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HTC One M8 - My point of (re)view

Posted by Unknown Wednesday, July 9, 2014 0 comments

HTC One M8; the newest HTC high-end device! You have probably read plenty of reviews around the internet. Is there anything else that can be discovered or described? Depending on the point of view some aspects can be more or less important. I will try to point out some of the major differences between the HTC One M7 and the HTC One M8 together with describing some of the features I find to be advantages or disadvantages.

Look and feel

That is the part I don’t really want to focus on too much. Not because I don’t find the newest design bad or anything – on the contrary – I just see no reason to use any other word apart from “perfection”.

The screen size and overall dimensions of the device, in my opinion are optimal. I have no difficulties using the device with just one hand. However, if you want to type fast using the stock keyboard, using both thumbs might be better, especially for typing accuracy. The 5-inch display is made using SLCD3 technology, the same we’ve seen in the HTC One (M7). The pixel density is a little bit lower – 441ppi (M8) vs 468ppi (M7) but comparing the devices side by side you won’t say that M8’s display is not as good – it is actually better. Colours are deeper and the screen brightness is higher too on the HTC One M8. But what is more important, is that the screen sensitivity is way better too. According to GSM Arena, “46ms is all it takes for the One M8 to recognize your touch input; the first phone to go under 50ms”. That is quite an impressive result and something I have always wanted to see in Android smartphones. And these are not just purely academic calculations – I actually felt the difference the first time I used the HTC One M8.

Frankly, until the HTC One M8 came out, my favourite HTC phone when it comes to the design was the HTC One X. Of course I was impressed with the HTC One M7 design line, but for me it was sort of too square. Maybe I didn't even realize it by then, but now it is obvious to me – HTC One M8 with its more rounded corners was a perfect move from HTC. It just feels great in the hand and it hurts me badly when I have to place my device into any kind of case. This phone is not meant to be placed in any plastic or rubber case. It is like asking Adriana Lima to wear a mask. Seriously.

So we have a bigger and a brighter screen with great sensitivity. The shape of the phone is ideal. What else could be improved in that area? Two things. Firstly, the screen is covered with the newest Gorilla Glass 3 technology. That is another step forward from its older brother, HTC One M7, which has Gorilla Glass 2. The other, and more important thing can sound a little bit prosaic. It is the power button. In the HTC One M7 it was placed on the top left-hand side of the metal uni-body. In the HTC One M8 it is placed on the opposite side. Such a cosmetic change, but for me, personally, it is much easier to access when holding the device in just one hand. As a side note, for power-users it is also a benefit. Entering the bootloader (vol down + power) is now easier when volume buttons and power button are almost next to each other.

Concluding this chapter I can honestly say that HTC One M8 is simply elegant. I used to love the design of the Sony Xperia Z1 but that was in the HTC One M7 times. Now that impression is gone and I truly think that HTC One M8 is the best looking phone on the market.

Design summary:

5-inch Full HD 1080p SLCD3 @ 441PPI
Improved screen sensitivity (vs HTC One M7)
Gorilla Glass 3 (vs Gorilla Glass 2 on HTC One M7)
Thin, metal and solid construction
Zero-gaps uni-body design
Improved buttons location
Elegant style with perfectly rounded corners

Hardware

Ever since the HTC One M8 came out I've heard some arguments, that this device is not a revolution, more like an evolution and it is not worth upgrading from the HTC One M7. As much as I need to agree that HTC One M8 is an evolution, I can’t agree with the statement that it is not worth upgrading from its older brother. Of course – this is not a revolution. It could be, if not for the HTC One M7. A jump from HTC One X to HTC One M8 would be a true revolution, but also not from the global market stand point – more like inside the portfolio of the HTC as a company.

It’s not a mystery that hardware-wise there is nothing spectacular in the HTC One M8. All the hardware components are the best currently available of course, but also used by other phones manufacturers. So what makes the HTC One M8 so special? The fact that the best hardware is packed inside the most beautiful body. But we’ve been there already, so let’s take a look at the hardware details and let me prove to you that the HTC One M8 is worth upgrading to from the HTC One M7.

The heart of the HTC One M8 is the Qualcomm Snapdragon S801 SoC. Some may say it’s just a minor upgrade from the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC, but it’s definitely a big upgrade from the S600 in the HTC One M7.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC | Picture source: www.qualcomm.com

Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 SoC | Picture source: www.qualcomm.com

Snapdragon 801 uses TSMC's 28nm “HPm” (Krait 400) technology which is the highest standard available among TSMC 28nm variants, while HTC One M7 is known to be based on 28nm “LP” (Krait 300) technology. 28HPm can provide better speed and performance than 28LP. This also allows higher CPU frequency speeds (up to 2.5 GHz per core on the S801 SoC).

