The HTC One M9 is a great looking device, much like its metal-clad predecessors. The phone looks and feels every bit like the flagship device that it is supposed to be. While like many, I was a little disappointed when an earlier leaked render did not turn out to be true, I have grown to appreciate the look and feel of the One M9. The metal finishing on the back looks great, and the phone feels great too. Almost like I am holding onto a solid block of metal.
The front of the device houses the 4 MP Ultra Pixel camera along with HTC's iconic BoomSound speakers. The front assembly is a separate piece from the metal back giving it a "stepped" down look, and supposedly giving it a better grip.
This time round, HTC introduced a new dual-tone colour scheme on the HTC One M9. For the Silver variant that I have, the back is silver in colour while the sides are in a champagne gold finishing. I was not a huge fan of it when I saw photos of it, but after looking at it in the flesh, it has grown on me. The power button has also been moved to the side of the phone, which is a welcomed change. In the past the power button was at the top of the One M8, making it harder to reach, especially on such a tall phone. Maybe I am just nitpicking here, but the position of the power button on the side is still not ideal.
The button is almost right in the middle, which is where people normally grip onto their phone. I found myself accidentally pressing the power button often while holding the device. I would have preferred if the volume buttons were moved to the left side of the phone, and the power button moved further up.
Those who have used the HTC One M8 would remember how slippery the phone was, with its smooth and curved metal back. So this time round, HTC went back to a "sharper" design much like the One M7. The sharper edges around the phone gives it a much better grip, and a slightly masculine look in my opinion. Some might not like the sharper feel of the device in hand, but I personally do.
The way the front assembly is intentionally smaller in area than the rear metal shell is a nice touch too, giving it a layered look. It probably made the phone a little more durable too when it comes to accidental drops. Because of the way the rear metal housing is wider than the front assembly, there is a higher chance that the rear metal housing will be the part that bear the brunt of the fall (unless it lands on the display of course).
Speaking of the front assembly, it houses a FHD, 1080 by 1920 pixels, 5-inch display much like its predecessors. While the display is not QHD like its nearest competitors, the display still looks plenty sharp to me at a pixel density of around 441 ppi (pixels per inch).
My complain is with the colour reproduction actually. Maybe it is just on the unit that I have, but the colours on the display seems a little off somehow. Greens and blues that should be in a darker shade looks brighter than it should be. This abnormality is immediately apparent when you compare the colours of app icons. Take the Hangouts and Ingress icon for example, the colours of those app icons looks slightly blown out to me. Something I did not notice on the Galaxy S6, or even its predecessor, the One M8. But overall, it is still a pretty decent looking display.
The HTC One M9 uses the Snapdragon 810 CPU (Quad-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 & Quad-core 2 GHz Cortex-A57), Adreno 430 GPU, with 3GB of RAM. It handles pretty much most that I throw at it with ease. The phone does feel a little warm while running intensive tasks (playing games, taking photos and videos), especially so when charging the device, but nothing major. The only time it got too hot in my opinion was when I did a factory reset on the phone twice in a row, but to be fair the same happened to the Galaxy S6 as well. I would say that in general both phones got warm a little easier than other devices like the Nexus 6, and the Note 4 for example. But it is not something that I am too concerned about.
Just to be clear, I have NOT seen the phone overheat (gets so hot that it damages the internal components). I have also NOT seen a drop in the performances of apps, or the responsiveness of the UI due to throttling. Throttling the processor is not unique to the Snapdragon 810. Any properly functioning processor will throttle the processor when there is excessive heat. This is to safeguard the multitude of components within a tightly packaged mobile device. Tests by Ars Technica (interesting read by the way) did show more frequent throttling compared to older Snapdragon processors, and Samsung's Exynos 7420. But in day to day usage, I have not seen throttling affect the performance of the device. Which is why I think people probably should not be too worried about it.
One of the hallmark hardware feature of HTC devices are the BoomSound speakers. These are probably the best speakers on a smartphone that you can find as of now. They sound not only loud, but clear as well. HTC has partnered with Dolby in order to enhance the audio experience, and provide a better surround sound. My experience with it has been a mixed bag though. While the speakers sound great (especially when watching videos and playing games), the audio quality on earphones with Dolby's EQ does not. I turned them off almost immediately. Even with them turned off, your run-of-the-mill Qualcomm DAC simply could not hold a candle to the Wolfson DAC in the Galaxy S6.
