HTC M8 (aka One v2): last year's phone released this year

[s44]

https://twitter.com/evleaks/status/418804925548613632

5" 1080p, Snapdragon 800, 2GB RAM, another (the same?) "Ultrapixel" shooter

I mean, every manufacturer is facing this problem: until A57 or the equivalent comes around, there's no compelling advance from the fall lineup (G2, Note 3), especially as KitKat rolls out to those older devices this month. But given its poor financials and the march of Nokia's lawsuits, HTC may need a bigger hit than they can squeeze out of this rehash.

 

[gmaster456]

3GB of ram would have been nice to keep it more compelling than most of the fall lineup. And 64gb default storage like they did with the one x+

 

[tsupersonic]

Great, the rumors have begun. Come on guys, let's wait for the official announcement from HTC before everyone goes nuts.

 

[dawheat]

Isn't it likely the S5 will also have some tweaked version of the S800? Who knows, maybe HTC is trying to get away from a pure spec race like Motorola and will surprise us with some more unique features.

 

[foghorn67]

I think it's a sign the spec wars are over. On to usability, build quality and features people want.

 

[blairharrington]

I think there is a ton of room for improvement with the M8. Move the power button to the right side. Position the home button back to the center. Improve the camera.

Personally I think it's a shame they are jumping the screen up to 5" (unless they include on-screen buttons). I found the 5" screen on my S4 to be just a little too large. I'd like my next phone to be 4.7" or 4.8".

The elephant in the room is always battery life. If and when an OEM can offer models with significantly improved battery life it's going to be very appealing to consumers.

 

[Bateluer]

I think it's a sign the spec wars are over. On to usability, build quality and features people want.

Spec war isn't over. There's just nothing more powerful than the Snapdragon 800 available right now. Maybe the S805, but not by much. Things are in a holding pattern until the A57 parts debut.

I think there is a ton of room for improvement with the M8. Move the power button to the right side. Position the home button back to the center. Improve the camera.

Cripes yes. Standard Android button layout, please HTC. Power button would definitely be better placed on the right with the volume buttons. Camera needs work on the focus. Blinkfeed needs to die a horrible, painful death.

 

[gmaster456]

I think there is a ton of room for improvement with the M8. Move the power button to the right side. Position the home button back to the center. Improve the camera.

Personally I think it's a shame they are jumping the screen up to 5" (unless they include on-screen buttons). I found the 5" screen on my S4 to be just a little too large. I'd like my next phone to be 4.7" or 4.8".

The elephant in the room is always battery life. If and when an OEM can offer models with significantly improved battery life it's going to be very appealing to consumers.

All excellent points.

 

[bearxor]

I think there is a ton of room for improvement with the M8. Move the power button to the right side. Position the home button back to the center. Improve the camera.

Personally, I like the power button on top. I find, using Samsung phones, that I'll end up pushing the power button or the volume buttons when I go to squeeze the phone to press one of the buttons and end up taking a screen shot. And I think putting all the buttons on one side, like Motorola or Nokia, makes it too hard to press them by feel. So I really like HTC's button placement and I don't think it will change anytime soon.

But a better camera would be a fantastic upgrade on the One.

 

[s44]

Isn't it likely the S5 will also have some tweaked version of the S800?

Maybe in the US -- not sure what their plan is here. (The 805, when it comes, is a slightly refined/higher clocked 800 on the CPU side -- it's the GPU that's really amped up.) Abroad, though, I'm almost certain that Samsung will be running some sort of 64-bit Exynos. The rumor sites have claimed that the straight ARM "Exynos 6" will be it, but I think it's way more likely to be some sort of Krait/Swift/"A55" compromise design in the already-confirmed custom core "Exynos S".

The SOC spec race is absolutely not over. Not after Apple laid down the gauntlet with ARMv8.

