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HTC One M9 Review
Put side by side with the HTC One M8, the HTC One M9 is definitely a smaller upgrade.
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So on the surface it looks very similar, you will be able to tell that the front facing camera looks a little bit bigger and that the speaker’s been slightly redesigned, but on the whole of it it’s a very similar looking phone. Around back HTC has opted to drop their four UltraPixel camera in favor of a new 20 megapixel sensor. Now in addition this also means that you’re going to be losing the Duo Camera which to be totally honest is no real loss to me. It always seemed a little bit of a gimmick more than an actual feature. Alright so today was day two with the HTC One M9 and so far, so good. One thing that has been bothering me a little bit is the placement of the power button. So it’s down on the right side below the volume rocker and it’s in a little bit of an awkward spot so I keep wanting to pick up the phone and I accidentally keep hitting the power button. So it is a slight improvement over having the power button on the top of the phone like on the HTC One M7 and the HTC One M8 but still it would have been nicer if it had been a little bit higher up. Alright, so now let’s give the camera a try. It’s going to be storming here in a few minutes so I don’t have a lot of time so let’s try to take a few pictures and videos and see what we can get. Oh look, that’s overexposed, no! So it’s saying it’s focusing but it’s actually not, you hear this? It just makes that noise as soon as I touch the screen but it actually is not even like necessarily done focusing.
You can get some decent pictures with the HTC One M9. It’s not the best camera out there and I feel like it kind of has a lot of the same issues as the HTC One M8 even though this has way more megapixels. It’s okay, but I think the big deal is is the fact that the processing just is not that great. Now there are going to be some updates coming for the camera soon and hopefully that’ll fix it but right now it’s a little disappointing. With an eight core processor and three gigabytes of RAM, the HTC One M9 is no slouch when it comes to performance. However there is one drawback to all this power and that is the heat. Doing everyday things like checking Twitter and watching video is enough to make the One M9 noticeably warm to the touch. Now it never really exceeded around 100 degrees as far as the back temperature goes but that’s still a little bit on the warm side for a phone. One thing I’ve really been appreciating are the BoomSound speakers. Having two front facing stereo speakers that actually sound good is such a nice thing. I always forget about it when I switch over to another phone and then pick up an HTC One and go “Oh, right, this is what a phone is suppose to sound like.” I’ve been pretty easy on the One M9 battery this week and it hasn’t let me down. Now usually the big test is if a phone can survive a full day when I’m traveling. Since that’s not an option, I decided to run the HTC One M9 as well the HTC One M8 and the new Samsung Galaxy S6 edge through the PCMark battery test. The results were a little disappointing. So the HTC One M9 was able to last five hours and eight minutes compared to six hours and fifty-eight minutes for the M8 and seven hours and twenty minutes for the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge. The HTC One M9 is still going to be enough for most people to get through a day however if you’re a little bit of a heavier user it’s a little bit worrying that it’s not only behind the Samsung Galaxy S6 but it’s even behind the HTC One M8 from last year. Looking at the screen on the HTC One M9, I think HTC absolutely made the right decision in keeping it 1080p however the color looks a little bit odd. It’s a good screen that most people will have no problems with however I did notice that it tends to be a little bit on the blue side, especially compared to the HTC One M8. I’m typically more of a fan of stock Android, however I’ve got to say that HTC has made some nice customizations here. I appreciate things like HTC’s camera app, which is a big step forward compared to Google’s stock camera app however there are also some weird things that Sense brings along including some very bizarre quick settings which have the text cut off, a little bit weirdly laid out, it’s just a mess. The HTC One M9 is a good phone however it’s not much of an upgrade over the HTC One M8. Put it side by side with the Samsung Galaxy S6 and it just can’t keep up.
