HTC One M9 review

A luxury design that forgets about the basics

The HTC One is a phone built on precision. It's a brand realising it made a pretty much perfect phone with the One M8 and doubling down on its greatest strength to try and win over more customers.
It's dropped the maligned 4MP Ultrapixel sensor, bumping it up to a huge 20.7MP option in a bid to attract those that feel safer buying a phone with higher numbers on the spec sheet.
And it's tied off the experience with a huge boost in the engine room and teamed up with Dolby to refine its already powerful BoomSound experience.
Even the battery capacity is improved, something HTC has struggled with in the past – now it's beating Samsung's Galaxy S6. So has the Taiwanese brand managed to do the almost impossible and create yet another perfect device?

It's certainly charging for it: the One M9 isn't cheap. In the UK it's going to be £580 SIM free for the handset, with a good £10 per month extra on contract. Early US price has it at around $650 without subsidy – which is only a rough price, but seems slightly out of kilter with the UK.
This will go down, but it seems this phone has had to have a price increase to facilitate the improved design and uprated innards. HTC has kept the microSD slot for extra storage, and boosted the internal spec to 32GB to ensure issues of low memory should be a thing of the past.
The internals are impressive: an octa-core Qualcomm 810 chipset, 3GB of RAM, 2840 mAh battery on top of a Super LCD3 screen. It's not got the cachet of Samsung's Super AMOLED display, but it's still colour rich and seems close to the glass, which is important for image quality.

There are some things that haven't improved though: the screen is still "only" 5 inches, which could be too big or too small depending on your opinion on the subject. The resolution is "only" 1080p, but again, some are questioning whether the pin-sharp QHD resolution is needed, especially as it's harder on battery life.
The metallic chassis is back and is bolder than ever. It's a two tone design (well, the Silver/Gold and Gold/Pink versions have a contrasting band around the side, whereas the Gunmetal Grey and Gold on Gold versions don't) that uses a single piece of metal for the entire phone – it really feels better packaged.
However, the key question remains: is this package good enough to warrant the extra cash? Have the improvements added more to the mix or is HTC just treading water, adding nuance rather than innovation?

Design

Let's get this out the way at the start – the design is, by far, the most amazing part of the HTC One M9. HTC is calling it "jewellery-grade," with each one hand-finished by craftsmen, and it certainly shows.
The one-piece fascia is complemented beautifully by the two tone metallic rim (on my review unit, the silver and gold variant). The grey and gold versions will look less impressive, given they've lost the two-tone appeal, but that doesn't mean they won't be as nice to hold.

Actually, I'm pretty sure they'll be nicer than this model. There's something about the design right now that I really don't like, the rear edge proving to be quite sharp in the hand. It's not going to draw blood, but when I used the gunmetal grey preview device in Barcelona it definitely felt closer to the One M8 in style, with more of a comfortable curve.
The reason for this hasn't been confirmed by HTC, but I get the feeling it's something to do with the colouring process.

The other thing that's changed here – and not for the better – is the power button transferring to the right-hand side of the phone.
This is a more natural place for it to live, making it easier to turn the screen on and off. However, HTC has inexplicably made it the same size and shape as the volume buttons above, so feeling for it without explicitly looking means I often hit the volume key instead.
The microSD slot is right above the trio of buttons too, and as it's slightly indented can cause confusion when trying to change volume in the pocket. It's hard to tell which is which, even with the phone in your hand – the extra ridges on the power button don't help enough.


While the decisions HTC has made to improve the One M9's design don't seem to have hit the mark, there's no doubt this is a finely crafted phone, and is probably the best on the market in that respect.
The two-tone finish is superb, the weight and balance is even better than before, and the precision I spoke of earlier is the overriding feeling.
The sharp edges of the BoomSound speakers are well-defined, and while it's heavy at 157g, especially compared to the iPhone 6 or Galaxy S6, Apple's is the only device that can come close to beating the attractive packaging here – and I prefer the weight and balance HTC has created.

Screen

One thing HTC gets lambasted for is the extra space around the screen, with people saying the HTC logo doesn't need to be on there, surrounded by a black bar that many think is there for show.
It isn't. It's packing screen components that have to go somewhere as HTC has extended the length of the One M9 through the need for decent audio chambers to pump out BoomSound – and I'd rather have the powerful speakers than an identikit smartphone.

The M9 is actually a little smaller than before, despite having the same 5-inch screen as last year. In fact, it's an identical screen to last year's model with a 1080p SuperLCD display covered in Gorilla Glass.
There are undoubtedly performance improvements, but like last year, HTC is being cagey about them. What is apparent is the screen's colours are rich, the gap between glass and display is low and the response under the finger is noticeably sharper.
The screen's 441PPI is perfectly sharp and doesn't really offer a lot less than the QHD screens that are starting to flood the market. Well, more not so much "flood" as "gradually drip," but they are coming.
The only functional reason I can see to stick a super-sharp display into a screen below six inches in size is to allow for virtual reality headsets, which magnify the screen and can cause pixelation. However, HTC isn't using the phone as the base of its VR Vive headset, so there's not really any need here.

The 5-inch screen is a fraction smaller than the competition on the market right now, with many other brands choosing to go 5.1-inch and above – but again, 5 inches seems like a fine choice here. There's a fair amount of bezel on the One M9 compared to phones like the LG G3 and the Galaxy S6, and that's more pronounced due to the extra metallic lip that's running around the edge of the phone.
But we don't need edge to edge displays unless that's what the phone is about – and HTC's model is geared towards feeling more ergonomic in the hand, so it seems to suit the device.

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About Godson

Michael is a Professional blogger, IT Consultant and a Web Designer. He loves Spending time with his PC.