The HTC One M9 is powered by a 2840 mAh battery, which is a nice upgrade from its predecessors. It is also significantly bigger than the Galaxy S6 with its 2550 mAh battery. In my time with the One M9, the phone lasted me a day of moderate use with ease. I am also seeing better battery life compared to the Galaxy S6. Since HTC Sense does not show the exact screen-on time, it is hard to compare how the two stack up side-by-side. But generally with the same usage patterns, I ended up with a bit more juice left in the One M9 compared to the Galaxy S6 at the end of the day.
Onto the software side of things, Sense 7 actually looks remarkably similar to Sense 6. That is a good thing in my books though. I personally feel that Sense UI is one of the better looking skinned Android UI in the market. Like previous versions of Sense UI on the One M7 and M8, Sense 7's performance is snappy, responsive, and brings useful features not found on stock Android.
While I think that Sense UI is still good looking, it is starting to look a little dated though. Especially when stock Android had just seen a major facelift in the form of Lollipop. Though if I had to choose my favourite version of skinned Android, Sense UI would still be my number one choice. But I definitely hope to see a bigger change next year.
The newly renamed launcher "HTC Sense Home", now consists of three main features. HTC BlinkFeed, HTC Themes, and Sense Home widget. The first two should be pretty self-explanatory, with BlinkFeed being a news and social content aggregator not unlike Flipboard, and HTC themes being... well... themes. With the newly introduced Sense Home widget, it will show you apps that the phone thinks you would need the most at any given time. It does this by using a combination of geo-location information, and learning your app usage habits.
Personally I only have a small set of apps that I depend on. So the usefulness of the widget is kind of lost on me. The widget also "recommends" me apps that I might find useful. But so far I have not seen any app recommendation that I would personally want to install.
Oh, and did I mention that the phone comes with the "Clean Master" pre-installed? Thankfully, you are able to uninstall it.
Finally, saving the best for the last, camera (sarcasm).
At first when I watched MKBHD's video review of the One M9, I thought, "It can't be that bad". Maybe with some tweaking or with manual mode it should be able to take better shots. Maybe there is a redeeming factor in it somehow. Nope. After using the camera myself in various lighting conditions, I believe that it is a hardware limitation. Software updates might help a little, but it would not magically make the camera great.
Let us start with the camera app itself. The camera app is actually more complicated to use compared to the Galaxy S6. Other than auto mode, it still has lots of settings that overcomplicate things. Modes like Night, Portrait, Landscape, Macro, Text, HDR, etc are unnecessary as Apple and Samsung has proved. A simple auto mode that is able to detect the conditions, and adjust the settings according is way easier to use.
Even in Auto mode, the camera app is pretty frustrating to use. Without tapping on the viewfinder to change the focus/AE (auto-exposure), the colours actually looks okay albeit being a little dull. When you try to tap the viewfinder to change the focus/AE, the camera goes into shock. I am not kidding. Sometimes the shots looks overexposed, sometimes underexposed. The exposure sometimes goes way off, and the colours goes haywire too. It got to a point where I gave up on tapping to focus completely. I chalk the above up to the lack of dynamic range.
(HTC One M9: the colour is way off)
(Nexus 6: Actual colour of the plant)
When the camera is able to expose the images properly, the 20MP camera actually takes decent looking shots in daylight.
If you look closely at the shots, you will see signs of over-aggressive noise reduction. Resulting in a slightly blotchy, water colour painting-like effect, which is not uncommon to see actually. Sony and Motorola in particular are guilty of the same. But it is not a big deal considering most people do not zoom in that much into their photos. For social media or viewing on phone, the images looks good enough. Though it could definitely do with a just a little bit more contrast and vibrancy.
As mentioned earlier, since the camera's dynamic range is not great, using HDR mode should help. But sadly it does not. The HDR shots looked fake, and over-processed, often over exposing shots. Not to mention after taking an HDR shot, it takes a few seconds to "process" the image.
(HDR Off)
(HDR On)
I managed to update the camera app to the latest one with RAW capture before testing it. It is a nice touch, and generally the shots turn out a little nicer than in normal mode, even without tweaking the manual settings. The images export in JPG though when I transferred them to Google Drive. In the end while RAW shots does look a little better, I did not notice anything drastic. If the sensor is not great, no amount of post processing can make details in the photos magically come back. Shooting in RAW unfortunately like HDR shots takes a bit of time to "process" as well, which can be a little annoying.
If you look at the above images on its own at this size (or just for instagram), they probably look okay. But when you compare it with other devices, the lack of details and sharpness in the images becomes jarring, even when viewing at this size. The shots are generally noisier, and darker compared to the Galaxy S6 for example since it has to go for a higher ISO due to the smaller aperture and lack of OIS.
