Verizon HTC One M8 Review

Our friends over at Verizon Wireless have sent us the HTC One M8 for Verizon. This is the much rumored and might be most leaked device of the year, the successor to the original HTC one, now we have the HTC One M8. We have to remember that the original HTC One came out a year ago, and we raved about it the moment we saw it at the event. A real first in the Android sector of smartphones, just a beautiful design with great features and hardware. Now, HTC has taken a year, they have heard and see the other smartphones making it big along with the issues with the original device. Coming in for landing, is the HTC One M8, there flagship for 2014. A device that will be going head to head against the upcoming Galaxy S 5 from Samsung. Unlike what the Galaxy S 5 has, the HTC One M8 still brings the great characteristics form the original. The M8 continues the excellent legacy of design, brings back unique features, and continues with good hardware. The big question here is if the HTC One M8 the best smartphone on the market, keep reading to see if it is?

Unboxing

When the original HTC One first launched last year, Verizon was not a launch carrier. Customers on Verizon had to wait until August to get the device and they got it in a different box. This year the boxes continue with the launch design from last year, a flat eco friendly design. You can see our full unboxing video of the HTC One M8 for Verizon below.

Design

In comparison to the original HTC One M7 and pretty much every other Android smartphone on the market, HTC has another winner in the design  area. The HTC One M8 sets the bar even higher and has the best design of any smartphone on the market. But let’s talk why it is so much better. The One M7 had a great design, but it was quite far away from those of their competitors. The M8 updates this and gives it less of a square frame and makes it curved. This gives it a better feeling in the hand. The better feeling the hand is also resulted from a larger and increased curve in the M8, the back of the device is physically more rounded. It gives your hand a chance to get more of a grip on the device and succeeds at making it better. The M8 is heavier than the M7, as the build is 90% metal versus the 70% metal from the M7. The aluminum unibody design has a nice brushed feel to it and it lets the M8 achieve this gorgeous design. The M8 can almost be considered a work of art, something that most smartphone owners cannot say about there devices.

HTC nows offer the M8 in three colors at launch, you now get Amber Gold, Gunmetal Grey, and Glacier Silver. The model that I have been testing is Gunmetal Grey and it looks beautiful. It is a nice dark stainless steel that offers a great look. This Gunmetal Grey goes around the whole device, including above and below the display. There is a silver rim going around the device, which spices it up a little bit. On the back in between the two cameras at the top and below the branding, but above the FCC info, you have a darker grey that spaces out the device.

Let’s have a quick tour of the Verizon HTC One M8, while it is similar to the M7, there are some changes for the better. First of all the HTC One M8 is a larger device, it features a larger 5-inch HD display, and the larger sized phone almost fits better in the hand. Both above and below the display is HTC BoomSound, it is back and it is louder. Above the display you have a 5 megapixel front facing camera and a LED indicator. Below the display you will find only an HTC logo. Yes, the physical buttons have moved into the operating system. This makes sense to me, as on the original M7, they have two buttons that worked and HTC logo in the middle that we all thought was a button. The M8 removes this button and makes a much simpler device. I can assure you that by moving the buttons to the operating system, it does not take away from too much screen real estate, i think it makes the design of the device even better. The right hand side of the device packs a surprise and it is not the volume rocker. One of the biggest issues with the original M7, was that expandable storage was a not option. The M8 packs a micro SD card slot on the left hand side, this is great news. It can be expanded with up to a 128GB micro SD card. You can open the micro SD card slot via the included HTC SIM card or micro SD card popper. The top of the device is home to a power button that is on the left hand side and the entire top is infrared sensor. The headphone jack has been relocated to the bottom of the device along with the micro USB port. The back of the device features a Duo Camera with the HTC UltraPixel Lens, a two-tone LED flash, an HTC logo, a Verizon logo, a 4G LTE logo, and some FCC and model information.

 

Hardware

HTC did a great job with the display on the original M7, now we have the M8 and it has gotten an update. When it comes to the 5-inch Full 1080pHD display looks gorgeous. The display on the HTC One M8 is vivid, life like, and much more, we are talking nearly perfect color reproduction. It really is impressive and will make for some tough competition. Viewing angles are still great and the quality does not go down from different viewing angles. In direct sunlight and in dark conditions the HTC One M8’s display works well.

Going along with viewing images or videos on the M8, you want sound quality. HTC BoomSound was powerful on the M7, on the M8 the powerfulness has been kicked up another ten. Having these powerful speakers allow for a more immersive experience when viewing videos on the device. Even when the device is laying display down, while the sound quality goes down a little bit, you can still hear the device well.

The HTC One M8 on Verizon gets access to a super fast and super reliable network, one might even call it lightning fast. As expected the HTC One M8 works excellent on Verizon’s 4G LTE network. Viewing webpages happens very quickly, after it has loaded you can pan and zoom on the loaded page nicely. Our average download speed was a fast 25.01Mbps and on the upload we got around 11.64Mbps. These were some pretty incredible and lightning fast speeds. Keep in mind that speeds on the network all depends on the area and the network strength in your area.

The original M7 had a much slower processor, luckily in 2014 technology has increased quite a bit. Powering the HTC One M8 is a 2.3Ghz Quad Core Processor with 2GB of RAM. To put it simply, the HTC One M8 moves at warp speed and it flies each and every time. You will have a great experience with the M8 thanks to the Quad Core Processor inside.

