HTC’s struggle in the smartphone OEM space has almost become a constant in the past few years, with a dramatic fall from the top of sales and market share in many regions around 2011, to now. While the One line in 2012 was hoped to be the reinvention that would bring HTC back, Samsung effectively dominated 2012 with the Galaxy S3 and Note 2, and while the HTC One/M7 in 2013 was a ground-breaking phone with great critical acclaim, HTC posted its first ever loss.

That brings us to the new One, one of the most leaked devices ever. While the hype surrounding the One (2014) doesn’t quite approach Moto X levels, the leaks have certainly served to fan the hype in many ways. As always, the best way to get all of this out of the way is a table to show the specs. Interestingly enough, the Asian SKU will get the MSM8974ACv3 SoC, which is the 2.45 GHz bin of the Snapdragon 801. At any rate, all the relevant information for international units is below.

  HTC One (2013) HTC One (M8)
SoC APQ8064AB 1.7 GHz Snapdragon 600 MSM8974ABv3 2.26 GHz Snapdragon 801
RAM/NAND 2 GB LPDDR2, 32/64GB NAND 2GB LPDDR3, 16/32GB NAND + microSD
Display 4.7” SLCD3 1080p 5” 1080p LCD
Network 2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Qualcomm MDM9x15 UE Category 3 LTE) 2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Qualcomm MDM9x25 UE Category 4 LTE)
Dimensions 137.4 x 68.2 x 9.3mm max / 4mm min, 143 grams 146.36 x 70.6 x 9.35mm max, 160 grams
Camera 4.0 MP (2688 × 1520) Rear Facing with 2.0 µm pixels, 1/3" CMOS size, F/2.0, 28mm (35mm effective), 2.1 MP front facing 4.0 MP (2688 × 1520) Rear Facing with 2.0 µm pixels, 1/3" CMOS size, F/2.0, 28mm (35mm effective) and rear depth camera, 5MP f/2.0 FFC
Battery 2300 mAh (8.74 Whr) 2600 mAh (9.88 Whr)
OS Android 4.4 with Sense 5.5 Android 4.4 with Sense 6
Connectivity 802.11a/b/g/n/ac + BT 4.0, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, MHL, DLNA, NFC 802.11a/b/g/n/ac + BT 4.0, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, MHL, DLNA, NFC
SIM Size MicroSIM NanoSIM

As seen by the table, going from the One 2013 to One 2014 is mostly a jump in platform, size, and battery. Previous pain points like the lack of microSD expansion are gone, although I find it disappointing that HTC has decided to view microSD as a way to cut costs on internal NAND rather than a supporting feature, although it remains to be seen if the 32GB SKU will remain standard on the US operator variants. Some of the disappointment also carries over to the camera, which retains the same sensor from last year when it’s become clear that while larger pixel size was a great boon to low light spatial resolution and quality, it came at a great cost to low ISO, daytime spatial quality. HTC has also cut out OIS as they claim that the dual camera system doesn't work with OIS. While the HTC One 2013 was tall, this is even taller. While it may not be as wide as a phablet, it’s almost as tall as one, something that makes the top-mounted power button incredibly hard to justify, especially with its awkward positioning on the top right.

While those definitely hurt the new One’s first impressions, there’s surprisingly a lot to like. The new design, which might have seemed rather “inspired by nature” in photos, is quite striking in person to see, especially with the brushed gunmetal grey finish. The new edges, reminiscent of the 8X, take the all-metal unibody design even further should feel great in the hand, and the size/height concerns are lessened by the new motion gestures that allow double tapping or swiping up with the screen off to turn on the display. While daytime spatial resolution is unlikely to be any better than before, the new depth camera enables some potentially interesting bokeh effects that other phones are unlikely to be able to pull off without requiring still subjects and long shot to shot latency. An example of this bokeh effect, called "UFocus" can be seen above and below. There are other features that are also enabled by the depth camera, such as some perspective shift/warp effects and seasons, which add some rather odd effects and change the color balance. I’m not quite sure who asked for seasons, but if you ever wanted to have 3D leaves falling through a photo, it’s there. Something a bit less gimmicky is the copy and paste face feature, which leverages the depth camera to be able to accurately replace faces based upon another face in a photo, which could also have great potential for hilarity.

Camera aside, HTC seems to have made solid improvements upon the 2013 One. The dual-color temperature LED flash first seen in the iPhone 5s has made it into the 2014 One, and the front facing camera has been improved with a new 5MP module. The speakers are now even louder with better bass due to a new amplifier/speaker protection IC and newer speaker modules. Sense 6 is also a solid improvement upon Sense 5.x, with improved Blinkfeed that can adjust feed content based upon social network activity and a skin that heavily utilizes the transparent status bar introduced with Android 4.4, and further flattening of the UI with fewer gradients than before. The buttons are also much less flush than before, a major friction point in the 2013 One. The Snapdragon 801 means that battery life will be dramatically improved from the 2013 One, and while the on screen buttons means that there’s a lot of “wasted” bezel area where capacitive buttons could be, it does mean that a three button layout is used again. HTC is also continuing its Advantage program, which gives 50GB of Google Drive storage and one free screen replacement within the first six months of purchase if the display is shattered.

