HTC One M9

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What's Hot: Design is still lovely an uniquely HTC, strong performance, HTC Sense 7 is clean and useful.
What's Not: Rear camera isn't great, battery life just OK, phone design is lovely but after 3 generations isn't it time for a change?
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Reviewed May 16, 2015 by , Editor in Chief (twitter: @lisagade)
HTC One M9
The HTC One M9 is every bit as gorgeous as the One M8. In fact it has a little more polish, literally and figuratively, and I'd say it's the best looking One yet, though some might have trouble telling the M8 and M9 apart at first glance. This is very much a slow evolution of HTC's flagship One series, and that hurts in a year when Samsung has done radical and lovely redesign for the Galaxy S6 and Apple switched to a new design for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
The HTC One M9 runs Android 5 Lollipop with HTC Sense 7 software on the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 octa-core CPU clocked at 2 GHZ. It has 3 gigs of RAM, 32 gigs of storage and a microSD card slot (take that, Apple and Samsung!). HTC stuck with the same 5" 1920 x 1080 LCD 3 display as the M8, but the colors are tuned a bit cooler (unlike Samsung and LG, HTC doesn't offer color settings to change color saturation or balance). The M9 has an IR blaster and AV Remote control, WiFi 802.11ac, Bluetooth, NFC, GPS and 4G LTE. HTC went with a standard 20MP rear camera rather than the low-resolution Ultrapixel cameras used on the One M7 and M8, though improvements aren't what we'd hoped in the imaging department. HTC does include a front 3.7MP equivalent Ultrapixel camera on the front for low-light selfie bliss.
HTC One M9
Design and Ergonomics
We could almost paste the same section from last year's HTC One M8 review here--suffice to say that the M9 has the same extremely attractive unibody aluminum casing, updated with a ridge around the edge to make it easier to hold onto. I rarely drop phones, but I nearly lost hold of the M8 on several occasions. That hasn't happened once with the M9. The One series has always been relatively tall thanks to the BoomSound speakers, but HTC managed to shave a little from the height, and it's not so different in footprint from the Samsung Galaxy S6, though it is thicker than the S6. The M9 is undeniably one of the more attractive and premium looking smartphones on the market.
HTC One M9
Performance and Benchmarks
The HTC One M9 and LG G Flex 2 are the only two Android phones currently on the market running Qualcomm's latest generation Snapdragon 810 processor. This is an octa-core 64 bit processor. Heat was a rumored concern with the 810, but we found the HTC One M9 didn't throttle more than other high-end phones and it got no hotter than the M8. Metal conducts heat, so you will feel the back getting toasty when playing games for 20 minutes or more, but ours never got burning hot. We ran a slew of benchmarks repeatedly over the course of 30 minutes and the numbers didn't drop appreciably. The 2 GHz CPU is solid and performs a bit better than the quad core Snapdragon 805 (graphics show the most improvement).
The phone has 3 gigs of RAM, 32 gigs of internal storage and a microSD card slot that's compatible with cards up to 2TB. It runs Android 5.0 with HTC's tasteful and light customization of Android, called HTC Sense 7.
BenchmarksQuadrant3DMark Ice Storm UnlimitedAnTuTuSunspider JavaScript Test (lower is better)
HTC One M933,73322,16853,582852
Samsung Galaxy S633,35521,16061,873420 (webkit)/1025 (Chrome)
Samsung Galaxy S523,64318,32935,357398
Samsung Galaxy Note 534,63124,46363,086351 (Webkit)/688 (Chrome)
LG G423,73018,65546,043760
LG G Flex 226,39022,64449,344730
LG G324,38518,70836,525425
Nexus 613,59523,52049,961795
Motorola Droid Turbo22,70920,73548,332795
Moto X Pure Edition 201524,77119,70348,700N/A
HTC One M824,52720,89636,087776
Sony Xperia Z32158916,13535,008837
Nexus 5880817,82827,017718
LG G219,7629803 (extreme)32,990823
Samsung Galaxy S412,27611,60124,776826
Geekbench 3: 1294/3716

Camera
HTC continues to use their Ultrapixel camera with larger pixels or sensor sites for the front 4MP camera. That means better low light shots, and it works well since we don't (yet) expect very high resolution from front cameras. The front camera has an f/2.0 lens and it can shoot 1080p video. Quality overall is good, particularly in low light.
HTC One M9
The front 20MP camera sounds impressive on paper--plenty of resolution, a sapphire lens cover, BSI sensor, a decently fast f/2.2 lens and 4K video recording. Toshiba makes the sensor rather than Sony (Sony makes the sensors used in many standalone cameras and in higher end camera phones, and they're at the top of their game right now). Despite a few firmware updates aimed at camera quality, it's still lacking when compared to the top models on the market like the Samsung Galaxy S6, LG G4 and even the older Sony Xperia Z3 and the lower megapixel iPhone 6. Dynamic range isn't good and outdoors in sunlight we see lots of very blown-out highlights. Indoor noise is abundant and outdoor shots are sometimes underexposed. It's not a horrid camera, but it's not good enough to match HTC's competition and it's not enough of a quality leap to make HTC One M8 owners upgrade.
HTC One M9 Video Review

Camera
HTC continues to use their Ultrapixel camera with larger pixels or sensor sites for the front 4MP camera. That means better low light shots, and it works well since we don't (yet) expect very high resolution from front cameras. The front camera has an f/2.0 lens and it can shoot 1080p video. Quality overall is good, particularly in low light.
The front 20MP camera sounds impressive on paper--plenty of resolution, a sapphire lens cover, BSI sensor, a decently fast f/2.2 lens and 4K video recording. Toshiba makes the sensor rather than Sony (Sony makes the sensors used in many standalone cameras and in higher end camera phones, and they're at the top of their game right now). Despite a few firmware updates aimed at camera quality, it's still lacking when compared to the top models on the market like the Samsung Galaxy S6, LG G4 and even the older Sony Xperia Z3 and the lower megapixel iPhone 6. Dynamic range isn't good and outdoors in sunlight we see lots of very blown-out highlights. Indoor noise is abundant and outdoor shots are sometimes underexposed. It's not a horrid camera, but it's not good enough to match HTC's competition and it's not enough of a quality leap to make HTC One M8 owners upgrade.
Conclusion
The HTC One M9 is one of the more attractive and premium looking phones on the market, and one of the few to run the new Snapdragon 810 CPU. The 1080p display is perfectly reasonable in terms of practical resolution, though specs mavens will wish for QHD. We think the display is just fine, and as ever the front-facing BoomSound speakers are wonderful. The 20MP camera is a disappointment, even after a few firmware updates. Imaging is a very important feature, and the success of the M9 hinges in good part on the camera. This is especially true given that the 4MP equivalent Ultrapixel rear camera on the M8 was a weak point. Our other concern is that HTC hasn't changed the design language in 4 generations. Even Apple changes their lovely designs every 2 years. The HTC One M9 is pretty, but we fear it will look too much like last year's model to get upgraders excited.
Price: full retail varies by carrier ~$649. $199 with 2 year contract
Website: www.htc.com

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