The HTC One (M8) Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Joshua Ho on March 26, 2014 7:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- HTC
- Mobile
- HTC One
Snapdragon 801 Performance
The M8 is the first smartphone we’ve tested to use Qualcomm’s newly announced Snapdragon 801 SoC. At a high level the 801 is a frequency bump enabled by a 28nm HPm process push, giving it a tangible increase in performance (and potential decrease in power consumption) compared to the outgoing Snapdragon 800. The table below compares the 801 variants to the Snapdragon 800:
| Snapdragon 800/801 Breakdown | ||||||||||
| SoC Version | Model | Max CPU Frequency | Max GPU Frequency | ISP | eMMC | DSDA | Memory IF | |||
| MSM8974VV | v2 | S800 | 2.2GHz | 450MHz | 320MHz | 4.5 | N | 800MHz | ||
| MSM8974AA | v2 | S800 | 2.3GHz | 450MHz | 320MHz | 4.5 | N | 800MHz | ||
| MSM8974AB | v2 | S800 | 2.3GHz | 550MHz | 320MHz | 4.5 | N | 933MHz | ||
| MSM8974AA | v3 | S801 | 2.3GHz | 450MHz | 320MHz | 5.0 | Y | 800MHz | ||
| MSM8974AB | v3 | S801 | 2.3GHz | 578MHz | 465MHz | 5.0 | Y | 933MHz | ||
| MSM8974AC | v3 | S801 | 2.5GHz | 578MHz | 465MHz | 5.0 | Y | 933MHz | ||
In most parts of the world the M8 will ship with a 2.3GHz Snapdragon 801. In Asia/China however we’ll see the 2.5GHz MSM8974AC v3 SKU instead.
Compared to the outgoing Snapdragon 800, peak CPU performance shouldn’t increase all that much. What we may see however is an improvement in power efficiency thanks to the improved 28nm HPm process.
It’s really the GPU that will see the largest increase in performance. With a maximum speed of 578MHz and paired with faster LPDDR3-1866 memory, we should see up to a 30% increase in GPU bound performance over Snapdragon 800 designs.
- Physics
| Snapdragon 801 vs 800 vs 600 | |||||||
| HTC One (M8) - Snapdragon 801 | Google Nexus 5 - Snapdragon 800 | HTC One (M7) - Snapdragon 600 | 801 vs 800 | 801 vs 600 | |||
| SunSpider 1.0.2 | 772.8 ms | 686.9 ms | 1234.8 ms | -12% | +37% | ||
| Kraken Benchmark 1.1 | 6745.2 ms | 7245.9 ms | 12166.5 ms | +7.4% | +45% | ||
| Google Octane v2 | 4316 | 3726 | 3103 | +16% | +39% | ||
| WebXPRT Overall | 373 | 392 | 244 | -5% | +53% | ||
| AndEBench - Native | 17430 | 17480 | 12381 | -1% | +41% | ||
| 3DMark 1.1 Ultimate | 19631 | 17529 | 10519 | +12% | +87% | ||
| 3DMark 1.1 Ultimate - Physics | 50.5 | 51 | 33.1 | -1% | +53% | ||
| Basemark X 1.1 - HQ | 12194 | 11275 | 4807 | +8.1% | +154% | ||
| GFXBench 3.0 - Manhattan Onscreen | 11.1 fps | 9.3 fps | 5.1 fps | +19% | +118% | ||
| GFXBench 3.0 - Manhattan Offscreen | 10.4 fps | 8.7 fps | 4.4 fps | +20% | +136% | ||
| GFXBench 3.0 - T-Rex HD Onscreen | 29.9 fps | 24.3 fps | 12.6 fps | +23% | +137% | ||
| GFXBench 3.0 - T-Rex HD Offscreen | 27.9 fps | 22.9 fps | 12.6 fps | +22% | +121% | ||
CPU Performance
GPU Performance
NAND Performance
The One is available in either 16GB or 32GB configurations, there are no higher capacity versions offered. There is now a micro SD card slot on the right side of the device, just above the volume rocker.
Despite using a Snapdragon 801 SoC, the internal storage is still an eMMC 4.5 solution.
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hangfirew8 - Friday, April 4, 2014 - link
In summary, many of these items were addressed in past reviews, but were not in this review... and THAT is depressing.Hopefully this is just a transitional issue and AT will cover more technical detail again in the future. This is still one of the best M8 reviews on the Web, but sadly that is not a high bar.
Human Bass - Thursday, March 27, 2014 - link
The cel seems great...but 4MP Camera is way too low. Camera sensors already evolved enough to perform quite good with 8MP with very little noise. And it seems they forgot that when you have more MPs, you can actually chose to go lower. Im sure the Galaxy 5 camera will perform incredbly well at 8 or 4MP if I am in an enviroment that noise worries me more than resolution.deskjob - Thursday, March 27, 2014 - link
Great review. It was surprisingly to see the significant improvement in battery life between the S600 and S801, or even the the S800 and the S801. Now imagine if HTC bucked its trend of putting smaller than average batteries in its flagship! Come to think of it, the Butterfly S is probably just as tall as the M8, and it packs a 3200mah cell. That would be yummy.M9 wishlist - 3200mah+ battery cell, 8MP ultrapixel rear shooter with Nokia level OIS, S805 (or whatever comes after that), even louder and better stereo speakers and DACs for headphones. Keep the microSD!
Bonus material - somehow fit all that in the OG One's dimension! Water/dust resistant would also be cool and actually useful.
In the mean time, I will continue to rock the OG One...
asaini007 - Thursday, March 27, 2014 - link
I notice that it says the M8 has DDR3 RAM here (LPDDR3). But every single other site I've read claims it has DDR2 (for example http://goo.gl/JeDTgQ) Am I missing something?Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, March 27, 2014 - link
HTC's original reviewer's guide incorrectly stated DDR2, they updated it to DDR3, but there's LPDDR3 inside.JacksonSparks - Thursday, March 27, 2014 - link
Hey Anand, your old pal Jackson here. Spot on review: I just got a sweet 2 for 1 deal from Verizon with $100 bill credit. Bottomline, that's two of these beauties for $160 and a 2 year contract. I don't see anyone beating out Verizon's coverage and reliability anytime soon, I am happy with my first smartphone purchase ever.asaini007 - Thursday, March 27, 2014 - link
As usual, love the detail of the AnandTech review... However, I'm wondering why things such as radio performance/call quality and speaker (BoomSound) performance are not analyzed?asaini007 - Thursday, March 27, 2014 - link
Never mind, after reading the comments I've seen this question has been addressed. But I'm still wondering about the RAM - is it DDR2 or the faster DDR3?sferrin - Thursday, March 27, 2014 - link
Please God, tell me they ditched the abominable Blink Feed. I went from an EVO with 7-screens and multiple scenes to 5 screens with one unusable due to Blink Feed.thedenti5t - Thursday, March 27, 2014 - link
Blinkfeed is there but you can remove that garbage