Picture source: www.tsmc.com

Next major improvement between the M7 and the M8 is related to the RAM memory. Both S600 and S801 support LPDDR3, but back in 2013 HTC decided to use LPDDR2 memory in the HTC One M7. The LPDDR3 RAM in the HTC One M8 offers higher data rate, greater bandwidth, better power efficiency, and higher memory density. LPDDR3 achieves a data rate of 1600 MT/s and utilizes key new technologies: write-leveling and command/address training, optional on-die termination (ODT), and low-I/O capacitance. LPDDR3 supports both package-on-package (PoP) and discrete packaging types. Generally speaking, RAM memory management on the HTC One M8 is much better, even though both M7 and M8 are equipped with the same amount (2GB) of RAM.

It’s also worth mentioning that the S801 SoC is available in two variants: 8974-AB (up to 2.26 GHz) and 8974-AC (up to 2.5 GHz). The first one is available world-wide, except for the Chinese market, where you can buy the AC version.

Another big difference between the M7 and the M8 is the Adreno GPU. The Adreno 330 available in the HTC One M8 has a few improvements over the older Adreno 320 (HTC One M7): arithmetic logic unit (ALU) – 24 in the M7 vs 32 in the M8; higher clock speed – 400 MHz in the M7 vs 578 MHz in the M8 and the pixel fillrate 3.2 GP/s in the M7 vs 3.6 GP/s in the M8. With an Adreno 330 GPU it’s hardly possible to find any game that will not run smoothly. And this surely won’t change any time soon.

Speaking of games there is one very important aspect of having an aluminium phone body. Heat dissipation on the HTC One M8 is really fantastic. This is noticeable because the HTC One M8 is possibly the only S801 device where the GPU doesn't throttle while gaming. A proper thermal system (which includes software solutions) is as important as GPU power. Without efficient heat dissipation you would never be able to use the full capabilities of the GPU or CPU.

Together with CPU, RAM and GPU improvements there are changes related to the connectivity as well (4G LTE category 3 on the M7 vs 4G LTE Advanced category 4 on the M8).

Picture source: www.radio-electronics.com

Finally, one question comes to mind: Snapdragon 801 added support for eMMC 5.0 (embedded Multi-Media Controller) storage technology but HTC decided to use older, eMMC 4.51 technology. Bummer! But there is a good news about the storage memory too! HTC gathered feedback and listened to the users – microSD card support is back. HTC (alongside Google) tried to change market habits, but lost this little battle. The lack of microSD card support was a deal-breaker for many users, who chose Samsung devices instead. Adding back external card support was a perfect step from HTC and apparently it didn't have any negative impact on the design. HTC kept its zero-gaps uni-body design. Perfect.

Picture source: www.datalight.com

Hardware summary:

Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 (vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 on HTC One M7)
4 x Krait 400 @ 2.26 GHz (vs 4 x Krait 300 @ 1.7GHz on HTC One M7)
LPDDR3RAM @ 933 MHz (vs LPDDR2RAM @ 600 MHz on HTC One M7)
Adreno 330 GPU @ 578 MHz (vs Adreno 320 GPU @ 400 MHz on HTC One M7)
LTE category 4 (vs LTE category 3on HTC One M7)
Both M8 and M7 support NFC, IR, MHL and GPS + Glonass
microSD card support (vs no microSD card support on HTC One M7)
Increased battery capacity: 2,600 mAh (vs 2,300 mAh on HTC One M7)
DSP: Hexagon V50 up to 800 MHz (vs V40 up to 600MHz on HTC One M7)
Qualcomm® Quick Charge™ 2.0 technology (vs 1.0 on HTC One M7)

Camera

UltraPixel is already very well-known and appreciated technology by end-users. Our camera specialist Stonelaughter has already written a few bits about what he thinks of Pixels and Pixellation and Cameras in Phones. In the HTC One M8 HTC decided to continue following that road and they improved the UltraPixel technology even more. The HTC One M8 is equipped with 2.0 um, sensor size 1/3”, ƒ/2.0, 28mm lens together with HTC ImageChip 2. It also has a secondary rear camera responsible for capturing depth information. How does this work? Once you take a picture you can add multiple effects including UFocus (re-focusing), Foregrounder(Sketch, Zoom Blur, Cartoon and Colorize), Seasons(background effects), and Dimension Plus (the picture gets the “3D” effect). Honestly saying I’ve never seen such a variety of options to edit a picture after capture in any other smartphone.

