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.
 |
 |
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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
222 Comments
View All Comments
fokka - Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - link
same here. i had hoped they keep it the same size and the bigger screen will be compensated by the on screen buttons. but seeing this huge black bar with the htc logo under the screen just about puts me off considering the new one is almost 1cm taller than the old.the problem is now that the m8 is here i would also feel dumb for buying an m7, the battery and sd slot alone are big selling points for me. but man is this thing big...
madwolfa - Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - link
Remaining happy camper with my M7.. M8 is not a worthy upgrade for me.. Guess shoulda wait for M9. I have another year of contract anyway.hangfirew8 - Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - link
My feelings as well, the M8 is a good fast phone, but I'm happy with my fast-enough M7. I still wish for a better still camera but the video is indeed good and it looks like we'll have to wait for the M9 to get the 6-8MP we need to make UltraPixel both sensitive and detailed.puremind - Saturday, March 29, 2014 - link
Take the new HTC One Mini. It will probably fit thebillhangfirew8 - Saturday, March 29, 2014 - link
Considering how much less the original Mini was compared to the M7, I doubt the new Mini will be better than my M7- which would make it better than the One M8.UltraWide - Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - link
HTC needs to make sure to follow up with prompt Android updates and not drop support for phones like the ONE X+, etc.At the end of the day, I will probably check out the HTC One M8, praise it for all the great points highlighted in this article and just buy the Galaxy S5 because it makes less sacrifices in the name of design.
tipoo - Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - link
They did really well with 2013 One updates, I don't know as much about the One X but I think that got pretty good update speeds too.sigmatau - Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - link
"HTC clearly saw design where others were more focused on cost optimization."Not sure if that matters when "cost optimization" is not passed on to the customer. When they came out, the Galaxy S4 cost more than the HTC One.
Death666Angel - Friday, March 28, 2014 - link
That's almost solely a function of hype/demand. After the great success of the Galaxy S2, Samsung had its bed made and simply needed to offer the new phone with everything a bit improved. Because of HTCs horrible marketing and naming scheme, they didn't have the same level of branding, so their new releases aren't nearly as covered, hyped and sought after.But as I said in my own comment, now the HTC M7 is the priciest of the former flagship phones, coming in at 410€ for the 32GB version, with the other brands bein 300 to 330€ for their 16GB versions. If you compare like to like, it is a bit closer.
hangfirew8 - Saturday, March 29, 2014 - link
Savings from the cost optimization goes into Marketing.