The HTC One (M8) Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Joshua Ho on March 26, 2014 7:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- HTC
- Mobile
- HTC One
Video
Since the rear facing camera only has a 4MP sensor resolution, there’s no support for 4K video recording - the maximum supported video resolution is 1080p. The available video modes are: 1080p30 (20Mbps High Profile H.264), 1080p60 (also 20Mbps High Profile), slow motion (720p) pand HDR video.
The camera preview in the video modes is pretty good. I noticed some dropped frames when recording 1080p30 but nothing substantial. The preview window when recording HDR video definitely dropped frames, to the point that it was fairly distracting. The resulting video itself was consistent in frame rate but not smoothly responsive to changes in dynamic range.
Extreme Power Saving Mode
This is a feature that seems to be all the rage these days. HTC now includes support for an Extreme Power Saving Mode that can be manually or automatically set to turn on when your battery reaches 20%, 10% or 5% remaining capacity. In the Extreme Power Saving mode you’re locked out from all but five apps (phone, messages, HTC Mail, HTC Calendar and Calculator ). The display brightness is clamped to 170 nits and max CPU/GPU frequency is limited to 1.2GHz and 320MHz, respectively. All four cores remain capable of being plugged in. Background data is also restricted - only SMS/MMS and phone calls will come in automatically. Emails need to be manually refreshed, and all other apps are quit upon entering the mode. The sensor hub is powered down, which disables features like the Motion Gestures and Pedometer.
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The Extreme Power Saving Mode features a large, simplified UI. The 5-inch display is evenly divided into large touch targets for each of the five apps as well as a button to exit the mode. The notification shade is disabled as well. You’ll still get alerts for things like open WiFi networks, but you’ll have no way to join/dismiss them while in this mode.
HTC claims up to 15 hours of standby time on the new One when running in Extreme Power Saving Mode (with 5% battery remaining). I still haven’t devised a good battery life test for these modes but I plan on measuring screen on standby time as soon as I get an opportunity to do so.
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althaz - Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - link
Why are the OLED screens not listed in the brightness for black and contrast tables? Yes, they have zero black levels and infinite contrast, but that's the level LCDs should be aspiring to and it's worth comparing them, IMO.There's a reason most people go for OLED screens (despite almost every reviewer preferring LCDs), they have MUCH better contrast. IMO this is a serious flaw of all LCD phones and should be mentioned. Sure, the tradeoffs may well be worth the relatively poor contrast, but that's something each user has to decide for themselves.
Braumin - Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - link
There's not enough horizontal pixels to graph infinity.evonitzer - Saturday, March 29, 2014 - link
True, but it still seems like there should be some mention of that, or just putting them at the top a bit above the leader. When I was looking at HDTV's some years ago, black levels were of very high priority, hence me getting a plasma. To think we would have perfect blacks on phones and people would shrug just a few short years later ...hangfirew8 - Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - link
Great review, not enough reason to trade-up from my M7, especially given the OIS video difference.I'll repeat my request to review the matching car dock and car mode/launcher with each review. With so many places passing hands-off laws for drivers, this mode is more and more important, and is obviously not given enough attention by either OEM's or reviewers.
Besides car dock mode, I really think a BT test such be conducted against, say, a Pioneer, a Kenwood and some select factory auto receivers. Complaints about niggling sync or lag or other bugs are common, but if no one is reviewing these combinations systematically, the manufacturers of both the phones and the car audio systems are not going to do anything about it.
Think of it this way- many phones spend most of their screen-on operating time docked in a car dock or holder of some kind, and BT synced with the receiver. It is the second most common operating usage after sitting beside us on our desk or armchair.
SorryItsAThrowAway - Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - link
I disagree that Sense UI is the best experience "bar none." If you've only compared it to Samsung or LG - then, sure. That would be an obviously true statement. However other manufacturers have arguably far more usable designs. If we stay with the Western audience as this article so clearly does then the best examples would be Motorola recently and even more especially Sony.Even if these still somehow came up short to Sense (debatable) they are certainly not so far away from the strong wording this review claims.
dylan522p - Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - link
Moto isn't classified as a skin and Sony adds VERY VERY little features and a lot of pointless changes.SorryItsAThrowAway - Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - link
I disagree. If it isn't stock then it's a skin. Moto is very minimal. Sony as well but they also have an entire theme system to change things like the appearance of the on-screen interface buttons. So, Sony can go either way with that in mind (good or bad).rxzlmn - Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - link
That's wrong. Sony keeps the main UI elements all the same, but does add many little helpful things. But they don't change how things behave and look in terms of usability compared to stock (different from HTC, LG or Samsung).CoryWeston101 - Monday, March 31, 2014 - link
No. Sense is the best user experience and best UI. No other Android OEM comes close. Motorola's UI is just stock with some added stuff. And Sony has a good UI but it isn't better than Sense.icwhatudidthere - Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - link
Actually that photo of you in the bar is how normal bokeh would look as well. Everything in your plane should be in focus, in this case, the second sensor is doing its job correctly and rendering a more realistic bokeh instead of a software-only solution.There is one artifact though on the wall paneling close to the table. I guess they're not actually assigning depth values to individual pixels but grids instead for faster processing.