HTC One M9 Review: Ample Upgrade, Serious Flaws
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Everyone, including myself, questioned why HTC had released a near identical smartphone to its predecessor in 2015. It has the same size and quality display, similar weight and dimensions. There was no obvious standout feature like Samsung Pay or a curved screen, which drew the ire of the tech press.
But to fully understand HTCâs decision to make the M9 as it is, you have to view the phone as a whole. What the Taiwanese company has done is to build a smartphone based on well-honed experiences rather than do something innovative. From the excellent music playback, premium design and exclusive apps - HTC wants to automate your daily routine and further integrate itself into it.
In some ways it works, in some ways it doesnât and in many ways it can frustrate. But one glaring issue, battery life, is whatâs holding this the M9 back from being a complete smartphone. How did I get on with the One M9 over the last week? Read on to find out. You can also see my video review below.
Design
Image credit: Jay McGregor
HTC told me that it had looked to Montblanc and Rolex for inspiration for the M9âs design. That might sound a bit overblown, but when you hold the M9 in your hand, you understand where the Taiwanese company is coming from. This is the premium smartphone right now. The anodised rear casing and gold coloured front plate (it also comes in rose coloured version) gives the M9 a jewelry-esque look. I said in my hands-on that itâs âcomfortably the best looking smartphone Iâve ever heldâ, I stand by that.
HTC didnât just look to luxury jewelry makers for aesthetic inspiration, it also borrowed their upgrade philosophy. Namely, not really upgrading at all.
âI would describe it much like the Porsche . When youâve got a design that works incredibly well - thatâs timeless and classic - you donât want to chuck out all that experience youâve gained from before and start afreshâ, said HTCâs director of commercialisation product management, Graham Wheeler.
Itâs impossible to ignore the fact that the M9 looks very similar to the M8, but it also feels entirely different. Itâs true, there wasnât much to improve on the M8 in terms of design, so a radical change mightâve been a dangerous and unnecessary gamble when the original formula already worked so well. And when youâre holding the M9 it doesnât feel as if anything is missing at all. If anything itâs the opposite, it feels like - on design alone - the M9 is the complete smartphone.
M9 vs M8. Image credit: Jay McGregor
The weight of the M9 (157g) gives the impression that the M9 is a substantial piece of kit to match (Iâm assuming) its substantial price tag. Two non-techie friends of mine who briefly played with it, wanted to buy it based on its design entirely and repeatedly âoohedâ and âahhedâ when twirling it around in their hands. I donât know how that translates into real-world, global, sales, but clearly the design is a major factor for people with a partial interest in technology.
My only concern with the design is how easily it will become tattered over time. The all-metal body can easily scratch and dent. A few too many nicks could quickly transform this wannabe timepiece into a piece of cheap tat. On my review unit, even with the utmost care, Iâve noticed some small dents and blemishes on the front plate - with the dark metal underneath the coating beginning to reveal itself.
HTC is fortunately bringing back its DotView case to tackle this, with new functions like the ability to play games through the caseâs dotview matrix. Itâs also releasing a transparent case so you can enjoy the premium design without damaging it, however seeing the phone through a plastic shield just isnât the same as holding cold hard metal in your hand.
Iâm also happy to see the return of expandable storage, especially since long-time supporter of the micro SD, Samsung, has now dropped it in the S6. Including it It will be a key differentiator for HTC to boast about.
Image credit: Jay McGregor
HTCâs BoomSound technology is one of the companyâs success stories. The progression from the M8âs speakers to the M9âs is distinct. Where the M8âs speakers offered little more than pure bombastic volume, the M9âs add depth and richness that represent a more accomplished sound.
