Review Date March 29, 2014

HTC One (M8) (AT&T)

  • Pros

    Gorgeous build. Top-notch front-facing camera. Cool depth-of-field tricks on main camera. Very loud speakerphone.

  • Cons Main camera fails to impress overall. Tons of bloatware.
  • Bottom Line

    The One (M8) on AT&T continues HTC's reign as the maker of the best-designed Android smartphones, but while it's an awesome phone, there's plenty of awesome right around the corner.

By Eugene Kim

The One (M8) is one of the first devices we've tested with Qualcomm's new quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor, clocked here at 2.3GHz. It's easily the fastest handset available right now, but the upcoming Galaxy S5 will be using the same chip at a slightly faster 2.5GHz clock rate. Overall system tests, graphical tests, and Web browsing tests show that the One is an incredibly powerful smartphone. Real world usage suggests more of the same—apps launch with urgency, high-end games play smoothly, and full desktop websites render with ease. Everything about using the One is buttery smooth, rivaling the clean and efficient experience you get with the Nexus 5.

On our 32GB model, 24.38GB is available to users out of the box. The microSD card slot is a bit of a pain to access, but it supports cards up to 128GB, according to HTC. Our 64GB SanDisk card worked fine, and the addition of the microSD card at all is a big deal for many Android users.

The non-removable 2600mAh battery was good for 17 hours, 27 minutes of continuous talk time. That's a stellar result that comes within striking distance of big-battery phablets like the Galaxy Note 3, which lasted for nearly 19 hours in the same test. Anecdotally, the One easily lasted through the day and even had charge to spare for two days of moderate use. Heavy users will still make it through at least one day, and HTC's added some new battery saving tricks that I'll expand on further below.

Android and Cameras
HTC's Sense UI is now in its sixth iteration, running on top of Android 4.4 KitKat on the One (M8). There aren't any real radical changes to Sense; BlinkFeed, a vertical scrolling app drawer, and HTC's iconography are all here. BlinkFeed gets a mild refresh, bringing more customizability and a free-flowing tapestry-like feel, rather than set pages that ape Flipboard. I'm still not a big fan and thankfully you can disable it completely if you so choose. The revamped Gallery app sorts pictures into events by date and location, and even creates short highlight clips automatically. It can get a little cheesy, especially with the music and weird effects, but it's a novel little feature that adds some flavor to the typically static Gallery experience.

There's an Extreme Power Saving Mode, which HTC claims can offer 30 hours of standby time on the One's last 10 percent of battery by limiting functionality to phone, SMS, mail, calendar, and calculator apps. I didn't get a chance to test this, but that's a testament to the One's stamina—full days of fairly heavy use never dropped the One's battery below the 20 percent mark. HTC TV is back, taking advantage of the built-in IR emitter to control home theater equipment. The app worked fine with my Time Warner Cable set top box, but we found the unlocked M8 didn't work with a Dish Hopper. HTC added in some new social features, which let you track what people are saying about shows as you watch them. There's also a nice visual program guide for finding all your favorite shows.

The really big changes are in the camera interface and accompanying apps and features. HTC's short-video app Zoe makes a return here, but it still feels sort of irrelevant. There are too many similar and more popular apps like Vine and Snapchat that do the same thing—HTC needs to stop trying to make Zoe happen. The standard camera interface gets a facelift and added features, giving you more comprehensive control over things like ISO, EV compensation, white balance, and filters. It's not quite as good as Nokia's Pro Camera, but it's a definite improvement over most Android options, including the stock Android camera app, which can be frustratingly simplistic.

