HTC One M8 32GB Unlocked Smartphone - U.S. Version - Glacial Silver

After a month of use of the phone, I can resume it in few words, in case you don't wanna read the full review: The phone is built in excellent quality materials, has an excellent performance and the optimization of the components and software makes it last enough during the day so you won't need to carry a charger with you. If the camera is not a primary need for you, this is an excellent phone and I'd recommend it to anyone.Now if you're interested in a deeper review, here we go.-DesignThe HTC One M8 is, at least in my opinion, one of the best crafted android phones out there, the quality of the materials which is built can be noticed without even touch it, and once you have it in your hand the phone gives the feeling of a premium device, just what you're paying for, since it's not cheap at all.The sleek full aluminum body costs its price in the weight of the phone though, making it one of the heaviest smartphones out there, only comparable with the Sony Xperia Z2; I previously had a Galaxy S4, which is supposed to be way more lighter due to the materials difference, however in my personal experience it's really hard to have a S4 without a case and keep it intact, the plastic can be easily scratched and the material is a fingerprints magnet, so the weight it gains in favor of lighter materials, ends up being gained again for the case. After using the M8 for a month I can say the materials are good enough to not get scratches for normal use, and fingerprints are out of discussion.As a negative point I'd say as many others, the space in the front of the logo is completely unnecessary and only adds some dead height to the phone, however you can still navigate through all of the screen with a hand in most of situations with ease.In my personal opinion, the decision about putting the power button in the top at the phone is more than accurate, I lost count on how many times I turned screen on with my previous phone while I was putting in into the pocket cause I accidentally touched the button on the edge while holding it, this combined with the gestures to unlock the screen makes you forget about the lock button, which not makes it uncomfortable in the end.-ScreenThe M8 screen it's a beautiful screen, I was a bit worried about this cause I was used to the AMOLED displays from Samsung, but once used this one for a while I should say, in my personal opinion is way more better, because color saturation is more accurate to natural tones, except for some green tones, I don't know if it's because all of the time I've spent with AMOLED screens, but they seem way bright in the M8 screen, the first time was uncomfortable and still don't like how do they seem at all. An example of these green tones are present in the google play store in the apps and games buttons, I'll add some images later from the phone so you can appreciate it.In terms of brightness the M8 has a good brightness scale: the lowest brightness is enough to light the screen while you're reading in the dark without being annoying, and the highest one is too bright for my personal like in normal light situations (cause I don't like high brightness in my screens anyway) but it's enough to be able to watch the content of the screen against direct sunlight, which I appreciate a lot considering in the same conditions with my previous phone I was just able to see some purple brights most of the time.The automatic brightness could be improved later, looks so close to the highest brightness for my personal likes.-CameraThis was one of the things that kept me skeptical about the phone cause I heard a lot of complains about the first HTC One and the Ultra Pixel technology, so I was expecting ugly and blurry photos. I'm not a huge fan of photos and I don't take a lot of them with the phone, maybe I'm not the best person to make a review from it, but the ones I've taken seems fair enough for me, the colors are good, the camera is fast and results are decent. Off course, it has the limitations of what every 4 pixel camera (being ultra or mega pixel) could have, and it's the lack of detail and sharpness as soon as you start zooming the photo. However if you're gonna take pics just for selfies, casual food hipster photos and to send some images from whatsapp or facebook (which in whatsapp case are resized anyway) the quality of the photos are good enough, there is very detailed reviews about this at Internet if you need more info about it.Duo camera bring some interesting effects, some more polished than others, the most interesting for many people, ufocus, actually works, but it's not the most polished of them, I have to say in some situations the area is not well defined, but for general purpose will behave as you expect most of times.If it's true more mega pixels doesn't fully means a better camera, it's also true this one still lacks of the minimum required amount of pixels to be at pair with his competitors, I hope they find a way to add more pixels to the camera, this would make cover the weakest point of this phone.-AudioThis topic is with no doubt one of the shiniest for HTC, last year's One was way more ahead from the rest, and this year they've done it again. Frontal double speakers sacrifices some height from the phone, making it as tall as other with bigger screens, but the sound quality is out of discussion. This year Sony got close by bringing their speaker to the front as well which improved the audio, but I think HTC is still better, and I've seen some serious audio reviews which also thinks so, but in the end it's a personal preference, none of them are perfect.-Memory and BatterySince I was using the S4, I've never been able to fill up the memory, cause I tend to close what I'm not using, I'm not the most memory demanding user over there. If you feel like fitting in my profile, 2GB of RAM should be enough for you, and maybe most of people, since in the end few manufacturers gave the jump into the 3GB scale. I've been using around 10 apps in the background with no weird behaviors, everything works as expected.Before talking about battery duration let's define my usage patterns: daily usage includes web browsing, reading books and news, checking mail, social networks and sometimes playing some 3D games, which makes me a kind of heavy user.The battery was one of the things that impressed me more from this phone. My previous phone had a 2600 mAh, which used to last in average more than 3 and less than 4 hours of screen on before battery runs out, sometimes I was close to the 4 hours, in terms of hours without having to charge the phone that meant 8-10 hours on the heaviest use I gave it, 12 average and having power saving options on except for processor one, 14-16 on light use and around 20 hours using power saving additional options, being that the record I got with that phone.The HTC One M8 comes with a 2600 mAh battery too, in terms of screen on hours before the battery runs out, it lasts in average more than 5 hours and less than 6 and I've passed the 6 hours sometimes. In terms of hours without charging the phone, that's around 14 hours on heavy usage, 16-24 hours on lighter usage and up to 40 hours on weekends when I use the phone the less, without using any power saving option, and being my current record on this one. This 'no power savings' statement is a bit tricky though, cause the HTC One M8 turns power saving settings automatically when battery is lower than 15%, however if you consider my previous phone had them always on, it's a huge step forward for the same battery capacity, and this is where the optimization from title comes from.