[ad#ad-1]’It’s been a month since I got my hands on the HTC One M8 and it became my daily driver. From the mundane to the exciting, I’ve been able to take this phone through its paces and now it’s time to give you my thoughts on the flagship phone from HTC.
WHAT I LIKED:
Look and Feel
Not much to be said here, the beauty of the device is self-evident, even before you fire up this device it’s clear that the HTC has yet again designed a phone as alluring as it is sturdy. The brushed metal look, a holdover from its M7 predecessor, is still current and stylish and HTC has done a great job of updating the look by wrapping the aluminum around the edges.
The decision to move the headphone jack from the top (M7) to the bottom (M8) of the phone is also a design decision that adds to the overall usability of the device.
Battery Life
Although the battery life on android devices aren’t known for being the greatest, it is indicative of the overall industry and simply being able to get through the day on a single charge is a big, big deal. For that reason, I’m very impressed with the power saving mode on this device, when turned on this feature has the ability to conserve CPU usage, manage display brightness and vibration feedback, as well as putting data connectivity to sleep when your screen is powered off, translating to an overall drop in power usage. When turned on it’s a battery symbol with a leaf. Combining this feature with the increased battery capacity (2600 mAh) you get a device that gets you through a full day of heavy use, something that was quite surprising and welcomed when I realize that I’d used the device without having to charge it during the day.
Flip Cover (Not included)
Although not included in the packaging, the back / screen cover HTC provided for testing with this unit, the Flip Cover is easily the best designed feature, HTC has made for the M8. While not providing more functionality than you’d fine on any other flip cover with a screen, the decision to use a dot matrix type design conveys to the user that the product is using as little power as possible to display time, weather, and incoming call options. It is quite amazing how this case has now become a rare and coveted item on online stores. It appears that even HTC was not prepared for the popularity of this item, you do get the feeling that a little more work and time could have made this case a feature reach part of the overall package. I’ll address this in later sections.
Overall, while the HTC one has many features that make it a must have for some customers, these 3 features are, in m opinion, the stand outs when using the new flagship device.
WHAT I WASN’T TOO FOND OF:
While the M8 is a great flagship device from HTC, this does not mean that they aren’t areas of improvements that need to be addressed. Below are 3 frustrating issues I ran into during my 1st month of use.
Phone Interface
Inconsistent, that’s the feeling you get from the phone interface of the M8. While making improvement to almost all portions of the device, HTC seems to have forgotten that this device is primarily a phone, for making and receiving calls, this forgetfulness has resulted in one of the most frustrating incall experiences I have had in recent memory. Most notable from the dysfunctional phone interface are two things, the lack of a global search on the phone app (I will explain further) and the inconsistency of the phone interface which has results in a frantic search for the speaker option menu while making a call.
Lets begin with the lack of the global search functionality within the phone app. HTC has incorporated the phone and contact apps into a single unit and devided them into sections, namely, Call History, Phone (dialer), Favorites, Contacts and Groups. While this is an obvious and welcomed combo, HTC has limited the search function to only 3 of those sections, call History, Favorite and Contacts. And even in those 3 sections where the search function is made available, your search results are limited to items within that section. So, as an example, I am currently on the favorites section of my phone app and I want to call Alis, using the search function at the top of the page, I will not find her number even though it is saved in my contacts. As a result, you have to ensure that you are on the contacts page when searching before you get your desired result. This defeats the purpose of combining the phone and contact apps and could easily be solved by making the search function global within the phone app
Moving on to my next big issue within the phone app. The phone interface while in-call can be wuite frustrating. After placing a call, the interface seems disjointed. For instance, bringing up the number pad to make selections during a call to my ISP, I tried to also have the speaker phone option activated as well, this was impossible unless I first dismissed the number pad. While this isn’t a major issue with the device, it highlights the issue with the phone app interface, an issue which I wouldn’t imagine a device aimed primarily at making calls, should have.
Lack of Current High End Features
In this category, I would highlight the lack of two features which seem to be prevalent in many high-end / Flag ship devices, Finger Print Scanners and Wireless charging. While the M8 set out to distinguish itself from the pack with its dual rear camera setup, it seems to have done this at the expense of two technologies which are becoming quite standard on many top-tier devices.
The lack of a fingerprint scanner, an option available on both Apple’s and Samsung’s Flagship devices leaves the M8 feeling a step behind. As those feature mature on those devices HTC will be left to play catch-up, meaning that when they do incorporate this option into their future devices, if they do, they will already be one generation behind two of their biggest competitors in the market. Additionally, looking at the future of payment application and identity verification, the apps associated with the fingerprint scanning hardware will also mature over time, along with the devices, another area where HTC will have to play catchup.
As for the wireless charging option, I am still very perplexed as to why HTC would not include this option in their device. Wireless charging is becoming standard on many devices, and the option to upgrade / update your device with a wireless charging back cover is available from one of its major competitors.
That being said, it is obvious that HTC had to cut the cost of production somewhere. The inclusion of the dual camera and the Research and Development costs associated with it might have contributed to the lack of these features, however, the lackluster performance of the camera, does not justify their absence.
WHAT I’D LIKE TO SEE IMPROVE:
Some features of the M8 are still quite new feel unfinished; however they show a lot of promise and with a little more time and effort from HTC, these might just turn out to be big differentiators.
Flip Cover Notification / utility:
First of these features will be the dot matrix flip cover. HTC has a sleeper hit on its hands here, but with the limited number of notifications (incoming calls, time and weather) it feels like this was an afterthought during the development process. Increasing the number of notifications by adding native emails and texts message notifications and opening up the api so that other apps can make use of the dot matrix flip cover.
The flip cover also suffers from usability under natural light conditions. During a bright NY day, it is almost impossible to make use of the flip cover. It would be interesting to see how HTC tackles this issue.
Camera
I’m not going to get into a technical discussion here, but if you’ve been aware of the HTC marketing campaign and the focus they’ve placed on their camera, you cant help but be a little disappointed with the M8’s photo quality. While it isn’t worse than most Smartphone cameras out there, I would think that the amount of work placed into this dual camera configuration should have produced much better photos than it currently does. While this is a disappointment of sorts, it is still important to note that HTC has hit the nail on the head when it comes to handhelds and cameras. As we know, and numbers can back up, the amount of everyday users who use their Smartphone as their primary camera is on a speedy incline. That being said, it works in HTC favor to create a Smartphone with a camera that stands above the rest. I would like to see HTC continue to take bold steps in improving its camera on future flag-ship devices.
Final Thoughts
The HTC One M8, is a beautifully built, highly optimized device which I would highly recommend to family and friends alike. However there are some pretty obvious features it has left off, the omission of these features is even more glaring when you realize that these options were available from its competitors on their last generation of Flagship Devices.
That said, this solidly built device does pack a punch and has the juice to back it up. I can say that I’m looking forward to seeing what the company has in store for consumers with its next flagship device.