What HTC has achieved with the quality of sound that emits from a smartphoneâs external speakers is frankly incredible. The volume is there, as you would expect, but the clarity and depth of sound is what blew me away. HTC worked with Dolby to produce a 5.1 channel surround sound simulation-effect that can easily rival a budget portable speaker. There's also Qualcomm's Immeserive Audio working in tandem with Dolby's technology to produce
This is all aided by the fact that the M9 supports 24-bit high-res audio thanks to Qualcomm's Immersive Audio technology (CD quality), so if youâre using a streaming service that supports high-quality sound (Tidal for example) then you can fully experience the best of BoomSound, but even just Spotifyâs 320kbps streaming (known as âextreme qualityâ) is excellent.
The same can be said for playback through headphones. The music quality is the best Iâve heard from a smartphone, and the added 3D is almost like listening to your favourite tracks for the first time. They sound noticeably different. HTC told me that itâs bundling some high-end headphones with the M9 so users can experience the best of headphone playback right out of the box, but a pair didnât come with my review sample so I couldnât comment on the quality. But any decent pair of headphones will easily convey the improved sound.
Iâd long wondered what the point of BoomSound is. I understand the need to improve technology as time passes, but why would you want increasingly loud but still tinny external speakers? The updated quality of the M9âs Boom Sound suggests where HTC is headed - to challenge portable bluetooth speakers.
Of course, the M9 couldnât rival a halfway decent bluetooth speaker, but you can see the direction Boom Sound is headed. Itâs another potential industry for smartphones to consume and eliminate. Some may question the extra bezel space needed to include the top and bottom speakers, but, for me, they suit the phoneâs overall style and the extra size is a welcome trade-off for the extra functionality.
I did, however, come across some glaring issues with having two high-powered speakers attached to the phone. Notification sounds, if youâve accidentally turned them up, are frightening. Short clips on social media become theatre productions and any music that you play accidentally (because youâre headphones arenât plugged in properly) will entertain strangers miles away.
What this means is that you have to become aware of sound management and tweak the settings to ensure that youâre not caught short. I often found myself having to constantly change my sound profile for the appropriate setting. A loud bar for example, requires the notification volume up high, but if you forget to take it down before you go to bed, expect a rude awakening.
Performance and display
The final benchmark scores. Image credit: Jay McGregor
The HTC One M9âs Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor (which also has 3GB of RAM) has been causing a stir recently. Samsung dropped Qualcomm for its Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge because it reportedly overheated in testing, and a recent M9 benchmark leak showed erratic results with a big heat issue.
Before I proceed with my benchmarking results, I should note that HTC recalled all review units mid-last week so they could be updated. I didnât run a benchmark before the recall, but I assume the upgrade fixed the issue that had been suggested in the earlier leak.
On to the results. I ran Geekbench 3 and Antutu three times and the Antutu benchmark and came out with the following results.
1. Single-core: 697. multi-core: 2227.
2. Single-core: 706, multi-core: 2289.
*3. Single-core: 711, multi-core: 2284.
1. 43243 - 64-bit
2. 43269 - 64-bit
*3. 42224 - 32-bit
At no point did the device get overly hot in any of the tests, even after though were done consecutively. Whatever update HTC installed seems to have cooled the device (if the earlier leaks are to be believed).
Those results seemed really low, especially in comparison to the LG G Flex 2, which uses the same chipset. So I ran the test again a day later and I got a much higher Geekbench 3 single-core score of 1195 and multi-core score of 4084. A second test gave me 1165 and 4156. It was the same with Antutu, which came out much higher score of 55462. I canât really explain the erratic results, but the final scores are what youâd expect from the new 810 chip - the previous scores are a mystery.
Having used the M9 in the days before and after the recall, Iâve noticed how quick it is. Itâs quick to open and switch between apps, thereâs no lag when gaming and the overall experience feels very smooth. I did notice some minimal lag when using the âclose all appsâ function, which takes a second or two, and the camera app doesnât launch as quickly as the iPhone 6 or Galaxy S6.
The new Adreno 430 GPU handled gaming extremely well. Thereâs no lag or overheating issues and any of the Androidâs most power-hungry games presented the M9 with no problems apart from the rapid battery drain, more on that later.