But Samsung is obviously going to jack up other specs -- resolution, camera, memory, etc. -- while HTC has managed to advance their screen... all the way to last year's S4/N5. And it's HTC that's trying to stay afloat and can't afford to have trouble differentiating their phone from the freakin' G2.

 

[foghorn67]

Spec war isn't over. There's just nothing more powerful than the Snapdragon 800 available right now. Maybe the S805, but not by much. Things are in a holding pattern until the A57 parts debut.

Specs may be highlighted in presentations and the ad campaigns for years to come, but for most of their user base, it's going, going gone.

 

[s44]

Specs may be highlighted in presentations and the ad campaigns for years to come, but for most of their user base, it's going, going gone.

There's no evidence of this.

Yes, price is the biggest spec. But no one bought the X before it pricedropped.

 

[blairharrington]

Personally, I like the power button on top. I find, using Samsung phones, that I'll end up pushing the power button or the volume buttons when I go to squeeze the phone to press one of the buttons and end up taking a screen shot. And I think putting all the buttons on one side, like Motorola or Nokia, makes it too hard to press them by feel. So I really like HTC's button placement and I don't think it will change anytime soon.

But a better camera would be a fantastic upgrade on the One.

We have argued about this in the past so we should avoid getting into it again.

My point about having the power button on the top of phones with screens 4.7" or larger is shared by many. You may disagree in your use. When the power button is up on the top of such a large phone, you must shift your hand to wake your phone, then shift back to use the phone (unless you have enormous hands). You'll notice that pretty much no OEM puts their power button on the top of their phones when the screen size reaches 4.7". It's much easier to wake your phone with the power button on the right side. Now if you find yourself accidentally hitting the button when it's on the side, I don't know what to tell you. I've honestly never done this. The placement of the power button becomes even more important when you don't have a physical home button to wake the phone.

As for if it will change anytime soon you really can't be certain. The One Max has the power button on the right side. It remains to be seen if the M8 will follow suit. I certainly hope it does.

 

[foghorn67]

There's no evidence of this.

Yes, price is the biggest spec. But no one bought the X before it pricedropped.

You are associating this because you can't ungeek. Face it, you reply multiple times talking about SoC's in the same thread.
Now I know people are talking about the Moto X and I pretty damn sure they don't know how many cores or or SoC or bining or flex capacitors it has.

People will attach to screen size or megaooglepixels, but the whole Snapdragon knowledge base is rather geeky.

I think the whole point of the sale was to get Moto X evangelists in the wild.
They will preach about the camera being ready right now, notifications, etc. Not about geebees. And yes, people notice and take interest. No more rolling of the eyes or instant boredom.

 

[zerogear]

Ultrapixel would be great if they had a 8mpx resolution.

 

[Thegonagle]

It occurs to me that I've "ungeeked" when it comes to my phone, and I'm a geek.

I have a Droid Maxx. I know it has the same processor as the Moto X, but I couldn't even tell you what that processor is. All I know is that I kept reading "it's good enough" in most reviews, and I believe that it is.

The processor honestly wasn't even a consideration when I was shopping, but battery life sure was. I also liked the active display, which literally makes the power button redundant in day-to-day use.

 

[bearxor]

We have argued about this in the past so we should avoid getting into it again.

My point about having the power button on the top of phones with screens 4.7" or larger is shared by many. You may disagree in your use. When the power button is up on the top of such a large phone, you must shift your hand to wake your phone, then shift back to use the phone (unless you have enormous hands). You'll notice that pretty much no OEM puts their power button on the top of their phones when the screen size reaches 4.7". It's much easier to wake your phone with the power button on the right side. Now if you find yourself accidentally hitting the button when it's on the side, I don't know what to tell you. I've honestly never done this. The placement of the power button becomes even more important when you don't have a physical home button to wake the phone.

As for if it will change anytime soon you really can't be certain. The One Max has the power button on the right side. It remains to be seen if the M8 will follow suit. I certainly hope it does.

