HTC One (M8) Android smartphone review

What’s inside a market leading smartphone?

Previously HTC smartphones have ever-so-slightly lingered behind Samsung’s Galaxy range in specs. This time around the smaller HTC adamantly wants its smartphone to not just compete with the prevalent Android favourite, but to beat it on all accounts. Serious processing innards is needed if the HTC One (M8) is going to stand a chance.

And that’s exactly what you’ll find inside the One (M8) because it almost perfectly mirrors the upcoming Galaxy S5 flagship.

Inside the One (M8) is a quad-core 2.5GHz CPU, 2GB of RAM and — although a 32GB version is available in overseas markets — it’ll come with 16GB of internal storage in Australia. Storage is supplement by support for microSD cards up to 128GB, with an extra 65GB of Google Drive storage over two years. All up, this gives the HTC One (M8) the potential to access 209GB of data.

It is interesting to note the HTC One (M8), along with the Samsung Galaxy S5, feature 2GB of RAM, and not 3GB like the flagship smartphones coming from Sony and LG.

All day charge, wicked connectivity

Housed in the metal enclosure is a 2600 milliamp-hour battery, which HTC claims can be charged from 10 percent to 80 percent within the span of an hour. Good Gear Guide used the HTC One (M8) as our daily smartphone to watch videos, browse the internet over 4G and Wi-Fi, make phone calls, play games, listen to music, take photos, text people and manage our emails. We were pleasantly surprised to find it delivered a whole day of usage AND still have a quarter battery life remaining. This was not a one time occurrance.

During our testing, however, we had the basic power saving mode on. We had intended on trying out HTC’s highly touted ‘Extreme Power Saving mode’, but unfortunately the software wasn’t installed on our pre-release unit. It’s a shame too considering some of the claims HTC has made regarding the mode’s efficiency. According to the Taiwanese company, just 10 percent of charge will deliver 30 hours of standby time.

A next generation smartphone needs a connectivity repertoire ripe for the next generation. HTC has equipped the One (M8) with a well rounded range of connectivity options, including dual-band Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac), near field communications, Bluetooth 4.0, DLNA and support for 4G LTE networks capable of transferring data at 150Mbps.

Ultrapixels and DuoCameras

The HTC One (M8) so far has been more evolution and less revolution. That is, up until you assess its camera credentials.

Let there be light

The One (M8) comes with an enhanced version of the company’s Ultrapixel camera. Although photos are sized at a relatively limp 4 megapixels, the Ultrapixel sensor does capture more light and generally outperforms most of its rivals in environments characterised by dim lighting.

Photos captured at night are a particular benefactor of this technology. Often the subjects being framed in a photo will appear better lit on the screen than in real life, and this is a good thing when the lighting is more on the dark side.

Photos look good overall on the smartphone screen, but image noise is visible when you blow them up to the native 4 megapixel resolution.

The Ultrapixel camera tends to work better in some situations than others. Using it to capture photos on an overcast day results in colour and detail being washed out. Some parts of the photo will look great, but others will look deprived.

DuoCamera

Floating above it is a secondary camera — yep, HTC has slapped a second rear camera on its flagship. The role of the secondary camera is to identify where subjects in a photo are standing. By capturing this vector depth information, it’s easy to manipulate the focus point of a photo, even after it has been saved.

There are multiple upsides to this. The bokeh (blurred background) effect traditionally exclusive to DSLR and mirrorless cameras are a little more accessible to the HTC One. Backgrounds and foregrounds can be blurred to make a person really stand out in a photo. The effect, when rendered properly, is very cool.

And often the effect is rendered properly. Viewing tweaked photos on the 5-inch screen is quite enjoyable. There’s a ‘wow’ factor to this new functionality, and the ease of which it can be performed.

Read more: The best Android smartphone of 2014: Samsung vs HTC vs Sony?

That sensation takes a harsh turn for the worse when these photos are showcased on a larger screen. Televisions and computer monitors reveal subjects are cut with a jagged outline. This only happens in situations that are less than ideal. Or in other words, often.

Are two cameras better than One?

There’s a long version and a short version to this answer. Here’s the short version: No.

Although tuned DuoCamera photos look great on the smartphone, they don’t translate well on larger screen monitors or televisions. Social networks will chew up the DuoCamera functions, but for people who want run-of-the-mill photos, the superfluous functions of the HTC One (M8) will do little for them.

The Ultrapixel camera does a great job at taking night photos, and photos of well-lit environments. The downside to its sensitivity to light is it struggles to accommodate most lighting environments, including overcast days, landscape shots with some shadowing and environments lit by fluorescent lighting.

Selfies @ 5MP, Full HD recording

A 5MP camera armed with a wide-angle lens, face detection and a respectable f/2.0 aperture rests on the front of the HTC One. Although the camera has a higher resolution than the Ultrapixel camera, photos captured with it still suffer from image noise and are best viewed on the smartphone screen.

Video recording is where the HTC One’s cameras excel. Both the front and rear cameras support video recording at Full HD (1080p) resolution. The cameras quickly focus, tweak their sensitivity to different lighting environments and record clear sound. The One (M8) doesn’t support Ultra HD video recording, but the new standard is plagued with shortfalls in any case.

Click over for the Dot View case and the Final Thought