-SoftwareHTC sense is extremely non intrusive personalization layer,is fast, fluid and minimalist. The applications have these same patterns and tend to add some color to the equation (not so many for application though) this can be a good or bad thing, that depends on your likes, I'll add some screenshots of the apps later. I won't add benchmarks test to talk about performance cause they've been tricked some generations ago, but in normal use around this month I haven't experienced any heavy lag, or delay which makes the phone uncomfortable to use. The phone is fast, you can feel the difference between the sanpdragon 600 and the 800 series, it executes everything smoothly.Saying there's a phone with no lag at all anytime is a beautiful lie, I've seen random lags, freezes and delays even in iPhones; this is not the perfect phone, however they barely happen, at least with the time I've been using it and with the usage I've been making of it, you can't compare it to TouchWiz, that's miles ahead in terms of lag and delay competition, even if that's not a good thing.A real downside and a bad thing of this non intrusive UI I've found is, however, the lack of a default file explorer. Android doesn't has any, and HTC won't include anyone either. If you don't use a SD card in your phone that won't be any deal, you just need to pick the one you like more from the Play Store (there are a lot, with beautiful and polished UI and a lot of people make their default from there anyway), but if you have a SD card this will mean some problems and uncomfortable situations for you; since Android 4.4 Google restricted the SD card write access to only Google apps and the third party applications installed by the manufacturer, so not having a preset one or a google provided one, you won't be able to modify anything from the SD card without connecting the phone to a PC. This can be solved with root privileges, but if you understand what that means and the consequences it has, you'll understand that's a decision you need to make and prolly HTC won't like it if you need to claim your warranty.-MiscellaneousSomething I didn't like from this phone and I liked more from my previous one that it's not covered in everywhere else, is the notification LED. This one has only 3 colors: red when battery's low, green when it's fully charged, and an orange-like for everything else; maybe there's a setting to change this, or you could use an third party application for it, but so far I haven't found any setting.-ConclusionThe HTC One M8 is an excellent piece of engineering, nicely crafted with a good performance and optimization, which however has some flaws that can be improved, some by software, and some will need to be taken in consideration, hopefully, for the next generation's model, and if you're reading the conclusion after reading the review, we can conclude you're a very patient person :)Thanks for your time, hope this turns out to be helpful for you!

I don't even know where to begin describing all the ways this phone blows all others away.This phone is everything the tech sites boast it is and more. The processor in this thing makes a world of difference. Apps and widgets open in the blink of an eye, web pages load at blazing speeds and the phone boots up almost instantaneously. The last time I experienced such a leap in speed is when I first used my Samsung Galxy S3 and iPhone 4 after using a Blackberry Curve for so many years. The difference between the speed of the One M8 and S3 is like apples and oranges. A Ferrari 458 vs. a Hyundai Veloster.The display on the M8 is stunning. The screen on the this thing makes the one on the S3 look like a CRT display from 1998. And speaking of the display, my biggest (and best) surprise came when I used the phone outside in direct sunlight. To my amazement, I could see the screen perfectly, unlike my S3 (and other phones) which was impossible.The form factor of this thing is it's strongest quality in my opinion, and one of the reasons I picked this over a Galaxy S5 and iPhone 5s. You will be hard pressed to find a phone that looks this good AND feels this comfortable in your hand. I did notice the volume buttons felt a little loose, but it's not a deal breaker. The phone feels sturdy and ready for war, it feels like it won't turn to powder (iPhone 4, 4s) or dent (iPhone 5, 5s) if dropped. Although I would recommend getting a case to put it in. I haven't had any yet (*knocks on wood*), but I can see the potential for the back and sides of the phone getting minor nicks and scratches. I ordered the Spigen® [Non Slip] [AIR CUSHION] HTC One M8 Case and amFilm HTC One M8 Screen Protector 2014 Premium HD Clear. The case hasn't arrived yet, but I can say the screen protector is EXCELLENT. They weren't lying when they boasted about the clarity and protection this thing offers.The OS is great too. If you're familiar with Android operating systems, it won't be hard to adjust to this phone. Although it did take getting used to having no physical home button and navigating the menus, but that's not necessarily a bad thing (I like newness). The camera, despite what some apple fanboys and tech reviews claim, is actually really good. The images are clear and the colors are rich, and with a little tweaking of the settings, it can compete with any other camera (on a phone) out there.The battery is also a strong suit of the HTC One M8. I was initially worried about purchasing a phone that didn't have a removable back cover, but now I know it was for nothing. When I first opened the box, it had a 47% charge, which would have lasted me, but I decided to charge it fully. The next day, the phone only lost around 30-40% charge after more than 18 hours of light to moderate use (facebook, instagram, email, whatsapp, music, youtube and internet browsing). With heavy use, I can see getting at least 10+ hours. In standby mode, I can see this thing lasting weeks. Needless to say, the battery is great.Now, onto my only gripe about the HTC One M8, the speakers. Don't get me wrong, these are the best speakers on a phone that I have experienced, and having them facing forward makes a world of difference. When the volume is up, the speakers are very crisp, clear and bass rich. However, after reading so much about Boomsound, and then actually hearing the phone, I was honestly expecting a little more. I know that I have to take the audio file quality into account (which I do), but I wasn't expecting to have to turn the volume up to the level I did (almost max) to experience what HTC so proudly boasted about.After all is said and done, I would highly recommend this phone to anyone who wants the best piece of pocket tech available.Pros:-Super fast-Very lightweight/excellent form factor.-Battery life is amazing.-Great display.-Can actually use the phone in sunlight!Cons:-Dual front speakers not as loud as I had hoped.-Volume buttons don't feel very well constructed.