Storage is now expandable on the HTC One M8, this is big change from the M7. The unit that I am testing features 32GB of storage internally, although the HTC One M8 does come in a 16GB and 32GB size. You can expand your storage via a 128GB micro SD card and this isa great feature. I tested it out with a 64GB SanDisk micro SD card and it worked perfectly. This is a great option for those looking for a device that you can future proof via expandable storage.

 

Software

The sixth sense or HTC Sense 6 is here and is running on the HTC One M8. Now this is HTC’s user interface and it is running on top of Android 4.4.2 Kit Kat. BlinkFeed is back along with Zoe, but what is new is Gestures. There has been updates to almost the entire software area of the device, one that HTC is good at is choosing which features will make the experience better. They are not going to just through all of these new features that don’t really enhance the experience or give anything to the end consumer.

Let’s talk gestures, double tap on the display and the M8 wakes up to a lock screen. Slide in from the left to open BlinkFeed or slide in from the right to get to your home screen. Swipe down from the top to launch a voice tool, where you can call someone. Turn the phone into landscape orientation and touch the volume rocker to launch the camera. These are all of the new swipe options, which fall under the name Motion Launch Gestures. This makes the experience even better, it will allow you easily access areas of the software that you want too. It makes a big leap over LG’s Knock feature which is just to unlock the phone.

HTC BlinkFeed still makes it quick and easy to see the news that you would like and it has been updated with some key features that users have asked for. For instance you can have BlinkFeed automatically download the updated content, that way when you don’t have a connection you can still see the news. You can set up the feed so that it only shows certain social media or news networks, you can also easily change these settings with a simple swipe from the left. You can finally add custom topics of interest into your BlinkFeed as well.

There have also been updates to many of the interfaces, which are for the better, the TV remote control application is much easier to use and lets you access the information you want too. On the Verizon model of the HTC One M8, you will find some specific pre-loaded applications. For instance Verion Messages is the main messaging application on the device right out of the box and it will be right on your home screen. From Verizon you will also get My Verizon Mobile, Mobile Hotspot, Verizon Tones, VZ Protect, VZ Naviagtor, Accessories, NFL Mobile, Games, Caller Name ID, Cloud, and Slacker. ISIS Mobile is also available out of the box, since NFC or Near Field Communications is built inside.

 

Camera

Last year we saw the introduction of the UltraPixel from HTC, and while the UltraPixel is still here, we know have the introduction of the Duo Camera. HTC has tried to fix the issues with the camera, after all the UltraPixel lens is only around 4 megapixels and this is the same lens on the M8. The biggest change is with the sensor and this will help with two distinct problems, taking photos in bright situations and clarity of the images. For the most part, as the with the M7, the camera sometimes works really well and sometimes it doesn’t work as well. The issue of taking these images and zooming in afterwards is still there, and this is to be expected as the lens is only around 4 megapixels. It has made the situation with brightness and the lens work much better. You will notice that there are two cameras on the HTC One M8, one is the UltraPixel lens and the other is there for depth.  This allows many of the Duo Camera effects to work, these being UFocus, Foregrounder, Seasons, and Dimension Plus. All of these features make for some really cool features, you still get filters and frames available. You can see a camera test below, this will let you judge yourself.

 

HTC Dot View Case

I wanted to give some attention to what might be the coolest case around and I am hoping that other companies might create something like this for other devices. When I first saw the HTC Dot View Case, my first thought was that the Lite Brite is back. From far away the Dot View case might be seen just as a simple flip cover. The Dot View Case allows for some unique experience with the device, a simple double tap with give you the time and the weather. The weather part will provide you with a visual and the actual temperature, this will rotate. You can also answer phone calls right from the case, swipe up to answer the call or swipe down to deny the call. It will tell you when you get an e-mail or a message via visuals. I am hoping that they will expand the uses and notifications that the Dot View Case can provide. Currently, it is only available in black, but coming soon you can get in a array of colors like blue or red. If you getting an HTC One M8, the HTC Dot View Case is the perfect companion.

 

Bottom Line

From my testing of this device, I can determine that the HTC One M8 is currently the best smartphone on the market. This means it is certainly the best device on Verizon Wireless as well. There are many pros for this device and a few cons here and there as well. My main hesitation with the device is the camera, it may not always have you get the perfect shot. If you are looking for amazing photos every single time, you may want to look else where. These cons are on the lighter side when compared to pros of the HTc One M8, you get all battery life and coming soon you will make it better via an HTC application. A gorgeous 5-inch Full 1080pHD display is on board, the easiest way to describe is with these two words; vivid and life like. A super fast experience is on board thanks to a 2.3GHz Quad Core Processor and this paired with 4G LTE from Verizon. Expandable storage is here and it means up to an extra 128GB of storage for you the user. HTC Sense 6 makes the Android experience great and HTC choose unique features that make the experience better. The HTC One M8 is the smartphone to beat, they hit the ball so far out of the park that it couldn’t even be found. There is a very high chance that the HTC One M8 might be your next smartphone. For More Information On The Verizon HTC One M8, Please Click Here. We would like to thank Verizon Wireless for providing us with a copy of the “Verizon Wireless HTC One M8”. We would like to thank HTC for providing us with a copy of the “HTC Dot View Case”.