Reviews By Russell Holly Apr. 1, 2014 11:00 am
Sequels, no matter what the medium, are difficult to pull off. As soon as you create a sequel to a great experience, you set a bar that will have catastrophic results if missed. The HTC One M8 is the sequel to the most successful phone HTC has ever made, and the company has gone to incredible lengths to make sure it is deserving of the title.
[h=3]Holding a premium product[/h]When you see an expensive watch on someone’s wrist, or a nice pen as it slides out of a pocket, or a reasonably expensive wallet as it is unfolded, you can tell that it is of superior construction and quality. It just looks and feels premium due to how it was assembled and the materials used. The HTC One M8 needed to exceed its predecessor in every way, and in order to accomplish that HTC’s designers needed to make this phone feel unique. This had to be something that only HTC could deliver — from the Ultrapixel camera to the Boomsound speakers and all of the polished metal in between.
As on its predecessor, the decision to add large stereo speakers to the front of the HTC One M8 means that it is taller than the description of a device with a 5-inch screen leads you to believe it should be. Also, there’s a strip of glass just above the bottom speaker that appears to the user to be dead space, save for the HTC logo in the center. On the previous generation, this space also contained the navigation buttons for the OS. The added height did not encourage HTC to relocate the power button to the side of the phone, as we’ve seen with other manufacturers. Instead the power button sits on the top right corner of the phone, but HTC has worked extra hard to make sure you almost never use it.
The curved metal back of the M8 is just as comfortable to hold as the original HTC One, but the newly curved edge make it more comfortable to actually use. The lack of an edge on the side means I can stretch my thumb across the display comfortably if I feel like using the phone with one hand. All four fingers rest on the back with enough grip that there’s no need to hold it from the corners (like you would normally feel like you should.) As a result, the One M8 an incredibly comfortable phone to hold, and despite its size it doesn’t feel like it’s going to slip out of your hand.
The HTC One M8 feels like a complete thought. Every edge is smooth and polished, in fact the only thing that doesn’t feel perfectly rounded off is the seam at the edge of the glass on the front of the phone. Even that has a soft, rigid feel to it that only extends up over the casing at the top and bottom of the phone, so your thumb glides over the side instead of being interrupted by the seam.
Even if you’re a fan of smaller or larger phones, or you aren’t interested in a handset with big speakers on the front and Ultrapixel cameras, you can’t help but appreciate the construction. Every smartphone should be made with this kind of attention to detail and offer such a polished, durable feel when you hold it. Unfortunately for users who own other products — but fortunately for HTC — very few do.
[h=3]The front of the One M8, display, and speakers[/h]We’ve reached a point in display technology where the software and the hardware seem to be at a natural resting place. We’ll see little more than an incremental pixel density fight over the next year, because our user interfaces and our software don’t yet have a need to exist above 1080p. As a result, phones like the One M8 are expected to deliver the best possible display experience but there’s very little expectation for one 1080p display to be noticeably different from the other. That having been said, the M8′s 5-inch 440ppi display is an absolute treat to use.
HTC has been putting high quality 1080p displays in their smartphones for a little while now, and what makes the One M8 different from the others requires a sharp eye and a desire to actually care about whether or not you can see individual pixels. The display does a great job with colors and with text, showing absolutely no problem displaying everything any anything with fantastic brilliance. The display includes a couple of neat tricks — it’s here that makes this particular combination of display and digitizer actually matter. The phone responds to gesture controls even when the screen is off, and will wake up when you double-tap the screen with a finger.
The cool thing about the gesture controls on the HTC One M8 is that they have all but replaced the power button in the device. You can pick the phone up and flick your thumb across the display, sending it into Blinkfeed or to your home screen, and it happens just as fast as reaching up and pressing the button. You can glance down at your phone as it sits on your desk, see the tiny notification light blinking, and give it a quick tap to decide whether or not the notification is worth your time. It’s a good experience if you’re sitting around on the couch or at your disk, and a great experience when you’re out and about.
The HTC One M8 has ditched that red “b” on the back of the phone and replaced it with an oddly similar looking “b” in software. Beats Audio is nowhere to be found on the phone — it was replaced by Boomsound Audio. The concept is remarkably similar, but not quite as extreme as its predecessor. Boomsound is on by default, and when it is on the phone uses an audio profile that favors bass and makes high notes a little sharper. When you toggle the service off in settings you’ll find the audio is no less loud, but a great deal less enjoyable in most cases.
In my testing I found the only time I wanted Boomsound off was when I was listening to spoken word, specifically spoken word in a live setting like a comedy show or a TED talk. The altered sound settings would cause the microphone effects in those environments to be more pronounced, which was irritating. Otherwise, Boomsound is a welcomed departure from Beats Audio.
