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
Final Words
Earlier in this review I commented on just how quickly handset OEMs seem to adopt features pioneered by one another. Combine that with the fact that silicon providers like Qualcomm enable a lot of these features across all partners and it’s no surprise that differentiation is becoming an increasingly difficult problem in the smartphone industry. Add to that the trend towards lower cost, lower margin devices making up more of smartphone volume and it becomes very obvious that what HTC is trying to do with the One is incredibly difficult.
There’s good reason that we don’t see many full metal designs in the Android space. It’s a crowded market and when the cost differential between a plastic and full metal chassis approaches an order of magnitude, it’s an easy decision for most. HTC picked the road less traveled with the One last year, and I’m honestly quite glad to see continued commitment to the path with the M8.
While I often praise the Moto X for its wonderful ergonomics, there really is no other Android phone like the One (both old and new) when it comes to feel. The M8’s design is different than its predecessor, but everything I liked about the M7 I find myself liking in its replacement. The device is great to look at, it’s great to hold and it’s built with an eye for design that we just don’t see in a lot among Android OEMs. Including a micro SD card slot is sure to win over some users, and I’m happy to see a move to nano sim as well.
The biggest issue I have with the M8’s design is that it is a little too tall for me. I feel like that was a concession to support the second camera sensor on the back and I’m not sure it was worth it. I will readily admit though that this is very much a personal preference. I remember holding the M7 and thinking it was a bit too big for me, and that was just a year ago. Either my eyesight is getting worse (probably) or I’m beginning to come around to even larger form factors (not quite at the 6-inch range though).
The M8 is more than a pretty face, it’s very well executed on a number of fronts. The underlying hardware is a substantial upgrade compared to the Snapdragon 600 platform in the original One. Battery life is up by as much as 70%. And in areas where battery life doesn’t increase, performance goes up by almost double at effectively no power cost. What was most surprising to me is that even in situations where I ran the CPU or GPU at max performance, the Snapdragon 801 based M8 was able to deliver better battery life or power efficiency compared to the S600 based M7. I shouldn’t really be caught off guard by that given the substantial difference in process, but it just feels rare these days to get these sorts of improvement in a 12 month period.
The RF stack gets a worthwhile upgrade compared to M7 as well. Most SKUs use two components from Qualcomm’s RF360 platform (the envelope tracker and antenna tuner). It’s still to early to get the full RF360 platform in a device, but both of these components play a role in improving power efficiency in connectivity bound scenarios.
Sense 6.0 is a nice improvement over the previous version. Lately I’ve been feeling like the right solution is somewhere between AOSP and these fully custom UIs, but HTC is probably closer than most in getting there. Sense 6.0 is fairly non-intrusive and having a camera UI/app that actually works is definitely worth a departure from stock Android.
HTC’s camera tuning and app remain some of the best executed in the Android space. The new camera UI is even more simplified, without sacrificing flexibility should you need it. The new Auto Max ISO settings are incredibly useful, and honestly solved one of the biggest problems I had with the M7.
The Duo Cam features vary from gimmicky to surprisingly cool. I don’t know that the addition of a second camera sensor is good allocation of BoM (Bill of Materials) resources, particularly if it’s not going to improve image quality. Just like with the M7’s UltraPixel camera however, HTC has its finger on the pulse of where things are headed. With physical limits to what can be done with camera modules in ever shrinking smartphone z-heights, using compute to improve the experience is an obvious next step. In the case of the M8, HTC leverages compute to automate effects processing and not improving IQ, which is the main problem. I feel like there’s an audience for HTC’s Duo Cam effects, but it would be a broader one if the setup improved image quality as well.
There are differences in camera tuning compared to the M7, but by and large captures aren’t really improved. In some cases there’s even a regression thanks to the lack of OIS. Ultimately that’s the biggest problem with the new One. It’s an upgrade in so many areas but it lacks the substantial step forward in primary camera quality that is necessary to move the high end to a better place. I will say that the UltraPixel camera can still produce some amazing photos. Particularly for web use and sharing the way we do, I’m still very pleased with what comes out of the One. It’s an extremely versatile shooter, I just wish it improved as much as the rest of the platform did this generation.
I ran into someone last week who was on the verge of purchasing an M7. I told him all about the different options on the market, including those about to be on the market, and he responded by saying that it didn’t matter. Material feel and quality both mattered more to him than anything else, and for someone in that boat, HTC is virtually peerless in the Android space. I don’t know how big of a market that is, and thankfully the M8 delivers more than just design. It’s a very well executed phone, and as I mentioned earlier - if you liked the M7, you’ll be very happy with the M8. The question is whether or not that’s good enough. I feel like HTC has the makings of a real success story, but it needs slightly broader appeal. HTC has the right formula, which is the hard part - it just needs a little tweaking.
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berantle - Friday, March 28, 2014 - link
@Death666Angel, it is not a stupid argument. It is a rational reasonable argument.Fundamentally, it is a phone first and whatever else second. Yes, it is capable of other things but it cannot fully replace what other purpose-specific devices do better. Taking into account the size, form factor and the practical realities of smartphones, it is actually pretty foolish to expect that these fully replace the proper devices for it.
