regardless of the CPU load, which naturally will drain more battery than necessary if the CPU isn’t being used at 100%.
If companies didn’t cheat in benchmarks, maybe they would perform better in tests like this. Sometimes it does backfire.
The HTC One M8 charges quickly thanks to its support of Qualcomm's Quick Charge standard. Expect a full charge time under 2 hours from a 10W charger, although note that the charger included in the box outputs just 1.5A (or 7.5W). It might be worth investing in a more powerful charger to get the quickest charge time out of the One M8.
Dot View Case
The Dot View case is a hardcover plastic shroud for the HTC One M8, complete with a flip-over rubberized cover for protecting the display. The grey unit I received is a fairly standard color, but it also comes in blue, green, red and orange so you can spice up the package if you so choose. It feels tough and well made, and is sure to protect the back from scratches and the front from glass fractures.
Personally I’m not a huge fan of smartphone cases as I rarely drop my smartphone, and most handsets – especially so with the metal HTC One – are tough and built to withstand a few knocks here and there. Cases also prevent me from enjoying the fantastic build quality and premium materials used in devices such as the One M8: with the Dot View case on, I can’t feel that ergonomic aluminium unibody anymore.
That’s not to say the Dot View case feels bad; it’s actually one of the nicer cases I’ve come across, even if it does look significantly less attractive than the exterior of the One. It also doesn’t hamper the performance of the device in any way, meaning you’ll get full use of the cameras, and the same wireless reception you’re used to with the case off.
But the coolest part of the Dot View case isn’t the build at all. In fact, it’s the small holes arranged as dot-matrix grid on the protective display flap, which give this cover additional functionality. You can double tap on the dotted cover to turn on the display, exactly like you can without the case protecting the device, and the handset springs to life to show you important information through the dots.
For example, if you have no notifications present, the display shines through the Dot View cover to provide you the time and weather in a retro-style dot-matrix fashion. If you suddenly get a call, caller ID is visible through the dots, as is a massive arrow allowing you to swipe to answer/hang up the call. It’s possible to answer calls without flipping open the Dot View case, and that’s just part of its brilliance.
It’s also possible to make calls with the Dot View case shut. Simply swipe down from the top of the cover, and the HTC One M8 will initialize the voice dialler in Dot View mode, allowing you to speak the name of the contact you wish to call. The phone works its voice recognition magic (and it’s surprisingly accurate, even with my Australian accent), dials the number and you can chat to colleagues without opening the case.
Not every notification can be displayed on the Dot View case, but important ones such as messages, calendar reminders, timers, tasks and emails will show up, provided you use the included HTC apps. It’s disappointing that it won’t notify you when you receive Gmail messages, but this could change through updates to the platform.
Ideally I’d like to see games like snake or brick breaker become available for the Dot View case. It’d be very cool to see a retro-style dot-matrix version of snake slithering over the closed and protected display cover, but alas, HTC hasn’t incorporated it just yet.
One of the interesting things about the Dot View case from a technical standpoint is that the One M8 can sense when the cover is on and when it isn’t, despite the case lacking any battery-powered components. It doesn’t rely on the proximity sensor to do this, as it’s uncovered next to the front-facing camera, nor does it use NFC (it works with the feature disabled). It’s also possible to display the Dot View mode while the phone is sitting on top of the cover, as pictured, adding to my curiosity.
While I was puzzled as to how the cover works for a few days, and HTC refused to tell me, it didn’t take long to uncover its secret. There’s a small, but powerful magnet hidden inside the HTC logo that you can see amongst the dots, and Dot View mode is enabled whenever the phone is activated and senses the presence of a strong magnetic field. You can fool it into thinking the case is attached with a common fridge magnet.
Final Thoughts
HTC didn’t need to reinvent the smartphone with the all new HTC One. The handset that preceded it established the company as the maker of high-end, premium Android devices, so all that was needed was to build on this solid base. And that’s exactly what HTC did in creating the One M8; this is a smartphone filled with improvements.The design of the One M8 may not be as striking as the original One, but HTC has put in some serious polish to how it feels. The polished gunmetal grey aluminium, which now covers 90% of the non-screen surface area, not only looks fantastic, but it makes the One feel like a flagship product in your hand. A more curved design also makes the M8 more ergonomic than before.
A Super LCD 3 display, now five inches in size, is once again the centerpoint of the M8’s front panel, and it’s one of the best. Viewing angles are truly magnificent from the panel, as is color saturation, plus its 1080p resolution makes images look sharp and text look printed. HTC is facing increased competition in the display space, especially from LG, but the One M8’s display is still one of the best.
The biggest addition to the HTC One M8’s feature list is undoubtedly the Duo Camera. The addition of a depth sensor adds some cool effects, especially Ufocus which simulates depth-of-field to give photos an impressive DSLR-like feel. Aside from the great manual mode, other additions are less useful, but buyers will likely find a lot of pleasure in refocusing images they’ve taken.
Using the same ‘Ultrapixel’ sensor is an interesting one, and while the quality of images has improved, the resolution of each image still proves to be disappointing. In a future HTC flagship I’d love to see a larger sensor with a higher megapixel count, hopefully with OIS back in the mix. The five megapixel front-facing camera is great for selfies, but don’t be fooled by its on-paper specifications: the rear camera is still better.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 801 SoC is a sizable improvement over the Snapdragon 600 used in the original HTC One, but it’s only a minor step above the Snapdragon 800. But any performance improvement is always welcome, and the 801 proves to be massively powerful in both CPU and GPU. Let’s not forget the inclusion of a microSD card slot either, which provides a cheap method of expanding upon the device’s 16 GB of internal memory.
Sense 6.0 is less of a major feature upgrade than a visual improvement, and it finally has adopted a style as awesome as Android 4.4 itself. BlinkFeed is still a great way to keep up with the world, and Motion Launch makes the One M8 easy to pick up and start using. Combined with the Extreme Power Save mode and a generally decent battery life, the HTC One M8 is a wonderful package.
Buying this package won’t be cheap though, as you tend to expect from a flagship product. HTC is selling the device factory unlocked for $699, and it’s also available for $199 on a two-year contract in the States. In the UK and the rest of Europe you’ll need to fork out £530 and €660 (including tax) respectively, and in Australia the M8 sells for AU$850. Upcoming smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy S5 and Sony Xperia Z2 will set you back a similar amount, and the iPhone 5s sells for similar amount currently, so the M8 isn’t prohibitively expensive.
The HTC One M8 is a truly fantastic smartphone, and its few shortcomings can easily be overlooked in favor of a solid feature set in a premium body. Well done to HTC for once again showing what its engineers can do.
90
Pros: Astonishing aluminium build is both
attractive and ergonomic. Snapdragon 801 SoC is immensely powerful. Duo
Camera brings cool features and improved image quality. Great display
from all angles. Sense 6.0 is better than ever before.
Cons: Camera resolution can be prohibitive.
Cons: Camera resolution can be prohibitive.
I like this phone very much............!
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