Next page: HTC’s Sixth Sense
More...
[h=3]Holding a premium product[/h]When you see an expensive watch on someone’s wrist, or a nice pen as it slides out of a pocket, or a reasonably expensive wallet as it is unfolded, you can tell that it is of superior construction and quality. It just looks and feels premium due to how it was assembled and the materials used. The HTC One M8 needed to exceed its predecessor in every way, and in order to accomplish that HTC’s designers needed to make this phone feel unique. This had to be something that only HTC could deliver — from the Ultrapixel camera to the Boomsound speakers and all of the polished metal in between.
As on its predecessor, the decision to add large stereo speakers to the front of the HTC One M8 means that it is taller than the description of a device with a 5-inch screen leads you to believe it should be. Also, there’s a strip of glass just above the bottom speaker that appears to the user to be dead space, save for the HTC logo in the center. On the previous generation, this space also contained the navigation buttons for the OS. The added height did not encourage HTC to relocate the power button to the side of the phone, as we’ve seen with other manufacturers. Instead the power button sits on the top right corner of the phone, but HTC has worked extra hard to make sure you almost never use it.
The curved metal back of the M8 is just as comfortable to hold as the original HTC One, but the newly curved edge make it more comfortable to actually use. The lack of an edge on the side means I can stretch my thumb across the display comfortably if I feel like using the phone with one hand. All four fingers rest on the back with enough grip that there’s no need to hold it from the corners (like you would normally feel like you should.) As a result, the One M8 an incredibly comfortable phone to hold, and despite its size it doesn’t feel like it’s going to slip out of your hand.
The HTC One M8 feels like a complete thought. Every edge is smooth and polished, in fact the only thing that doesn’t feel perfectly rounded off is the seam at the edge of the glass on the front of the phone. Even that has a soft, rigid feel to it that only extends up over the casing at the top and bottom of the phone, so your thumb glides over the side instead of being interrupted by the seam.
Even if you’re a fan of smaller or larger phones, or you aren’t interested in a handset with big speakers on the front and Ultrapixel cameras, you can’t help but appreciate the construction. Every smartphone should be made with this kind of attention to detail and offer such a polished, durable feel when you hold it. Unfortunately for users who own other products — but fortunately for HTC — very few do.
[h=3]The front of the One M8, display, and speakers[/h]We’ve reached a point in display technology where the software and the hardware seem to be at a natural resting place. We’ll see little more than an incremental pixel density fight over the next year, because our user interfaces and our software don’t yet have a need to exist above 1080p. As a result, phones like the One M8 are expected to deliver the best possible display experience but there’s very little expectation for one 1080p display to be noticeably different from the other. That having been said, the M8′s 5-inch 440ppi display is an absolute treat to use.
HTC has been putting high quality 1080p displays in their smartphones for a little while now, and what makes the One M8 different from the others requires a sharp eye and a desire to actually care about whether or not you can see individual pixels. The display does a great job with colors and with text, showing absolutely no problem displaying everything any anything with fantastic brilliance. The display includes a couple of neat tricks — it’s here that makes this particular combination of display and digitizer actually matter. The phone responds to gesture controls even when the screen is off, and will wake up when you double-tap the screen with a finger.
The cool thing about the gesture controls on the HTC One M8 is that they have all but replaced the power button in the device. You can pick the phone up and flick your thumb across the display, sending it into Blinkfeed or to your home screen, and it happens just as fast as reaching up and pressing the button. You can glance down at your phone as it sits on your desk, see the tiny notification light blinking, and give it a quick tap to decide whether or not the notification is worth your time. It’s a good experience if you’re sitting around on the couch or at your disk, and a great experience when you’re out and about.
The HTC One M8 has ditched that red “b” on the back of the phone and replaced it with an oddly similar looking “b” in software. Beats Audio is nowhere to be found on the phone — it was replaced by Boomsound Audio. The concept is remarkably similar, but not quite as extreme as its predecessor. Boomsound is on by default, and when it is on the phone uses an audio profile that favors bass and makes high notes a little sharper. When you toggle the service off in settings you’ll find the audio is no less loud, but a great deal less enjoyable in most cases.
In my testing I found the only time I wanted Boomsound off was when I was listening to spoken word, specifically spoken word in a live setting like a comedy show or a TED talk. The altered sound settings would cause the microphone effects in those environments to be more pronounced, which was irritating. Otherwise, Boomsound is a welcomed departure from Beats Audio.
Next page: HTC’s Sixth Sense
More...
