Gadgetory

last year HTC's follow-up to and already well-received metal-clad phone continue to receive awards for its now refined design and underneath it hoped to be everything that would make people choose this one over other flagships and though a lot of people took to the eye-catching design and snatched up this particular phone that was then and this is the HTC One m8 now one thing we will always give H do you see when it comes to their announcements of phones is that they usually keep it pretty simple the same could be said about their marketing strategies especially with this particular ad that they used but that is a different issue that we would talk about probably another time but the same could also be said for what was offered in the m8 itself this time around the second I appeared on the top of the phone above the four ultra pixel optics that HTC was still touting as the best low light experience but this time around the second camera module was going to bring depth data to photos and the end results would be better depth of field similar to DSLR shooters this was a bit of a swerve considering what once was rumored to be a dual camera shooter now the dual camera Edition wasn't for 3d picture shooting but instead it was for adding effects and Aiden unfocused effects to just about any picture after you take it aside from the phone one nice aspect of this new flagship that I will mention was the addition of many in-house accessories for the one which wasn't always the case with Android devices and given the out of box thinking with the dot view case in particular the HTC One m8 felt more like an experience rather than just a raw power device for the spec hungry masses once we got our hands on the actual device what impressed us about the phone at the announcement and during our first hands-on continue to impress us and the HTC One m8 still continues to be one of the most beautiful phones that are available today and also this particular design became quite desired from a number of people who wanted their flagships to be constructed very similarly to this with its metal body and a great design all around and the design continued underneath with a sense UI that was actually pretty simplistic but still very elegant and because you didn't have to fiddle too much with the user interface in order to get the day-to-day experience down this was a phone that could please a lot of the common users but it didn't come without its detractors the brushed metal is still one of the most slippery services to you and complaints about the phone slipping about have been observed though the rounded sides add to the look we still don't think they provide the best grip but that is alleviated somewhat by the narrowness of the phone itself and though we might not see any changes to this in the near future the htc bar at the bottom remains a sore point for many users and we've been constantly told that this bar helps accommodate the sheer amount of tech in the body which does make a little bit of sense and speaking of that tech there's not a whole lot that you can say about the boom sound speakers because they are still one of the most widely regarded ways of consuming media on a smartphone today HTC Sense continued to get better and though it is a pretty different take on the stock Android experience it is also one of the easiest to navigate out there a vertical app drawer felt odd for a little while blinkfeed was still a nice way of getting the general headlines from the news or social media feeds and it is still considered a better second homescreen edition than the competition though adding contextual colors to sections of the interface sounded like a good idea it was kind of moot because I prefer to have everything in monotone or black once I found that option was available for me it just matched the general dark look of sense better where there was some real contention was in the camera it's an iteration from HTC that still used the ultra pixel construction while low-light performance was always an issue with Android flagships HTC hoped to alleviate their smaller megapixel pictures by trying to remedy this very problem and in some cases it proved to be true but my biggest gripe with the One m8 was really its exposure often I would get pictures that were simply not of an accurate color reproduction or of a proper exposure opting for either blown out or darker images depending on where your focus and exposure were tapped in the viewfinder when you took the photo while gaining good photos is definitely possible with the One m8 it just didn't happen as often as we would have liked which is where we get into the dual camera capability in short getting depth information for every single photo was a very nice idea but execution didn't really do it justice when shooting a proper subject in a photo the dual camera effects would definitely find the spot and try to stitch it up for a nice bokeh effect but oftentimes the effect would bleed into the wrong parts of the photo with this first step already causing some issues trying to put extra effects on top of the bouquet actually exacerbated the issue not to mention the fact that many of the effects HTC put in the One m8 were more or less hokey or just plain impractical one part we did like about the camera experience was the highlight reel made possible by Zoe in the gallery though you might sometimes forget that you can use the Zoe camera to get short clips or even burst shots of your scene doing so could result in a really nice recap of an event or day in your life and when done well it was a nice low surprise to come back to in this quick revisit to the HTC One m8 it still looks like the phone everyone wants because of its nearly flawless design it certainly is different from all of the other phones in the space and if you're the kind of person that wants to get a bit of attention for your let's say fashion choice of a phone the One m8 is certainly the best bet it's just a disappointment that HTC couldn't exactly get the camera rights and even today it is overshadowed by other cameras that forgo tricks and perhaps gimmicky additions in order to provide an easy to use an effective photo taking experience despite the day-to-day user experience of the m8 remaining one of the best this is only one side of the story and the camera experience is the shave year or sometimes blown out other side all of that changes in the HTC One m9 which has a further refined design a sign that HTC knows where their flagship line has its drinks and there is also a much more powerful 20 megapixel camera that makes ultrapixel a front-facing iteration this time which is a great idea and since is getting even better without trying too hard to change what makes it highly accessible but you're going to just have to keep it tuned to Android authority until that review comes out which is actually coming very shortly and you can see what our verdict is on the HTC One m9 it just might be the refining that the HTC one line has needed but until then keep it tuned to Android authority and subscribe to our channel if you haven't already and don't forget to check out all of the other content from my colleagues in Android including my Samsung Galaxy s6 review as well so keep it tuned here and remember to head on over to android authority comm when you're done with all of that because we are your source for all things Android