Are you the one that said they could gently push their power button without exerting any opposing force from the other side of the phone? Honestly, I don't remember, but I remember laughing at pushing my RAZR HD all over the desk trying to turn it on. I thought it was funny, anyways.

I haven't used a Samsung phone since the Galaxy Nexus and it's something I struggled with. The button placement just wasn't right.

I don't disagree about having to shift your hand, I just guess that if you're using a tablet as a phone, you're going to be shifting your hand regardless so I guess I just don't care. I much prefer LG and Nokia's solution to the problem, honestly. The power button on the back is in a great position and being able to tap on the screen a couple of times to wake it up is a great compromise to poorly placed power buttons.

I just wanted to point out that your design preferences are not necessarily everyone's design preferences. At this point, I imagine HTC keeping the power button up top has more to do with visual differentiation between Samsung and Motorola than it does ergonomic design.

 

[bearxor]

It occurs to me that I've "ungeeked" when it comes to my phone, and I'm a geek.

I have a Droid Maxx. I know it has the same processor as the Moto X, but I couldn't even tell you what that processor is. All I know is that I kept reading "it's good enough" in most reviews, and I believe that it is.

The processor honestly wasn't even a consideration when I was shopping, but battery life sure was. I also liked the active display, which literally makes the power button redundant in day-to-day use.

We've really reached a point where it's basically good enough for everything. Even a lowly S400 1ghz dual core has enough power for most uses.

Even after upgrading to the 5S from the 5, I don't really notice the additional power. I notice other things like TouchID, the M7 chip, and camera burst mode. Even though I know this thing has some super fast SOC in it with swanky PowerVR 600 graphics it just doesn't really matter to me. I can't imagine upgrading to a new iPhone at this point without some super great feature and a larger screen with a higher resolution isn't really going to do it. I don't know if I can even name a feature I want outside of camera improvements. I don't see anything on the Android side of things that makes me stop and say "wow, that would really improve my life". I'm far more interested in what Nokia is doing in the camera phone space but decided that both Pureview and Windows Phone needed another year to incubate.

The differentiation starting at this point needs to be software and feature driven as opposed to hardware. Not that there won't be improvements in that area, but most people outside of tech forums like this won't care as long as the hardware is sufficient enough to match the features inplemented by the manufacturer.

 

[Ravynmagi]

The Snapdragon 800 isn't that old. Seems like most of the phones with the 800 didn't come out until Q3. Unfortunately HTC's flagship One came out in Q1 and it had a Snapdragon 600.

I think a new HTC One v2 or M8 or whatever with a Snapdragon 800 processor would still be a very good phone and definitely an upgrade over the previous HTC One phone.

 

[blairharrington]

Are you the one that said they could gently push their power button without exerting any opposing force from the other side of the phone? Honestly, I don't remember, but I remember laughing at pushing my RAZR HD all over the desk trying to turn it on. I thought it was funny, anyways.

I haven't used a Samsung phone since the Galaxy Nexus and it's something I struggled with. The button placement just wasn't right.

I don't disagree about having to shift your hand, I just guess that if you're using a tablet as a phone, you're going to be shifting your hand regardless so I guess I just don't care. I much prefer LG and Nokia's solution to the problem, honestly. The power button on the back is in a great position and being able to tap on the screen a couple of times to wake it up is a great compromise to poorly placed power buttons.

I just wanted to point out that your design preferences are not necessarily everyone's design preferences. At this point, I imagine HTC keeping the power button up top has more to do with visual differentiation between Samsung and Motorola than it does ergonomic design.

If I remember correctly you made a video or a gif of yourself endlessly pushing your phone in a circle as you tried to hit the power button with one hand. In retrospect it was funny, but my original point in that discussion was made.

I don't remember exactly what I said back in the day. There was this long back and forth about this issue though. I think most consumers are very happy with the power button being on the right versus the top. Sony made a very big deal about the placement and quality of the power button on the Xperia Z and ZL.

