Gadgetory

for the third year in a row HTC is kicking off the spring season with a smartphone called the one end for the third year in a row it's an aluminum powerhouse built to make the world take notice I'm Michael Fisher with PocketNow and this is our hands-on and first look at the HTC One m9 HTC cited the Porsche as inspiration for the m9 industrial design saying it wanted to strike a balance between the precision look of the m7 and the ergonomic feel of the m8 while the curves of the latter remain there's definitely more of the m7 in the new phones feel in hand the sides and back meet in a sharp corner a little too sharp as far as my palms are concerned and they're visually separated by a dual finished construction that leaves the sides chromed and glossy while the back retains the familiar hairline finish fortunately for those who found the m8 too slippery the m9 sports a more grippy satin coating and that combined with the thicker sides makes it a bit easier to keep hold of the overall design is very familiar the new single piece polycarbonate bezel frames a Full HD display of the same size and construction as last year flanked by improved boom sound speakers top and bottom like the m8 the m9 is rated IP x3 for the occasional fresh water splash and also like the m8 it comes in several colors with an added emphasis on gold for 2015 unlike its predecessor the m9 finally mercifully moves the power standby key from the top of the phone to the side and gives it a textured finish to better differentiate it from the volume keys above it's mounted a little low for my taste but at least it's not on the out of reach top edge anymore beneath the casing the m9 gets a sizable boost in specs - a Snapdragon 810 processor backed up by three gigs of RAM the 32 gigs of storage and microSD expansion all of it powered by a 2,840 milliamp hour embedded battery that hardware stack powers the latest provision of HTC's interface sense seven running atop Android lollipop HTC brought us to Barcelona to try out the one m9 for 24 hours and during that entire period I found it nearly impossible to trip up the software like Sense 6 before it 7 is responsive to a fault and while it looks about the same it comes packing more than a few new features the most obvious is the smart launcher part of HTC's effort to make the m9 more personal and in its words break out of the 80s desktop model of the app drawer it does this by predicting what apps you are likely to need based on the time of day and your location and displaying only those titles it thinks might be helpful at the moment it also brings a dedicated folder for downloads and a suggested apps folder as well both smart ideas but I worry about the potential of the latter to someday push apps BAM HTC is also making more use of the lockscreen partnering with Yelp to push restaurant suggestions at mealtimes and also offering up a curated newsletter once a day called the morning bundle will see if all this ends up being more useful or more intrusive in our full review probably the most significant upgrade to the new version of Sense is the addition of customization options that make the one m9 the most tweakable HTC phone ever trim colors icon shapes keyboard look you can all be customized either manually or via downloaded packages with themes ranging from the professionally designed to the community sourced you can manually build your own as well and if that feels like too much work you can always let the phone build its own theme by extrapolating colors from a photo a pretty neat trick even if it's one we've seen before and speaking of things we've seen before HTC has also finally brought a fourth button option to the home Kiro since the m9 is still a pretty tall phone I use it to trigger the notification tray so I don't have to stretch my thumb as often finally with this year's camera HTC addresses one of the biggest criticisms of the one m8 and the m7 before it resolution the new shooter uses a 20 megapixel sensor capable of 4k video recording with an optics module that protrudes slightly from the phone's casing regrettably despite that protrusion there is no optical stabilization here but at least the cover glass is now sapphire so you're less likely to scratch it the viewfinder and the whole shooting experience is very familiar an HTC has shifted its software focus from cutesy tricks to well more fun cutesy tricks I haven't even begun scratching the surface of the possibilities here and I'm looking forward to mixing the conventional with the absurd as I fully explore the new camera software for selfies you've got the ultra pixel sensor back the same 4 megapixel unit that was formerly on the back of the phone now at the front and living up to its reputation for lighting things right up in dim environments by the way all these photos front and back were shot using non-final software so we're not gonna pass final judgment on the camera until we get a proper review sample which we expect soon for more impressions on everything from call quality to battery life stay tuned for that full review coming soon and PocketNow the HTC One m9 begins its global rollout in mid-march and it'll eventually be available on all four US carriers pricing is unannounced thus far but HTC tells us to expect it to fall in line with other flagship smartphones for more from HTC at MWC 2015 including the new dot view case and the company's first wearable check the videos above and make sure you don't miss our continuing coverage follow us on the ground in barcelona using the links in the description below till next time this has been michael fisher with PocketNow captain to phones on twitter back soon with more