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
Battery Life
The new One features an integrated 3.8V 2600mAh battery (9.88 Wh), a 13% increase in capacity compared to the previous model. The battery comparison isn’t that simple however. The M8 has a larger display (5” vs 4.7”) but it also has a higher performing and more power efficient SoC (Snapdragon 801 vs. 600). To find out how the new One stacks up against its predecessor, we turn to a mix of old and new battery life tests to help better characterize the device.
We’ll start with our standard browser based battery life tests. Keep in mind here these tests are as much about replicating a particular CPU profile as they are about loading specific web pages in order.
We saw a substantial gain in battery life with Snapdragon 800, and 801 extends that even further. For the same, relatively light (yet constant) workload, the M8 improves battery life over the M7 by as much as 71%. On WiFi the advantage drops to only 38%, but we’re still talking about absolutely huge generational gains.
A constant workload is only one part of the story though. More often than not, when you’re faced with faster compute you end up doing more. To see what the other extreme of battery life looks like I turned to two canned tests: BaseMark OS II and GFXBench 3.0.
I ran both of these tests under the same controlled conditions we always use, with all displays calibrated to 200 nits. BaseMark OS II runs through a bunch of CPU and storage benchmarks (basically the same tests used for the BaseMark OS II system and memory tests), as fast as possible, until the battery dies.
I like this benchmark as it gives us an indication of worst case battery life if you’re absolutely hammering the CPU (and storage) relentlessly.
Despite the faster CPU cores, the M8’s battery life actually goes up compared to M7. Here we’re really seeing the benefits of 801’s updated 28nm HPm process compared to the Snapdragon 600’s 28nm LP process.
GFXBench provides a similar test, with effectively uncapped performance (on today’s devices at least since we’re not hitting v-sync limits), but stressing the GPU instead of the CPU. Here we’re running the T-Rex HD benchmark, onscreen, until the battery dies.
This is the first and only test we’ve got here that shows a regression in battery life compared to M7. The M8 loses about 6% of runtime compared to the M7, despite having a larger battery. Now look at what happens if we look at performance at the end of the run:
Now the M8’s battery life regression doesn’t look so bad. You give up 6% of runtime but you get almost twice the performance compared to M7. Snapdragon 801 is just a huge upgrade compared to 600.
Charge Time
The M8 features a Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0 enabled PMIC, which enables faster battery charge times through higher voltage charging. Unfortunately the in-box wall adapter is only Quick Charge 1.5 compliant so you'll only pull 7.5W from the wall. HTC expects to offer a Quick Charge 2.0 compliant power adapter later this year.
The M8's charge time is a bit slow compared to what we've seen from other devices with larger batteries.
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thedenti5t - Thursday, March 27, 2014 - link
Got this phone today and absolutley love it. It is the best phone Ive ever used hands down. To answer 2 questions I keep seeing. 1) It does have blinkfeed but you can remove it from you screens. 2) The 3 buttons have been moved to the screen but dissapear when actually using an app or watching a movie. I dont care about the camera as much as others, but it does take nice pictures. You can also crop which is another point I keep seeing people make.vv007420 - Friday, March 28, 2014 - link
Ok I have HTC One (M7) which is around 9 months old.....its still fast and zippy but do you guys think it will be a worthy upgrade to M8...(mind you Im in India and there are no contracts here...we have to pay full price for the phone downright)HangFire - Friday, March 28, 2014 - link
I'm sticking with my M7. It gets down to, is there feature of the M8 you can't live without?asaini007 - Saturday, March 29, 2014 - link
I wouldn't say it's worth the upgrade. Wait till the M9 imosynaesthetic - Friday, March 28, 2014 - link
I'm going to reserve judgment until iFixit posts a teardown. The last HTC One was virtually impossible to disassemble without destroying it. I realize I probably sound silly, but I don't buy anything I can't repair myself.I feel very strongly about our electronic waste problem and I believe a good way to help reduce e-waste is to encourage manufacturers to make things that can be (relatively) easy to take apart and repair. Unfortunately this flies in the face of "planned obsolescence," so it'll take a lot of people to actually make it happen... :/
HangFire - Friday, March 28, 2014 - link
Do you rebuild your own automatic transmissions? Just curious.synaesthetic - Tuesday, April 1, 2014 - link
I don't own a car. :P When I did own a car, I had a manual and yes, I either did the work on it myself or had someone else repair it for the stuff I couldn't fix. Cars are still something of a durable good (less so than they used to be, though) and aren't nearly as steeped in planned obsolescence as consumer electronics...Anyway it's just a personal preference, especially since I tend to keep the same phone for two years on average. It's nice to be able to, at the end of those two years, clean everything up, replace the battery, wipe the device and sell it to someone. Keeps the device out of a landfill for a while longer and helps me pay for a new one. :)
Alexey291 - Friday, March 28, 2014 - link
I am really confused.When sammy (we all dislike sammy so fair play i suppose) makes a rehash - its boring and crap and so on.
When HTC essentially makes a larger, less comfortable version (top button? really?) of last years phone (which didn't sell) - it's doing things to design that nobody else does! It's great and amazing! Righto.
And if one remembers that last year's One (m7 or whatever) scratched off the metal finish and turned ugly in literally a month... Yeah design...
Essentially: Camera's meh. Screen's pretty standard, battery pretty normal for the recent crop of devices. Benchmarks are "optimised". Ergonomics are worse. This is going to be a boring year for droid smartphones....
And I love a bit of anecdotal evidence at the end. Very fitting for a serious review. /s
HangFire - Friday, March 28, 2014 - link
You're wrong about the "metal finish". You must be thinking of one of the One variants, because the One doesn't have a finish to be scratched off, it's solid metal (over a plastic sandwich), anyone who read the M7 review knows that. I've had mine for over 3 months and it still looks new.Personally I prefer a top button, I can silence a ringing phone in my breast pocket without even looking at it, my pen prevents me from doing that with a side button, but I realize this is a matter of personal preference.
Alexey291 - Saturday, March 29, 2014 - link
My mate's one was black (you know the usual anodized bs) and yup it scratched off in literally 2 or 3 weeks.And yeah I agree the silver-metallic version is certainly difficult to scratch (well at least not via rubbing it lol) but I personally would have gone for the black one. If I was going to support a dying company that is :)
As for the top button well that really is a matter of preference naturally. Except ofc after however many years of using a side power button one gets used to it. (And that's aside from having to really REACH for it whenever u want to shut the screen off.)
Either way. Not enticing. Neither is S5. Z2 looks ok but is likely meh too. Good thing I still have a year on my contract xD