HTC One (M8): Quad-core, 1080p, KitKat, available today for $199

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Corporate News, Handhelds

This morning, HTC officially announced the HTC One (M8) during a New York City press conference. It's the new flagship device from the company, replacing last year's original HTC One smartphone, which we thought was the best Android phone of the year (you can see our original HTC One review here.) HTC did what it could to make the device better in every way, including a unique camera system. With that said, there's a lot to go over, so let's get to it.

DESIGN
We loved the original HTC One design, and this year, it's even better. The rear panel is 90% aluminum, and it stays that way until it meets the display--no more polycarbonate side shell. The smartphone is made in a way that allows the antennas to work through the metal, foregoing the need for any plastic strip for the signal to pass through.

DISPLAY

A 5-inch 1080p full high definition display is at the center of the HTC One (M8), with a nice, high ppi count. This display is sharp.

INTERNAL SPECS
On the inside, you'll find a quad-core 2.3 GHz Snapdragon 800 processor, with 2GB RAM and your choice of either 16GB or 32GB of storage. A microSD slot is on board, allowing you to add additional storage if you so choose, up to 128GB. The rear camera is an HTC UltraPixel shooter with two lenses (one for depth information,) while there's a 5-megapixel wide-angle camera on front. A 2,600mAh battery rounds it out.

WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY
The HTC One naturally supports LTE in covered areas. You also get Bluetooth 4.0 support with aptX, and 802.11ac (as well as 802.11a/b/g/n) Wi-Fi with support for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. NFC is also on board.

SOFTWARE

The HTC One (M8) ships with Android 4.4 KitKat right out of the box with HTC Sense 6 (which the company is calling "Sixth Sense") as the skin. If you'd rather not have a skin, you can buy the Google Play edition of the HTC One M8 as well, which would be my choice, personally.

BATTERY
As we mentioned, the HTC One (M8) has a 2,600mAh battery. It supports the Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0, which will be enabled through a software update later. At launch, it works with Quick Charge 1.0. Later in the year you'll be able to buy a charger that will charge the HTC One (M8) very quickly.

The phone also sports "Extreme Power Saving Mode" which provides an amazing 15 hours of battery life even when your device is down to 5% battery life by cutting access to all functions, with the exception of phone calls, text messages, manual email refresh, and other essentials that could end up being an important part of surviving an emergency.

CAMERA

The HTC One (M8) sports what the company refers to as a Duo UltraPixel camera. One major feature is that it allows you to change the focus of your images after you take them. So, if you take a picture and you decide that you want a different portion of it to be in focus, you can do that. Similar to the Galaxy S5, the HTC One (M8) has insanely fast focusing, allowing you to take an image in 0.3 seconds.

AVAILABILITY
The HTC One (M8) is available starting today in the US and UK. In the US, you can pick one up from Verizon Wireless today. You can also pre-order on AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile for delivery sometimes in the next couple of weeks. The HTC One (M8) wil be available in Gunmetal Gray, Amber Gold, and Glacial Silver. As far as pricing, the phone starts at $199 with two-year contract. If you'd prefer to get it unlocked, or as the Google Play Edition (which will receive immediate Android updates when released) those are $699 with no contract.