Using a tablet as a phone? I don't deem any phone with a 5" screen or smaller a tablet. Honestly I did very little hand shifting with my S4. I woke it by either hitting the side power button or the home button. At that point my hand was in the position to use the device. No shifting necessary. And I have average sized hands. The only times I was forced to shift was on occasions when I needed to tap something in the upper left or right top corner. Hence why I said earlier that I would actually prefer a 4.7" or 4.8" screen.

I've already expressed my dislike of the G2 buttons and wake feature, so we'll just have to disagree on that front. The poor sales of the G2 also could mean the end, for now, of smartphones with buttons on the back.

I'm fully aware that not everybody would want the power button to shift to the right side. However I do feel strongly that *most* consumers would welcome this shift. You may disagree. I would also argue that the superior ergonomic placement of the power button is far more important than saying that unlike your competition, your power button is on the top of the phone.

 

[dagamer34]

Thing is, I see a wall being hit in 2 years or so. Next year, we get 4K screens in a phone (why??), 64-bit CPUs, even more powerful GPUs, 4GB+ RAM phones, 20-30MP cameras, and on and on....

and some phones will still suck because lots of companies are absolutely terrible at software. :roll eyes:

It's not so much that specs don't matter, but mindlessly pursing better specs isn't going to sell phones anymore.

 

[bearxor]

If I remember correctly you made a video or a gif of yourself endlessly pushing your phone in a circle as you tried to hit the power button with one hand. In retrospect it was funny, but my original point in that discussion was made.

Hey, listen.. All kidding aside, I just wanted you to know that, before I made this gif, what you said about the power button made me go and grab three different Android devices and mess with the power buttons for like five minutes because I thought "maybe these buttons are more sensitive than I think they are." It was all in good fun.

About the LG G2 sales, I think that has less to do with the button placement on the device and more to do with Samsung's complete dominance of the Android market.

I mean, look at the HTC One. I think we'd all agree that it's a fine device, more than capable of going toe to toe with the SGS4. Heck, it's what the Android users in my office went for and, honestly, I'm a bit jealous of those awesome front facing stereo speakers.

But the One has been, essentially, a commercial failure for HTC. They've lost market share YOY, and are eating in to their cash reserves. Some analysts think that, unless they can turn that performance around in 2014, there may not even be an HTC past 2015. Now, I don't know if it's as bad as all that, but it certainly is pretty bad for every OEM but Samsung.

 

[s44]

Thing is, I see a wall being hit in 2 years or so.

I think we've already hit a wall until form factor (flex) and the next process node come around.

Of course, that's going to make it a lot easier to sell the next $350 phone than the next $600 phone. However it's Moto going big on that niche, not HTC. HTC needs a story to sell you their Two for a lot more than the really really good "good enough" phone. I'm not at all sure what they think it is.

The differentiation starting at this point needs to be software and feature driven

Yeah, I think this is what Apple thinks.

But... Price. Price is the big potential differentiator.

 

[Ravynmagi]

I think we'll continue to see progress march forward and more powerful processors and graphics to run our desire for more powerful applications and visually rich games. Though I do think resolution bumps will come to a stop soon. I'll be curious if there is any noticeable difference between 1080p and 1440p phones.

The hardware rat race never ended with PCs after decades and decades and I see no reason it'll slow down with phones. Though the pace will probably slow down a little.

 

[cronos]

More details about M8 (a little different than the one in the OP)

To summarize:
Name: HTC One+ (HTC M8)
Screen: 5" FullHD 1080p covered by Gorilla Glass 3
Battery: 2900mAh
Camera: 6MP or 8MP with UltraPixel™ technology and double lens
SoC: Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 805
RAM: 2GB LPDDR3
Buttons: no capacitive buttons
OS: Android KitKat with HTC Sense™ 6.0
SIM: micro-SIM
Front camera: 2.1MP
NFC: yes