Of course nothing can replace a true DSLR camera, but let’s be honest here – you can’t hide a DSLR in your pocket. Also, hardware is not everything. HTC did an amazing job when it comes to the camera software too. Playing with all these camera features is real fun and the effects are great!

Camera summary:

HTC ImageChip 2 (vs HTC ImageChip 1 on HTC One M7)
Secondary read camera responsible for capturing depth information
DSLR functionality like artistic depth-of-field in photos and other effects
BSI, 2.0 um pixel size, 1/3” sensor size, f/2.0, 28mm lens

Software

HTC One M8 uses the HTC Sense 6.0 interface. I don’t want to focus much on the UI itself because we’ll probably see HTC Sense 6.5 this year. The HTC One M7 is already updated to HTC Sense 6.0 too, but keep in mind that at some point the M7 will stop receiving updates, while HTC One M8 will still get a few more.

Of course the new UI is completely refreshed with new icons, animations and minor features, but there are 2 features worth mentioning that I really like: the ability to change themes, and “Extreme power saving mode”.

There are 4 themes you can use: each gives you a different colour experience in various elements of the user interface. With the 4th theme (last one, at the bottom) you can pretty much achieve the colour palette we all know from HTC Sense 5.0/5.5.

The "Extreme power saving mode" is even more interesting! It shuts off all of the power eating applications and leaves your phone able to make/take calls, and send texts. With Extreme power saving mode on, the battery loses about 1% of life every three hours. HTC claims that the setting will let your phone run up to 40% longer. The regular "Power Saving" mode is still present, but of course it's not as effective as the "extreme" version. The regular power saver reduces the CPU usage (by half), screen brightness, turns off vibration feedback and puts data connections to sleep when the screen is off.

Software summary:

Android 4.4.2 (actually) with Android 4.4.4 coming soon

HTC Sense 6.0

Great camera software

Possibility to change UI themes

"Power Saving Mode" and "Extreme Power Saving Mode"

Fast and smooth UI without any lags

Not too bloated (in contrary to Samsung)

System R/W protection - kernel wp_mod.ko module is needed for rooted users (bad!)

Conclusion

Is it worth upgrading from the HTC One M7 to the HTC One M8? Yes, it really is! The newest high-end device from HTC is better in every aspect: better and bigger screen covered with Gorilla Glass 3, improved design, bigger battery (with greatly extended battery life even in normal use), newer hardware (CPU, GPU, LPDDR3, LTE module, microSD card support and more), the newest software including longer update support, great camera with depth sensor and HTC ImageChip 2.

I believe that the HTC One M8 is the best looking phone I've ever had. Due to top hardware components it performs well in every situation, including heavy gaming. The UI is very well optimized so forget about any lags. HTC One M8 is representative of a new era of Android smartphones. The “legendary” iPhone is no longer a pioneer in terms of touch panel sensitivity or UI smoothness. If you are looking for a powerful device with endless features, a true multimedia monster - HTC One M8 is the right choice.

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A Week with the HTC One (M8) by Kevin

Posted by Unknown Tuesday, April 8, 2014 0 comments

After attending the London Launch on 25th March I switched from my 2013 HTC One M7 to a new, 2014 HTC One M8. I've been using it as a regular phone now for a week, and although I am not a technical reviewer, I wanted to share my first impressions.

From all the leaks and gossip circulating before the launch I was expecting a natural progression from the One to the new One, and in many ways that is what I now have in my hand. The HTC One M8 is not a complete reinvention in the way that its predecessor was. It is a carefully planned evolution of the already iconic M7, and the beginning of a progression which I hope will continue for some time.

Look and Feel

I may have (only) been expecting an incremental step-change in the design, but nothing really prepared me for that first feel of it in my hand. HTC have gone beyond themselves with the new design. The casing is 90% metal not the 'metal/plastic/metal sandwich' of the M7 and the sides wrap around and close with the glass of the screen. It truly is a unibody, and the shape puts me in mind of a smoother, all metal, HTC One X (which had one of the best shaped casings of all the HTC phones in my opinion).

The M8 is so good to hold that I find myself taking it out and playing with it even when I don't need to use it.

One welcome addition to the package contents, along with the mandatory charger, headphones and USB cable, is a simple 'bumper' case which can be used to protect the back of the phone when in use. I thought that was quite a good idea on HTC's part...

...and I do try to use it, but in truth, the feel of the phone in my hand is so good I keep taking the bumper off!

The Display

The screen is the same resolution as the previous HTC One, but stretched to a 5 inch diagonal from the previous 4.7 inch of the M7. Even though the pixels are wider spaced than the M7, they are still so dense that there is no noticeable difference between the two.The same superb screen in an even better hardware package.