Around back is the same 4-megapixel sensor that HTC featured in the original One. HTC calls it "UltraPixel" because the actual pixels on the sensor are larger than on the sensors of typical smartphone cameras, meaning better low light performance. The second sensor above the main camera is called the Duo Camera, but it's not a camera sensor in the traditional sense. HTC uses it strictly for depth-of-field information, which the One can then use to implement Lytro-like focus adjustments after the fact. It's a blast to play around with, but upon closer inspection, the results are a bit rough and unnatural looking. Sometimes I was able to achieve a convincing bokeh in the background to highlight a subject in the foreground, but a lot of the time you could see a stark contrast between where the focus effect begins and ends, as though it were painted on with a filter after. Check out the below example, where I chose the white micro USB cord as my main point of focus. As you can see, it didn't quite work; it's all over the place and you can see where it suddenly goes in or out of focus. I would have rather HTC double the resolution of the main camera or use a second sensor for something more useful, like improving dynamic range.

Duo Camera Test

Standard shots are generally better than the results we saw with last year's One, but they're still not all that impressive. In bright outdoor light, the One takes very nice photos, but with a few caveats. Fine details aren't quite as crisp as with the iPhone 5s, and white balance and exposure aren't as accurate. The One tends to overexpose the bright sky, while underexposing details in the shadows. Even when using the HDR mode, everything looks washed out. HDR capture is very fast, but still not suitable for moving subjects. Low-light images truly do get a benefit from the larger sensor, even with the omission of optical image stabilization. Image noise is a factor, leading to some graininess, but even poorly lit scenes generally look at least usable.

Video tops out at 1080p resolution, but quality is hit or miss. We saw frame rates that hovered in the low 20's under indoor lighting, but also captured a few clips at 30fps under the same conditions. The lack of optical image stabilization is immediately apparent, though, with pretty shaky footage. Under bright outdoor lighting, footage looks pretty sharp and full of detail with a steady 30 fps.

The front-facing 5-megapixel camera is the best we've seen, and yes it's a higher resolution than the rear-facing sensor. The wide-angle lens makes it easier to fit in bigger groups or more of what's behind you, and HTC's default timed shutter makes a ton of sense. Still images default to 3.6-megapixels for wide-screen 16:9 shots and still look way better than what you'll get with the usual 1.3- or 2-megapixel front-facing camera. You can change it to shoot 5-megapixel, 4:3 shots too if you want.

Bloatware and Conclusions
HTC might have Apple matched on the design front, but I really wish it had more pull with carriers. The One (M8) is jam packed with bloatware—more than 15 apps, depending on what you consider non-essential. These include usable apps like Beats Music and Amazon Kindle, but go all the way to the dark side with dubious additions like Wild Tangent Games or Yellow Pages. None of these are removable, either. AT&T takes things one step too far with the built-in browser bar. It would be tolerable if it were nothing more than an added ribbon of customizable shortcuts, but it's not. There's a whole settings page devoted to the browser bar, and inside you'll find the dubious option to enable "Analytics." The disclaimer says it collects anonymous browsing data and only uses it to improve the browser bar experience, but something just seems fishy about it. I recommend disabling the browser bar all together, or at the very least disabling Analytics.

Otherwise, the new One (M8) is everything we've come to expect from HTC. It's a jewel of a phone, one that deserves every bit of praise for its high-end design and immaculate execution. There's no real killer feature here aside from the design, though, and the lack of meaningful progress on camera performance is disappointing. But this generation of flagship phones will not be defined by some unique spec: Each and every device will be sporting a big 1080p display, fast Snapdragon 801 processor, and a largely similar Android experience. HTC is betting on finish and feel informing consumer choice, and to that end, the new One (M8) will be tough to beat—even by the Samsung Galaxy S5, which is landing on a variety of carriers on April 11.

The One (M8)'s biggest competitor on the design front is the iPhone 5s, but these are two pretty different beasts. The iPhone 5s offers the reliability of iOS and the outstanding selection of apps with speedy performance and a top-notch camera. The LG G2 also offers a compelling alternative to the One with a superb display and still-speedy Snapdragon 800 SoC, but it's likely to be replaced soon by the G3. As it stands, though, the HTC One (M8) is the finest Android specimen available right now, and is the odds-on favorite for best looking handset of the year. It earns our Editors' Choice award for Android smartphones.

Eugene Kim
By Eugene Kim Analyst, Mobile


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