The main point about the camera as stated ad nauseum is the camera's resolution is sufficient for what many people use the photos taken from it - i.e. post onto social websites and blogs, and view them on their 1080p (1920x1080) Full HD TV. The 4MP resolution of the HTC One (both M7 and M8) camera equates to 2688 x 1520 images at 16:9 ratio. This size provides more than enough detail for 1080p Full HD TVs that are very common nowadays. Posting on Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Snapchat, etc, the image sizes shown on screen rarely, if ever, go as large as 1920x1080.
Good photos are rarely just about how detailed it shots. It's about picture composition/framing, quality of lenses and proper focusing, and a basic understanding and proper use of photography technicalities. If you're a crap photographer, having a higher number of pixels only means you're likely to be taking crap photos that have more detail.
That all said, personally, 4MP (2688x1520) pictures are at the lower end of my requirements. It would be nice to have a sensor of more 2-micrometer pixels than 4MP. As it is, the 4MP picture resolution of the HTC One camera is adequate for my needs.
Thermalzeal - Friday, March 28, 2014 - link
I don't think it's a broken record. While photo's look similar on a phone's display, they certainly differ in quality when viewed on a higher DPI display. You are right that there is a small audience that appreciates this, but this is a high end product to top off the premium tier of HTC phones. I like the concept of the dual camera, but it would have been nice to get at least a 12MP sensor since they are not really cost prohibitive.Also in the end, you can always down sample a photo, but in the future where bazillionK resolution is the standard, these photo's will look like your mom and dad's black and whites.
evonitzer - Saturday, March 29, 2014 - link
"I like the concept of the dual camera, but it would have been nice to get at least a 12MP sensor since they are not really cost prohibitive."But at what cost in performance? Low light performance will suffer. I do not understand people's difficulty in this minor complexity. The resolution is good enough, and enables greater performance in low light. Daylight shots will lack resolution. We do not need to boil it down any further to "this camera is crap" or "this camera is great". This camera does exactly what it is designed to do and it is up to shoppers to decide if it is right for them.
dimsum888 - Saturday, March 29, 2014 - link
compared to other flagship phones it doesn't perform well. at its price point it is expected all features are comparable to other high end phones.jospoortvliet - Sunday, March 30, 2014 - link
No, compared to other phones it does worse at still pictures with outside day light and better at moving picks and at night. So there is a choice: if you want to take pics inside orat night or of moving objects, the HTC one is best. If you take pics of static objects in good lightning conditions, buy another phone. I know why I prefer my HTC, which makes the better pics in 90% of relevant (for me) circumstances but ymmv.notposting - Monday, March 31, 2014 - link
Or get one of the Lumia's which take better pics both outdoors, indoors, good light, no light, have OIS, have the resolution to allow cropping, some allow for saving a copy in RAW.Between the Note 3, S4/S5, iPhone 5S, Lumia 92x/1020, LG G2, and the Sony lineup, there is basically little reason to choose the HTC if the camera is at all important to you.
augustofretes - Monday, March 31, 2014 - link
The resolution isn't good enough. The detail capture is obscenely poor. People zoom-in their images to see their friends and stuffs in the picture you know? While I agree that 12MP is not really necessary, 8MP + OIS are way a better choice than the nonsense of 4MP + secondary sensor for gimmicky procedures.Blown503 - Monday, March 31, 2014 - link
5 megapixels is an 8x10 picture on paper, 8 megapixels is a 16x20 picture on printed paper. The are printed @ 300 dpi.Chaser - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
I've owned the HTC One M7 and if its one area I was disappointed in was its versatility as a point and shoot. Yes the low light level is very good but with larger scale more distance "scenic" outdoor photos there is a difference with the high pixel phone cams. So yes, while a photo of a flower pot on a table may not look "noticeably different" the quality of even smartphone cams vary. I know because I go through flagship smartphones at least once a year sometimes sooner and I use their cameras frequently as I have no desire to carry around an extra camera.Let me make another distinction. If you do take a photo and later desire to crop and resize that photo (and post it on social media for example) the higher pixel cameras won't lose detail like the lower pixels cameras such as my former HTC One would. So enough with the "broken record" about pixels not mattering. I can assure you they do. Even smart phone camera image quality and versatility has improved significantly since two years ago. I sold my HTC One because I was disappointed with it's overall camera quality. I am much happier with my new LG G2's higher pixel camera.
perpetualdark - Wednesday, April 2, 2014 - link
While I agree that the HTC One camera is good enough and even better than other phones in certain situations (ie low light), the megapixel argument does hold water. Unless every picture you take is at standard zoom, the number of pixels in a smartphone is very important. This is NOT a camera with a physical zoom lens on it, so zoom is purely a factor of megapixels. The more pixels you have, the more you can zoom in.Keep in mind, every other camera on smartphones has a smaller lens aperture though, so while you can zoom way in with higher megapixels, you have to have longer exposure to get the same amount of light to the sensor to get the same picture quality, and again the lower the ambient light, the worse the picture. In well lit scenes that are fairly static, an 8 or 16 megapixel camera will be able to zoom way in and get a great picture that is still high resolution even on a 1080p television or monitor. The 4mp might be better in low light and might take great pictures at no zoom, but it cannot touch the zoom capabilities of the higher megapixel cameras. Not without a physical zoom lense, and you aren't going to find that in a smartphone.
Bottom line is that if you like to take a lot of pictures where you need to zoom in, and don't want to always be carrying around a professional grade camera, this isn't the phone for you. And for crying out loud, if you are going to make an argument, at least make a valid one..