For the display, HTC opted to stick with a 1080p (441 ppi) display with a LCD3 gorilla glass 4 panel. The first thing that I noticed was how bright the display is. Itâs not at Samsungâs crazy super AMOLED level yet, but itâs a lot brighter than the M8, which I found frustratingly dark - especially in bright light.
The M8 (in the middle) struggles in bright light. Image credit: Jay McGregor
The M9 is still not great in bright light, however, but itâs an improvement on the M8. When I held it up against the Note 4 on a sunny day, itâs amazing how much better Samsungâs display is in typically bad visibility conditions. Sony and its IPS technology is worth mentioning too because of how much brightness can be eked out on a medium setting. On a bright day, you have to whack your brightness settings up on the M9, which obviously contributes further to the rapid battery drain.
Outside of brightness, there have been some improvements in the display. Colours are richer and icons are sharper, plus the gap between the display and the glass is smaller.
The call quality was excellent on the M9. Voices were clear and had good volume. I also got repeatedly excellent signal where some of my other devices would occasionally drop.
I did notice that the vibrate when a call comes in, or any other notification, is far too aggressive. Itâs almost as bad as the Sony Xperia Z2. If your M9 is on a table it will startle the hell out of you, even if itâs on silent. In fact, the vibrate is so harsh and loud that it entirely defeats the point of placing the phone on silent.
The M8âs camera was praised for its duo-camera setup that took (almost) professional-looking background defocus shots and its UltraPixel technology. Well, that very same rear camera has now migrated to the front and a 20.7 MP -with a f/2.2 lens - snapper sits in its place on the back.
The reason? Because the M8âs ultra pixel technology, which lets in 300% more light according to HTC, meant pictures on a bright day would come out over exposed. Thatâs no longer the case with the new rear camera. The second âcameraâ (which was supposed to capture depth information) on the M8 has been removed, but the BSI sensor remains, which increases the amount of light captured in low-light conditions.
The result is that in bright conditions, pictures fully capture the quality of the image without over-exposure and that washed out look that sometimes dogged the M8. This is down to âdynamic exposureâ technology that automatically corrects images that are overexposed. I was fortunate enough to test this on the only sunny day weâve had in London in months and, as you can see from the images below, they came out well.
London's Olympic stadium looks great on a bright day. Image credit: Jay McGregor
In lower light conditions, the rear camera did a reasonable job of brightening up the picture, but there was a significant loss in detail. And on closer inspection, there was a lot noise. There was also a lot of noise and a lack of detail in the iPhone 6 picture but it did a better job of brightening up the image.
iPhone 6 picture on the left, M9 on the right. Image credit: Jay McGregor
In extremely dark conditions, the M9 was barely able to pick up the plant, which is reasonable given how little light there is to work with. However, the iPhone 6 did manage to get some detail into the picture, providing a better lit image. What did impress me is the dual-tone flash that emits a softer, saffron coloured light to give a more natural illumination rather than a hard, bright white light which can wash out faces and objects.
The second camera that captured depth information has been replaced by software in the form of a downloadable effect called âBokehâ, which provides an identical de-fcous effect. I asked HTC why the duo-camera had been removed and I was told that itâs âincredibly difficultâ to have a 20MP duo-lens camera setup, and that HTC had managed to reproduce the same effect with software.
"Brokeh" effect. Image credit: JayMcGregor
As with the M8, the M9 has a near instant shutter speed that takes pictures as quickly as an iPhone 6 or Galaxy Note 4. Thereâs no optical image stabilization (OIS), but that omission doesn't seem to have affected the quality of a still picture. I will say, though, before my review unit was hauled off by HTC for an urgent update, some images were coming out very blurry, even with the steadiest of hands. Although since it came back, Iâve had no issues.
The lack of OIS however, with a sensor this big, does mean that your videos will be very shaky. The M9 supports 4K video recording but the results are so wobbly that it's pretty much pointless filming in 4k, or even at all. Why no OIS was included is beyond me.
HDR mode also slowed down how quickly repeated pictures can be taken because of the time it takes to process each image - the iPhone 6 - in comparison - takes HDR pictures instantly.
