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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piroroadkill - Thursday, March 27, 2014 - link
Agreed. Z2 is the real Android flagship.Blairh - Thursday, March 27, 2014 - link
Very odd that not a single word was written about BoomSound.M8 is a big let down IMO. I would recommend it, but personally I find it too tall and heavy this round. A hypothetical 5" screen on the same footprint as the M7 would have been superior. Poor camera, ugly bezel, too tall. I hope HTC comes back stronger next year.
flashbacck - Thursday, March 27, 2014 - link
I've been say'n, if they're going to cheat on performance benchmarks, you should use those same benchmarks to measure battery life!flashbacck - Thursday, March 27, 2014 - link
Hmm. The low light seems ok, but it's not dramatically better than anything else.bhupatib - Thursday, March 27, 2014 - link
Disappointed that Anand didn't do any audio quality test. GSMArena's analysis suggests impeccable audio output but I really doubt their testing methodology. But I'm happy HTC gave us bottom headphone jacks! Don't troll me on that, but I just think USB and headphone jack belong at the bottom. I know G2 does that too but going by AT's audio benchmark, it has less than stellar audio quality.Someone posted about the next One mini being the more reasonable buy and I agree (unless the next Moto X beats it to it). We won't get SD801, but if it looks just as good with the same port placement, audio quality and battery life, great ! Paying extra for that gimmicky dual camera to get the kind of effects I was doing when I first learnt Photoshop - bad, amateurish, no thank you! I'm not averse to camera features on a phone, I just think HTC missed an opportunity to implement something awesome instead of creating another fancy name (UltraPixel).
My take? A single, large sensor (at least 1/2.3", ideally 1") camera optimized primarily for shooting 4K videos. Why? A frame grab from a 4K video with well implemented codec has just as much detail as any good 8MP still shot - so 4K gets you the eyeballs and without any further effort you get decent stills quality. SD801 is capable enough, HTC just needed to add improved optical stabilization and at least 50mbps H.264 profile. That, along with 1080p60 and 720p120, would have been much more logical.
Pretty certain iPhone 6 will have some advanced OIS and the fusion of videography and photography is the way to go in the 4K era.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, March 27, 2014 - link
Audio quality testing happens out of a physically different location, we're working on it next though :)Laxaa - Thursday, March 27, 2014 - link
Does it still have the "HDR Mics" as the M7 had? The one's that doesn't distort loud noises?Biln3 - Thursday, March 27, 2014 - link
i know the screen in the new one is .3" bigger but aren't they effectively the same size since the new one has screen shrinking onscreen buttons?hughlle - Thursday, March 27, 2014 - link
Rather what i was thinking. They removed the old buttons, but maintained the black bar. It all seems rather counter productive.TrackSmart - Thursday, March 27, 2014 - link
BINGO! This *really* annoys me the One M8! The new display makes the phone larger, but doesn't provide extra screen real estate. It's a lose-lose situation.Sure, the on-screen buttons are more versatile and can be updated with the software, but lost screen real estate is a painful compromise. Especially, when you the phone doesn't get any smaller for the loss of capacitive buttons. The Moto X is probably the only flagship device that actually used on-screen buttons as a way to reduce phone size. Almost every other implementation was a lost opportunity.