HTC One M9 Review

Image taken from HTC.com

As smartphones become part of our lives, manufacturers are pushing for better performance and designs to get even more consumers to buy their brands. HTC is one of the well-known brands when it comes to premium smartphones designed for the high end market. The HTC One M9 is definitely an upgrade on its predecessor, the M8. It comes with a better design and upgraded internals as well as a far better camera; certainly a case of strengthening on their known strengths. However, for this, consumers will have to part with more cash to own this high performing premium smartphone.  

Design

As the smartphone market grew in terms of competition over the years, more research and development was poured into the design of high performance devices. However, this performance seems to have reached its peak with manufacturers focusing on creating attractive designs; this seen in the HTC One M9. The design is referred to as the “Jewelry Grade” by HTC. Each case is hand-finished by craftsmen for a premium look, something that most buyers in this price range will definitely appreciate. The phone gets an upgrade in the looks department with a one piece metal case being used. The power button shifts to the right hand side of the phone for a more natural way of activating and deactivation the screen.

Display

The HTC One M9 comes with the same 5 inch Super LCD display protected by Gorilla glass. It is a 1080p screen that delivers sharper colors and accurate touchscreen control when compared to its predecessor. This is assisted by the fact that it is rated at 441PPI. HTC does agree that there is no upgrade on this part, explaining that there is no need for higher resolution on a screen this size, and the extra power draw would not be needed.

Performance

Under the hood, the HTC One M9 is powered by a Snapdragon Octacore Qualcomm processor mated to the Adreno 430 GPU, while the RAM is boosted to 3GB. Internal memory is maintained at 32 GB from its predecessor, with 21GB being available to the user. The micro SD slot however, supports an extension up to 128GB. The phone uses Android 5.0 Lollipop.  

Camera

On the camera front the HTC One does get an upgrade; the UltraPixel rear camera on the M8 is transferred to the front for crisp selfies in limited light situations. The rear Camera on the M9 is 20MP, with the Dual LED flash being maintained.

Lastly, the phone comes with a higher capacity battery moving from 2600mAh to 2840mAh. It easily lasts a couple of days on a single charge and remains non-removable.