The first thing one notices when they first see the HTC One (M8) is the HUGE screen. At 5 inches, it is significantly bigger than both the iPhone 5 (4 inches) and even my Samsung Galaxy S3 (4.8 inches). Even though it is bigger, it still slips easily into my back pocket — an absolute must for any cell phone in my hands!
Picture Perfect Features
Let’s talk about the camera. One of the most important aspects of any cell phone for me is the camera. I use my phone to take pictures daily, so I cannot and will not deal with a phone that has lousy picture quality. The HTC One (M8) has a superb camera. The duo camera boasts a depth sensor in addition to the main HTC UltraPixel module, capturing detailed depth information from a scene and enabling a range of beautiful and creative effects that allow you to do more with your images than ever before.
The duo camera allows you to use the UFoucus feature to literally refocus an image after the picture is taken – effectively faking a bokeh effect.
Let me show you what this means. The first image is how the picture was taken. In the second image I used the UFocus feature on the HTC One (M8) camera to redefine the focus on my daughter’s face, in doing so the rest of the image is blurred out. In the third picture I refocused the image on my uncle in the background, effectively blurring out everything in the foreground.
In addition to the UFocus onboard editing feature, there are filters, frames and even basic photo editing features to highlight faces and remove red-eye. I haven’t even played around with all of the onboard editing features yet.
Because I also like to control my images, typically shooting in 100% manual on my Nikon, I love that there are some basic manual controls included on the HTC One (M8) camera. I can manually adjust the ISO, EV and white balance to perfect a shot before I take it. There are also various modes you can shoot in to get a different look to your photos.
And for those who take a lot of seflies, the HTC One (M8) has an impressive 5 megapixel front-facing camera . You can also set a countdown timer (2 – 10 seconds) in selfie mode, which is pretty cool.
For those who take a ton of pictures (there are currently more than 2,000 pictures on my old phone), you will love that the HTC One (M8) has 32 GB of onboard storage that can be upgraded to 128 GB of storage with a microSD card. Now that’s a lot of storage!
In fact, the upgraded storage leads me to the next feature — music!
Groove to a Rocking Beat
In addition to storing all of those great photos, the HTC One (M8) Harman/Kardon® edition is a music lovers dream. Boasting dual front-facing speakers, and slick audio compression the HTC One (M8) HKE sounds fantastic whether you are jamming out in the car, using the included headphones to tune out while flying or hooking it up to the Harman Kardon Onyx Studio for a party!
The sound compression details that explain why the phone sounds so good are lost on me, but what I can tell you is that sounds great. No tinny sound from this phone!
For those who really want to pump up the volume (so to speak), the Harman Kardon Onyx Studio is a lightweight, portable speaker that packs a punch. Perfect for a party, wirelessly connect your HTC One (M8) HKE to the Harman Kardon Onyx Studio to enjoy your tunes via Spodify loud enough for the whole party to enjoy!
I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting (#MC) for Sprint. I received a product sample to facilitate my review and to thank me for participating.
My HTC phone doesn’t seem to take the best photos unless the light is just right. I am planning on upgrading soon but have no clue what phone I will choose.