The front facing camera benefits from being last yearâs main snapper. Whilst it doesnât appear to be as detailed, itâs still up there in quality and detail for a front facing camera.
Selfie shot. Image credit: Jay McGregor
What did work particularly well with the selfie-cam is the amount of light you can cram into a picture. This comes down to the ultra pixel technology and a dynamic engine that can measure different luminosity within picture, which means it can maintain detail in the light and dark parts of the same image.
HTC redesigned its editing options to be simpler and less overwhelming. Editing options have been moved to a side menu with separate sections. Filters, frames and face âtouch-upsâ all make a reappearance alongside some new effects. A couple new features caught my eye such as Double Exposure, which lets you add one picture to another as a translucent layer. And the rather disturbing face fusion which blends two faces together, which did a scarily accurate job of blending mine and my girlfriendâs face (Iâll spare you the terror).
Some of the strange effects from the M8 - like Dimension Plus - has been removed and replaced by some brand new strange effects. Some of which are completely pointless, check out the shapes added to the picture below. You can also add prism-type shapes and a kaleidoscope effect for no particular reason. What I did like was the elements feature which adds a nice animation to your pictures to make it seem as if youâre being showered with confetti or bubbles. Still pointless, but at least itâs pretty and pointless.
Pointless. Image credit: Jay McGregor
HTC picture sharing network, Zoe, is built into the gallery app so you can quickly share your pictures and videos. Although Iâm not entirely sure how popular it is. Anecdotally, when Zoe prompted me to find friends on Zoe in my contact list, a search turned-up with zilch and the message âyouâre the first of your friends to use Zoeâ.
The battery was the most concerning issue for me. Iâd assumed that the larger battery, more efficient chipset and improved Sense UI would mean a longer lasting battery than the M8. Thatâs not the case. Iâm not sure if the M9 has a shorter life than its predecessor (Iâll explore that further in a future M8 Vs M9 article) but the M9âs battery didnât last as long as Iâd expect from a 2015 device, or even perhaps from a 2014 device.
In one hour of constant use (browsing the web) - on low-brightness - I saw a drop in battery life from 44% to 27%. With medium use, the battery fared slightly better but drained faster than expected, particularly when 4G came into the mix. The best comparison I could make is that it lasts about as long as the LG G3, which had a power-sucking quad-HD display.
If youâre used to getting more than a day out of your device like with, say, the Sony Xperia Z3, then the M9 will be a sharp reminder of the dark days of the 8pm power-up. I often found myself having to charge towards the end of the day. fortunately the M9 does support faster charging, although my review unit didn't come with a rapid charger.
I donât really understand why the battery is so poor. For all the reasons mentioned, it should be a lot better but it just isn't. In Androidâs battery useage history, I didnât see one particular app chomping away at the battery. The culprit I suspected, Sense Home, was using the least amount of power, so there must be something unknown thatâs covertly draining power.
Sense 7 has some new additions and it has improved existing services like Blinkfeed. The news aggregation service now apes Google Now in that it gives you recommendations on news and services. For example, if itâs approaching lunch time, Blinkfeed will recommend nearby restaurants, with reviews pulled-in from Yelp. That information is pushed to the lock screen in the form of a notification. It all worked well with a decent selection of eateries at the right time. But if you frequent the same areas often, you will get the same recommendations.
Image credit: Jay McGregor
Sense and Android 5.0 have seamlessly merged and now youâll get the benefits of Androidâs actionable lock screen notifications. You can also launch key apps from the lock screen like the camera of dialer.
HTC has also integrated some of its new features into the pull down quick-settings and packed Sense with a few HTC exclusive apps. HTC connect is one, which essentially connects to other devices and streams content on the M9 to a bluetooth speaker or TV.
The main selling point of this feature is that you can send content to another device by swiping up with three fingers and bring it back to the phone by swiping down. Whilst itâs easy to set up, itâs not as straight forward as it sounds. You still need to go through the rigmarole of pairing a bluetooth device and then selecting which device to send the content to, which requires a few more taps than just swiping up.