(One M9 Auto mode: ISO 1600, Exposure 1/9)
(Galaxy S6 Auto mode: ISO 1000, Exposure 1/10)
Since hardly anyone would zoom that much into a photo even when viewing on a larger screen, I went for a 50% crop rather than 100%. But even at 50%, the differences are huge. On the Galaxy S6, you can even make out the details on the railing along the corridors.
(50% crop, One M9 Auto mode: ISO 1600, Exposure 1/9)
(50% crop, Galaxy S6 Auto mode: ISO 1000, Exposure 1/10)
When you set both cameras in "manual" mode, the hardware limitations of the One M9's camera becomes even more obvious. With the same ISO and a similar exposure speed, the Galaxy S6 was able to let in a lot more light despite the slightly faster shutter speed.
On the One M9, using RAW + manual settings, and capping the ISO at 400, the photo shows a lot more detail and sharpness compared to in auto mode. Though the shots still looks noisier than it should be for a shot in ISO 400, which leads me to believe that the sensor and/or lens is not that great.
(One M9 Manual mode: ISO 400, Exposure 1/6)
(Galaxy S6 Manual mode: ISO 400, Exposure 1/7)
(50% crop, One M9 Manual mode: ISO 400, Exposure 1/6)
(50% crop, Galaxy S6 Manual mode: ISO 400, Exposure 1/7)
Another fun comparison here.
(One M9 Auto mode: ISO 1000, Exposure 1/10)
(Desire 816 Auto mode: ISO 1250, Exposure 1/10)
Yes, the HTC Desire 816. In auto mode, the camera exposed the shot properly. The colours were accurate, and there are more details in the shot, better contrast, and it controlled the noise remarkably well at ISO 1250. It took a decent looking shot even without OIS.
On a smartphone, I do not think that users should have to tweak the settings, adjust this, or adjust that just to get a decent looking shot. In my Galaxy S6 camera test I said that the camera was "effortlessly great", because of how effortless it was to capture great looking images. The HTC One M9 on the other hand has a "frustratingly average" camera. You can spend your the time tweaking the settings, taking a RAW image, edit it later in Photoshop, and get a decent looking shot. But the S6 can probably take an equal or better looking shot at the first try in Auto mode in a matter of seconds.
I went into the camera test not expecting too much, and the camera still managed to disappoint. If I sound a little frustrated, it is because I am. I have been a fan of HTC products for the past few years, preferring their products over what Samsung, LG, or Sony had to offer. That is why I am probably more disappointed than I normally would be. The image quality is "not too bad”, but no where near what Apple, Samsung, or LG has to offer. In some aspects, the camera actually took a few steps backward compared to the One M8 in terms of ease of use.
This time by putting a 20MP camera in their flagship device, the HTC One M9. The camera performed worse than other flagship devices in the market with lower megapixels like the iPhone 6, Galaxy S6, Nexus 6, etc.
Full resolution images for comparison if anyone is interested:
HTC One M9, Samsung Galaxy S6, Samsung Galaxy Note 4, Motorola Nexus 6, HTC One M7, Apple iPhone 5S, Nokia Lumia 1520
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When you look at the HTC One M9 as a whole, it is still a nice phone. HTC Sense still offers one of the best skinned Android experience in my opinion. The phone has great performance, with great looks to go along with it too (both software and hardware). The build quality is superb, and in my opinion still better than the Galaxy S6. It also has the best sounding speakers you can find on a smartphone to date. But its appeal hinges greatly on whether you are willing to live with the "quirks" of the camera.
If you are coming from the HTC One M7, this will no doubt be a substantial upgrade. But if you are coming from the HTC One M8, this might not feel like much of an upgrade. In the end, the overall improvements to the device comes across as being pretty minor. Not to mention that the camera quality is pretty underwhelming, especially when comparing it to other 2014/2015 flagship devices. If camera quality is something that is important to you, you might want to look elsewhere instead.
Flagship devices to me should represent the best of what the company has to offer at that point in time. But I am not convinced that the One M9 is HTC's best effort. To me it felt like a device born out of compromises, constraints, and misplaced priorities. Maybe the new finishing took too much time and money, so they had to skim on the camera and forgo OIS? Maybe with many manufacturers buying up all the Sony camera sensors in the market, HTC as a company with a much smaller order could not secure any stocks at all, and had to go with a Toshiba sensor? Maybe.
But what I know for sure, is that this is not the best HTC has to offer. The HTC that I know CAN do better.
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