This next point may only be subjective, but I do feel that the touch screen response is more accurate, and requires only the lightest of touches. I don't have access to any way of proving or disproving this observation so it must remain just my opinion. However, two other people who have tried it have said the same thing, so I'm happy to report it as such.

(Later edit - According to the French language tech site, Les Numeriques, this is now a proven fact - the M8 has the fastest touch screen response of any smartphone at 46ms.)

Operating System/UI

The software has been upgraded in ways I wouldn't have imagined. Again most changes have been evolutionary rather than revolutionary, but this is not a bad thing when you intend to take the best and make it even better. I have always been a big fan of HTC Sense, and on my previous (M7) HTC One, Sense 5.5 seemed like the best there was, but Sense 6 on the M8 is a big improvement in terms of performance, memory footprint and usability.

It's an accepted fact that modern flagship phone processors are enormously powerful, and this is the case with the M8, but rather than just go for flat out performance (which it also has in shedloads) HTC has used some of the Snapdragon 801's mighty power to make the user experience more 'luxurious'. In several places I found tiny animation touches which are almost subliminal, but which give the user a distinct feel of smoothness, elegance and luxury without sacrificing performance. For the work I do on my phone, it has proven to be tireless. It hasn't lagged or stuttered at all, and the 'luxury touches' just make it feel smoother and faster still. All in all, Android 4.4.2/Sense 6 inside such a stylish body must be the current state of the art.

Camera/Image Software

I'm not a pro photographer (not even a decent hobby one) but I used to do a lot of Photoshop work so I know my way around a photo and how to manipulate it. All I can say is that the new camera and gallery software on the M8 are excellent. Again, the difference between the M7 and the M8 implementation of the Ultrapixel concept is an impressive improvement. I do think that the camera and photo software needs someone to run a dedicated review. There is too much to cover in a first impression.

The original Ultrapixel camera and software tended to polarize the tekkie crowd into the "fors" and the "againsts" based on their need to enlarge and crop, and their opinion of the over processed images created by the default auto settings in the software. I could understand it, but I could never see why HTC needed to cater for less than 1% of the buying public when the rest of the world used their phones to make Instagrams and Facebook selfies ... but there again ... even I felt that there was scope for improvement.

The front-facing "selfie" camera is good enough to challenge a lot of rear-facing cams. At 5 megapixels it is the highest resolution front-facing camera on the market. It picks up great detail, and with the wider angle of the lens it can get everyone (or everything) into the photo.

I took a selfie as a test and I hated it .. it showed every wrinkle and blemish perfectly .. my nose looks like orange peel !!!

And to go with it, here's a group selfie taken during a drunken evening in a London night club !!! It's certainly not a demonstration of photographic skills, but it does show the low light capability of the front-facing camera.

Photos taken by the single Ultrapixel camera are sharper, clearer and less plagued by artifacts than those taken with the same sensor on the M7. In addition, one of the biggest criticisms I heard about the M7 was that it over exposed so badly that any bright light in duller surroundings washed out the picture ... OK ... My friend did a little welding for me today and I used my M8 to catch him at it.

Well... I think the M8 has nailed that little issue well enough...

In my opinion, the basic image processing software has taken a quantum leap in terms of performance. In fully automatic mode the colour reproduction is more lifelike (even though it was already good on the M7), the jpeg tiling artifacts are dramatically reduced, and gone is the nasty edge effect caused by the aggressive over-sharpening on the M7.

This is only the beginning of the story though. HTC have added manual controls to the mix to give a photographer complete control over exposure, shutter speed, white balance etc. and even in auto mode there are controls for the user to set auto-max values. In effect this keeps the convenience of the auto setting, but effectively limits any over-enthusiastic tendencies in the automatic algorithm. For the more enthusiastic users of manual settings, regularly used settings can be saved as new presets which will come up on the camera selection menu once saved.

The result is to my mind extremely effective. I took these photos specifically to avoid the distraction of any interesting content :) ... They are all in auto mode. The first of each pair is taken with the camera zoomed out, the second zoomed in to the max setting. Zooming is now done using pinch gestures rather than an on-screen slider.

Flash was turned off, and the ambient light conditions were what you would expect in a geeks home office... not wonderful.

In addition to the camera performance itself, the rear-facing camera is now a twin-lens arrangement comprising the latest version of the M7s Ultrapixel camera for the image capture, married to a lower resolution module which acts as a depth sensor.