Ultimately, HTC has solidly improved upon the 2013 One, but in some ways the 2014 version is a bit of a disappointment, something that was almost guaranteed to happen by virtue of how impressive the previous version was with its all-metal unibody build, a camera that was different for the right reasons, and speakers that greatly improved the media consumption experience. Ultimately though, it seems that the two major flaws of the 2013 One, its tall profile and poor daytime camera resolution, have been carried forward. Whether those two flaws are too great to bear compared to everything else on offer is another question entirely, and one that remains to be seen.

Edit:

I thought I had posted this, but HTC managed to launch the AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint variants by 1PM EST, the same day as the announcement. Verizon's rumored exclusive only applies to retail sales, and they have a two week exclusive before other carriers can sell the One M8 at retail locations. This means that AT&T and Sprint will only have the phone for sale online until April 8th.

Also, the Developer Edition and Google Play Edition have both been launched, although they won't be available for a few weeks. The GPe will be the 32GB SKU for 699.99 USD. The Developer Edition should be the same SKU for 649.99 USD. The GPe supports 850/900/1800/1900 MHz GSM, 850/AWS/1900/2100 WCDMA, and 700/850/AWS/1900/2600/1800 on LTE, which means bands 17, 5, 4, 2, 7, and 3, respectively. It should be able to do carrier aggregation on bands 4+17 and 2+17.

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  • Impulses - Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - link

    35mm equivalent isn't very wide, their pseudo 16:9 sensor crop makes it seem wider tho.
  • HangFire - Friday, March 28, 2014 - link

    From AT's M7 article: "The HTC One sensor is 16:9 aspect ratio natively, not the usual 4:3 we’re used to seeing for sensors, with a resolution of 2688 x 1520, for 4.08 MP. "
  • HangFire - Tuesday, March 25, 2014 - link

    Love the return of microSD, I understand that internal NAND is faster, but if a good Class 6 can record 1080p continuously, what's the difference (except a few AT benchmarks)?

    Hate the new size. My One is already a little bit too tall, I certainly don't want anything bigger. I suppose there may be a smaller version coming out, but I have to hesitate about buying that. First of all what to call it- HTC One M8 Mini? Really? More seriously, it is doubtful that a new Mini M8 would get all the latest Android updates, because HTC has a terrible reputation for dropping updates on their non-flagship phones.

    Except for the camera (BIG disappointment in low-light after all the UltraPixel hype), I'll be content to stick with my M7 for a couple of years and then see what's available.

    I do hope HTC stays in the game and steps up their game on Android updates for non-flagships. We need competition, I would HATE to live in a Samsung vs. Apple only world.
  • Impulses - Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - link

    I don't think the likes of LG, Sony, and Lenovo would just hand the market to Samsung... They're large enough that their phone divisions can suffer for years. I agree tho, I hope HTC pulls thru, my first three smartphones were all HTC (and all my dumbphones were Nokia except for a Sony Ericsson).
  • apertotes - Tuesday, March 25, 2014 - link

    "although I find it disappointing that HTC has decided to view microSD as a way to cut costs on internal NAND rather than a supporting feature"

    That! It is so disappointing. Also, given all the aluminium, and industrial design, etc, it would not hurt to add a bit of water resistance in there.
  • Anders CT - Tuesday, March 25, 2014 - link

    Good: Removing capacitive buttons
    Bad: Keeping bezel for placement of non-existant capacitive buttons
    Good: Frontfacing speakers
    Both: No OIS. OIS is good for taking video, but often causes shutter lag
  • Impulses - Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - link

    OIS itself shouldn't cause shutter lag, bad camera software hunting for focus or over emphasizing slow shutter speeds would, I'd think.
  • Hairs_ - Tuesday, March 25, 2014 - link

    But... weren't we assured by Brian and Anand that it was *totally impossible* to get a micro SD slot into these unibody phones? That nobody wanted anything else, and that cloud data was not only available, but reliable, trustworthy and reasonably priced?

    It's almost as if... that was a load of piffle.. spun out by Apple and other companies whose PR wanted to spin that line, because it allowed those companies to pursue anti-consumer price gouging tactics and introduce unnecessary forced obsolesence!

    Say it ain't so..
  • Impulses - Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - link

    It'll be interesting to see how the slot is implemented. Several years ago lots of dumbphones and even a few smartphones had edge mounted card slots (like lots of tablets still), but for some reason moving it under the battery became the norm which made it far less useful.
  • Gigaplex - Tuesday, March 25, 2014 - link

    "although I find it disappointing that HTC has decided to view microSD as a way to cut costs on internal NAND rather than a supporting feature"

    In Australia, if you want more than the bare minimum NAND capacity on contract, you have to go with the iPhone. Every other model is offered by the carriers in the lowest tier possible with no option to upgrade. I don't even consider phones without microSD anymore.

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