It is always hard to release a sequel or second album that beats the first. HTC, however, made it look easy when it unveiled the HTC One M8, which was an improvement to the previous ones. The updates are impressive, and the new design is equally attractive. The performance too is remarkably improved.
Design
Creating a jaw-dropping design is certainly not easy to accomplish, nevertheless, the designers of this new HTC One M8 did set quite an impressively high bar.
The bezel is alluringly reflective and oozes class and style. The phone has a slick texture which feels friendlier in your hands. It has a 90% metal chassis that comes in two extra colors, silver and gold that are devoid of HTC’s hairline pattern. When held the phone feels solid and well-constructed.
The screen is 5 inches with powerful stereo speakers, BoomSound, Flank Display. There has not been any considerable modification in the weight of the HTC One M8 for its predecessor HTC One. The size and dimension have also remained pretty much the same.
The Display
The 5-inch display on One M8 is of elegant and premium quality. It is an IPS LCD with impeccable viewing angles, pleasant brilliance and rich in color. It has full HD resolution which gives you crisp text, photos, and videos. The pixel density is, however, slightly lower than that of HTC One, given that HTC One had the same pixel density for a 4.7inch screen.
The Software
HTC One M8 has Android 4.4.2 installed. It is, thus, clean and with reduced clutter in its performance and layout. All the bells and whistles from Google are available including HTC’s Sense UI version 6. Besides enjoying Gmail G+ and Chrome browsing, users have access to Google’s Play digital storefront. Here you can get books, games, movies and well over a million apps. Google’s futuristic Google Now is also onboard and offers an impressive smart notification system. HTC’s BlinkFeed has been improved to allow for further customization and wider display of diverse articles.
Also, onboard the HTC One M8 is an array of gesture-based controls and commands. You can, thus, wake the phone, launch BlinkFeed, fire up the camera and even adjust volume through gesturing.
The Processor
The metal hull houses high-octane parts that deliver cutting edge mobile performance. The CPU is a quad-core Snapdragon 801 with 2.3GHz speed and a healthy 2GB RAM. The phone is available as one with 16GB internal storage or one with 32GB. This capacity can also be increased via micro SD cards. The phone uses Nano-SIM cards.
The Camera
Dual camera lenses are fitted on the primary camera as well as dual-LED flash. A second smaller lens has been added as a depth-perception lens which allows refocusing of images after they have already been captured. This is further augmented by another feature, the Foregrounder that enables you to edit the background of your snaps. Other camera features include 3D Dimension Plus as well as a wide range of shooting modes including night, HDR and sweep panorama.
The only disappointment, however, is that the rear camera is a dual-4MP with the front facing camera being 5MP.
Battery
The 2600mAh battery allows for close to 10 hours of continued use. It also enables the phone to last throughout the day without need for a recharge.
Verdict
HTC did an excellent job with the designing of the HTC One M8. We await the arrival in Nigeria of the HTC One M9 that was announced earlier this month, which we are sure will be an improvement on the HTC One M8.
Image Credit: CNET.com