My guess is that being such a low resolution (2mpxl) sensor, the second module is able to take one or several photos at different focusing distances from the the main camera whilst the main image is being captured. This then provides a rudimentary depth map which could be used to provide distance information for use by a range of duo-camera effects.

To take advantace of this arrangement, HTC have improved the post-processing and manipulation, and have added a set of special duo-camera effects which make use of the additional data (which is actually stored in a special hidden area of the jpeg file).

As a walk-in demo, I took a photo of a sales assistant in Mediamarkt to show him what it could do... I'll let the effects speak for themselves.

Original untouched - Normal Shop lighting - Auto setting

U-Focus - the "Bokeh" effect

Foregrounder - Sketch Mode

Foregrounder - Zoom Blur Mode

Foregrounder - Colorize Mode featuring foreground

Foregrounder Colorize Mode featuring background

Each of these effects can be centered on a certain object by tapping the screen on the object, and the software uses the depth of field data as the information to select out the focal point of the effect. Unfortunately, I cannot show you the strange Parallax/3D effect. Viewing that effect is linked to camera motion, but I can assure you that it's fun and certainly gets some interesting reactions in the pub :)

Everyone who has seen me show off the effects is won over by how easy, and how clever they are. The more 'serious' photographers are equally impressed by the manual controls and the facility to save setups as presets. Overall, the photo quality is everything I need from a phone camera.

The video sound recording/reproduction is also excellent. I don't know if there is a noise-cancelling mic system, but it certainly seems to be able to differentiate the 'foreground' sounds extremely well. I took this video in Leicester Square tube station with no preparation. I just whipped out the M8, selected video camera mode and started shooting. It was all hand-held, shaky and taken in a tube station at 6pm on a weekday, but despite that... please play it in full HD mode.

I haven't yet had time to play with the improved versions of Zoe mode and highlight videos but I have noticed that gallery previews (which are like mini-highlight videos) actually make use of the duo-camera effects when a photo contains the depth data, so I'm expecting to see some fun results from these modes too.

Finally deserving a mention is a full spherical panorama camera mode. Again, I haven't tried it out yet, but I have tried apps which can do the same thing, and from what I have seen of the HTC interface, the actual act of taking the photos should be a breeze.

Sound

Being a musician, sound is important to me, both on headphones and through speakers. Boomsound on the M7 was good, but I always felt that both the internal speakers and the headphone sound was 'deformed' by the Beats equalizer setting, and the sound from the speakers was a little narrow/weak without Beats. I don't use either Beats or Beats products. I still prefer my trusty little Sennheiser ear buds for a quality sound and the M7 was pretty good with those.

On the M8, the sound from the Boomsound speakers and amplifiers is just plain bigger in every way. Not only is it a fair bit louder (HTC says 25%) but more importantly, the dynamic range is broader, the overall sound is clearer and the sound stage feels wider as a result. Going from the M7 to the M8 was like going from a regular smartphone to the M7, and the same can be said for the headphone sound driving the Sennheisers. Overall the sound quality of the M8 has improved in every way against the M7, and the M7 was the sound yardstick by which all other phones were judged in 2013.

It's very hard to talk about sound .. and unlike photography it's not possible to provide examples on a web page ... so as soon as you get the chance please ... go out and try it. You won't be disappointed. In my opinion the M8 addresses and overcomes the M7's few weaknesses exceptionally well. If Boomsound on the M7 redefined smartphone speakers, the M8 redefined Boomsound itself.

Blinkfeed and Sense TV

The rest of Sense 6 is equally impressive. I love Blinkfeed and Sense TV and whilst HTC have improved the interface and their internals and made them even easier to use, they will still feel familiar to any sense 5 user.

Developer and User Support

One of the biggest changes which have arrives with the M8 and Sense 6 is not to do with the device at all, but lies in the software organization. Sense 6 module upgrades and even core service packs are now provided via the Google Play Store and delivered just like any other app. This should drastically reduce the lead time for delivering improvements and add-ins and will decouple the software upgrade process from the operating system upgrades. If it is successful this may well result in HTC being able to deliver even bigger improvements in the timeliness of Android updates than it has already achieved in 2013.

Parallel to this major change, HTC have announced that they are publishing the APIs for the camera, Blinkfeed and other modules, so we should all be able to look forward to seeing a range of third party add-ons, apps, plug-in camera effects and tools appearing on the market. This can only be a good thing and I am waiting to see what some of the great developers out there will have to offer over the next year or so.

One Sentence

I would find it very hard to identify even a single weakness in this device which would make me regret upgrading from an M7 to an M8, and I can recommend it to anyone looking to upgrade their phone this year.

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