htc One M8 Review

It takes just a glance to realise that the HTC One M8 is a beautiful phone. i say it's the best looking smartphone in the market. The Good The HTC One M8's sumptuous aluminum body makes a beautiful background for this top-flight smartphone's brilliant 5-inch display.  Should you really shell out a fortune for a phone? Thats your call, but if you do then read on. First and foremost at this price point stop obsessing over specs because if you're then you're better off waiting for the next nexus which will definitely sport these specs and would be priced lesser than this. I've been using the HTC One M7 for almost a year and the new M8 for a few days now. You should hold it to feel it, immaculate design and attention to detail. You would've already heard about most of the common pros the design, sense, dual camera, depth effects etc so I'll go over some of the lesser talked about details. 

OS: 

Sense 6: I can't think of a single reason why it is even compared to stock android(touch wiz isn't even in the battle) when it is way ahead of it. Agreed Sense UI prior to version 5 was c*ap and felt heavy, added impurities to the stock UI of android but with V5 most of it changed and the V6 just pushes it to the top - Flat glassy UI which, trust me, grows on you the more you use it. True to the name it does feel sensible at many places like the dialer, contacts (agreed it borrowed some from windows) etc. Its extremely refined and polished. 

DESIGN: 

The overall design is a notch above the former M7 with nicely rounded corners which aren't as prone to dents as the M7 with sharp edges. The phone is a bit longer though which might be a little uncomfortable for some but other than that there isn't a major change in the overall design. The attention to even minute details like the placement of the LED indicator is only possible when you're truly customer obsessed rather than profit obsessed. 

CAMERA:

 Some reviewers have spoken of the lower resolution of the pics when compared to S5 and the likes, believe me unless you obsess over looking at every pic on your PC zooming at corners it really doesn't matter. In fact mega pixels has nothing to do with the quality of a photo, things like pixel size, aperture size etc are much more important in determining the quality and the M8 excels here with a 2??m pixel size and better aperture than the S5. Though I'm not a huge fan of having effects/filters on photos the depth effects are actually nice and work most of the time without hassle. The day light pics aren't the best in comparison but the pics at night/low light are better most of the time than the competition. So it really depends on where you use your camera the most. Note: Some users have reported a pinkish hue in the photos taken at night, thats not the normal behaviour of the camera and its probably a minor defect in your camera's lens. It can easily be gotten replaced at any service center and the warranty covers it. 

OTHERS:

One other thing with HTC from an indian customer standpoint is that they update their flagships faster than others and they'll even support the phones with android updates/bug fixes for a much longer time than the other android phone makers. The other features like Blinkfeed, BoomSound and Zoe that came with the previous edition are actually awesome and I personally find them pretty useful. Anyone who has used this phone or even the earlier version for a good amount of time will have to agree that it starts becoming "something you love" from "something useful" pretty soon. As Keats said "A thing of beauty is a joy forever", its that unexpressable joy you're investing in. 

CONS: 

 Sense 6 seems to have added software keys for back and home and I can't think of a single reason why it would be more beneficial than the earlier capacitive buttons for which the space was already reserved on the black strip. It really is a waste of the precious space on the phone's screen(the biggest thing I hated about Nexus/Stock android too). It would've made sense had they removed the hardware strip initially used by the buttons but thats not the case probably because it would screw up the aesthetics.