The HTC One M9 Review: Part 2
by Joshua Ho on April 6, 2015 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- HTC
- Qualcomm
- Mobile
- Snapdragon 810
- One M9
WiFi Performance
Fundamentally, a smartphone is defined by its ability to connect to the internet. Although cellular data is important, WiFi performance is crucial for anyone on a limited data plan and in areas where cellular data is slow or nonexistent. To this end, HTC has outfitted the One M9 with Broadcom’s BCM4356 WiFi/BT combo chipset, which we’ve seen before in the Nexus 6. This chipset supports 2x2 802.11ac, but the One M9 only supports a maximum 433 Mbps physical link rate, which means that it’s only using a single spatial stream. I haven’t been able to find any information on the antenna configuration of the One M9, but it’s likely that HTC is only using a single antenna for WiFi on the One M9 which would make it similar to the One M7 and One M8 in that regard. In order to test how this configuration performs, we use IPerf on Android connected to a PC to see how rapidly the device can send UDP packets.
As one can see, there’s a reasonable performance uplift when compared to Qualcomm Atheros’ WCN3680 WiFi/BT combo chip, but it isn’t as big as moving to a 2x2 MIMO configuration. The lack of MIMO also has implications for WiFi range, but WiFi signals degrade quickly enough that this wouldn’t be a massive difference.
GNSS
As the One M9 uses a Qualcomm modem, it's a pretty safe bet that it also uses the modem for GNSS location services. In practice, this means that the One M9 locks on to satellites quickly any time it's possible to download assistance data to speed up GPS.
Without assistance data, the One M9 seems to have worse performance than expected, although weather conditions can always affect overall performance. Time to first lock took a minute and 42 seconds, and accuracy wasn't quite as high as one would hope, tending towards 30 foot accuracy rather than 10 foot accuracy. It's likely that local weather conditions were responsible for this issue, as subjectively it seemed that GPS performance was comparable to other phones tested at the same time.
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phoenix_rizzen - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
Once you start using double-tap-to-wake, and double-tap-status-bar-to-sleep (some launchers even let you set double-tap-on-home-to-sleep), you'll find yourself rarely using the power button for anything.However, if you use your phone a lot for music, you'll really come to love having the power button and volume controls on the back of the phone. You don't have to put your hand in your pocket with the phone to manage the media. Just slide the phone into your pocket with the screen along your leg ... and the buttons are now accessible through the outside of the pocket! So much nicer that way. Especially with the headphone jack on the bottom, which makes the buttons align correctly when the phone is in your pocket (move your finger "up" or straighten it for volume up).
The other really nice thing about the G2 is that it has a 5.2" screen size ... but the overall phone size is smaller than most phones with only 5.0" screens. They're really done a great job keeping the overall phone sizes down since the Optimus G. I have no issues keeping my G2 in my front jeans pockets, front shorts pockets, or the inside pocket of my jackets.
Compared to the last 3 HTC and Sony phones, the LG G2 can be considered a compact phone.
melgross - Monday, April 6, 2015 - link
I think a big part of the problem is that Apple surprised the industry with the A7 64 bit SoC. Everyone is trying to catch up. But it seems likely that no one was actively working on 64 bits except Apple. The new Tegra looks good, but has its own problems with thottling, etc.Qualcomm was caught with its pants down. That's for sure. The 810 seems rushed, and is far from optimized. Perhaps later in the year, new tapeouts will fix some of the problems. Samsung's SoC is a bit better, but is still behind
aenews - Tuesday, April 7, 2015 - link
Well final versions of products haven't been released for the X1. And take in mind that even though the K1 was released earlier than the Snapdragon 805, even the Snapdragon 810 doesn't come close to matching it. And the X1 is "twice" as fast potentially. Even if the final performance is reduced in mobile settings, it would still be far, far faster than anything else =). And the K1 has no issue with throttling. Nvidia wouldn't let default settings be too aggressive if it meant throttling. The Snapdragon 810 would probably perform more admirably in these new devices with the temperature throttling turned off or adjusted in terms of temperature or reduced clock speeds.sonicmerlin - Saturday, April 11, 2015 - link
I would prefer a 32 bit A8X with my iPad Air 2 so I could have the increased RAM footprint of 64 bit apps back. Qualcomm was taken surprise by the public hype of 64 bit. Even the Nexus 9 suffers a bit with 64 bit and only 2 GB of RAM.JeffFlanagan - Monday, April 6, 2015 - link
HTC has made trading my M8 in for a Samsung Galaxy S6 an easy choice. I was probably already going to do it for the VR, but it's clear that their's no benefit to sticking with HTC.melgross - Monday, April 6, 2015 - link
Well, the consensus right now is that the S6 is the best Android phone for sure, but that the Edge is gimmicky and overpriced.jabber - Monday, April 6, 2015 - link
Amazes me that in this day and age a premium smartphone can still screw up the camera. How hard can it be? Forget gimmicks just get the basics right. With so many good off the shelf options...just bizarre.J4ckb1ng - Monday, April 6, 2015 - link
But the camera is a gimmick. A phone is designed to make and receive calls. How odd nobody seems to want a phone to do the one thing it is primarily designed to do. When I read HTC was fiddling with the camera on the M9, I heaved a sigh of relief.jabber - Monday, April 6, 2015 - link
If you said that 5+ years ago I would have tended to agree but that's no longer the case. The camera for many has become more important than making calls.I bet if you asked a survey of 1000 smartphone users what was the top three reasons for having a smartphone I'd be surprised if making calls scraped in at 3.
Refuge - Monday, April 6, 2015 - link
I saw that you are on your first smartphone in another post of yours. So I understand if you haven't converted yet.But Smartphones aren't phones. I mean they are, but they aren't.
They are hubs to the world. This is a communication device, that is meant to be mobile and contain every form of communication we could ever crave.
Instagram, facebook, youtube, text messaging, instant messaging, skype, Uvuu, phone too.
I use mine mostly for internet, email, and text. But thats just the nature of my business. Phone calls come through too, but only for things that can't be said one off in a text.