It worked well with my LG sound bar, but it couldnât connect to my LG TV. I repeatedly tried to send a YouTube video to the TV and it would say âconnected to LG TVâ and do nothing. Itâs no deal breaker, of course, many other third party apps do a similar function. I did think it was funny that I expressed my concern at these âgimmicksâ at the M9 preview weeks ago, because they rarely work in practice as well as they do in demo.
The new Sense Home feature on your home screen gives you suggested apps depending on your location. For example, if youâre at work, a selection of productivity apps will appear. If youâre at home, more casual apps will be presented to you. It switches automatically once youâre either at work, home or âoutâ. Itâs a cool feature, but it irked me that I couldnât customise what apps it suggested. If you want to switch out the default mail app and replace it with Gmail, you canât do that. You have to wait until Sense Home does it automatically and detects that you use Gmail in one particular location. I also didnât like the fact that it âsuggestedâ some apps for me, which just looked like advertising on my home screen. Fortunately you can turn it off in the settings menu.
What did work better was the Peel remote app, which lets you use your M9 as a TV remote. It had no connection problems and the setup was ridiculously simple. Iâd settled down for an hourâs worth of battling to get it to recognise my TV, but it connected within a few minutes and I was changing channels seconds later.
This is a really cool app because it takes the pain out of scrolling through your EPG on your TV. All of the channels are accessible in the app and the programme information is displayed nicely, making it easier to chose what you want to watch. If your TV supports it, you can even record and set schedule reminders.
Thereâs also a HTC exclusive photo gallery app called Cloudex. What this does is pull all of your pictures from every source (Facebook, Instagram any cloud drives you have) and places them in one app. Pictures are searchable by name or description, but that requires you to tag them with a name or description (âpictures of meâ or âholiday in Franceâ for example). You might have already done that when you originally uploaded them, but for those unknown snaps quickly uploaded to Facebook? Theyâll be lost in the wilderness. Fortunately all of the pictures remain in the cloud, theyâre not downloaded to your device.
HTC is making a big deal out of its new Theme generator app, which customises every aspect of your phone based on a theme. You can select themes from the store within the app - some are paid and some are free - and then it will change icons, background and colour schemes once installed. The store has plenty of options, including some from advertisers who want to slap their brand on your phone. No thanks.
Space theme generated by the Theme generator app. Image credit: Jay McGregor
You can also take your own pictures and build a theme from it, which was a nice touch I thought. Having that level of customisation was welcome, but outside of reviewing the app, I didnât use it much or take much notice.
I get what HTC is doing. Itâs trying to create a phone thatâs made up of useful real-world experiences that customers can benefit from as soon as they unbox the M9. Things that matter to people. The music playback - for example - is excellent, the best Iâve ever heard on a smartphone. As is the overall design.
Some of the app exclusives like Cloudex and the Peel TV remote make perfect sense, work really well and give you an excuse to integrate your M9 further into your daily routine. HTC is trying to solve day-to-day problems and enhance day-to-day activities. And in many ways the M9 does that with everything mentioned, as well as the glorious design.
The camera performs well in the right conditions and the editing options are as entertaining as they are vast (and a bit pointless). However the baffling lack of OIS renders the video function almost useless. It's here that the Samsung Galaxy S6 will easily beat all Android competition.
The rumours around overheating problems proved to be a red herring, but I was concerned about the erratic benchmarking results.But, with arguably the most important aspect - battery life - HTC failed. The questionable battery life makes all of those awesome services redundant if the red-light of death is constantly blinking. I hope this is something that can be solved in the future with a software update.
Thereâs no headline grabbing innovative ideas here. Thereâs no HTC Pay or curved edges, but there is a solid phone that has some decent standout features. The fact is that I enjoyed using the One M9, which is probably the most important metric to measure anything against. But some glaring mistakes means HTC missed an opportunity to make this the complete smartphone.- https://telegra.ph/Oma-Masturbiert-Heimlich-09-20
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