By Will Goodbody, Science & Technology Correspondent
For a small fish in a very big pond, the original HTC One made significant ripples. It looked slick, packed a very respectable tech spec, and won a significant number of awards and accolades around the world.
No surprise then that, when it came to upgrading its flagship handset, HTC opted to keep the name (with a catchy M8 added to the end) - and the look. And that is what first strikes you when you take the HTC One M8 out of the box.
It is a very attractive smartphone. The demo handset I tried out was Gunmetal Grey, but it also comes in Glacial Silver and Amber Gold.
It’s also a big phone – in keeping with the trend – with a screen that measures in at 5” in length. It’s also a little on the heavy side – the trade off for having the slick and sturdy feeling aluminium body.
Like its predecessor it has dual HTC BoomSound speakers above and below the screen - which it’s claimed crank out 25% more volume than its predecessor - and a standard enough front facing camera.
On the rear there are two lenses for the Duo Camera (more anon), and a dual flash. There’s a microSD expansion card slot on the side, enabling the 16-32GB of on board storage to be expanded out to 128GB. But unlike its rival, the Samsung Galaxy S5, the battery is not removable.
Inside, there is a 2.3Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor with quad-core Krait CPUs and 2GB of RAM, which together make for an efficient and quick experience.
They also contribute to the 40% improvement in the life of the new 2600mAh battery, which HTC claims will deliver up to 20 hours on 3G and 496 hours on standby.
There is an Extreme Power Saving Mode too, which fully charged will give 14 days’ worth of battery power, while still allowing you to receive calls, texts and emails.
As you’d expect it is 4G LTE ready, and has NFC built in. It runs on the Android 4.4 KitKat operating system, with the straightforward and easily navigated HTC Sense 6 skin. The screen is full HD 1080p, and delivers a sharp colour-rich experience, as you’d expect at this end of the market.
When it comes to cameras, the M8 boasts the aforementioned Duo Camera feature – two lenses mounted one above the other on the rear of the handset. The main lens takes the picture, but the second is a depth sensor, which captures extra information to allow a range of after-effects to be applied, including adjustment of the background and foreground focus.
Coupled with a decent sensor, a 300ms autofocus and technology which captures images from the moment the camera is launched, it all adds up to a pretty good camera experience, even though the main camera is a mere 5 megapixels.
It also shoots full 1080p HD video, and has a nifty slow motion feature. But doesn’t boast the 4k video recording feature offered by the Samsung Galaxy S5 and Sony Xperia Z2.
On board, the Zoe photo, video and music sharing software comes pre-loaded, while there is an upgrade to the Blink Feed app, which delivers news to the home screen, if you want it. And there’s the by-now-obligatory second screen TV features and infrared remote control function.
So all-in-all, the HTC One M8 is an attractive, premium looking, high functioning phone.
But in many ways what’s missing is as important as what isn’t.
Sure, there is a sensor hub, which using the Motion Launch technology allows you to wake up and carry out various tasks on the phone, without having to press any actual buttons. But, so what?
There’s also no finger print scanner, or health monitoring sensors, although there is built in integration with Fitbit, with the app coming pre-loaded on the handset.
Which all adds up to a feeling that, while the HTC One M8 is shiny and new and pushes the boundaries a little in some areas now, it won’t feel like that for long.
Because in such a crowded, competitive and quickly evolving market, beauty will only get you so far.
