HTC One 2014 M8 in the flesh, first impressions

We finally got our HTC One M8 after many weeks of scouring thru several sources. We’ve been using it for about 3 days now and we’re still very impressed with it.

At first we thought that the HTC M8 would look and feel like the older HTC One M7. However, after unboxing the unit and playing around with it, we noticed a lot of uniqueness that would set it apart from its older sibling.

The new HTC M8 is bigger and taller than the M7. Even the grip feels more comfortable with the M8 with its more curved back and slightly thinner profile.

The unibody aluminum and glass combo evokes a premium feel that you’d rarely see in many other flagship handsets. The unit that we bought was the gold version although we think the shade isn’t as stunning as the champagne gold of the iPhone 5S.

The bottom end is where the microUSB port and the 3.5mm audio port are found. The left side, almost near the top, is where the hidden slot for the nano-SIM card is found. The SIM tray pops up via a small pinhole on its side. The right side is volume rocker and the slot for the microSD card.

The top end is covered with a glass-like semi-translucent polycarbonate material that incorporates the power button and the IR blaster. It gives some semblance of balance and uniformity unlike the last time where the power button is also the transmitter for the IR blaster.

At there back, the dual rear camera is positioned on top of one another with the dual-LED flash just on the left of the larger sensor.

While using the camera, we were thoroughly impressed at how fast the sensor focuses on the camera and takes the shot. There was virtually no delay between the focus time and the image capture that it feels like we were using a dSLR.

At the front is the gorgeous display in full HD 1080 resolution. The glass panel feel thick and solid, the display is bright and crisp.

Where we think there is some kind of awkward placement was the bottom bezel for the HTC logo which has no other specific purpose and it has effectively made that area larger than necessary (adds to the area for the speakers and the onscreen soft buttons for Android).

The speakers are in the same position and while HTC is claiming a 25% increase in sound volume, we did not notice it during our limited time with the handset.

We’ll do a more in-depth and full review of the handset in the next few days so watch out for that.

The unit that we got was the native version (not the Google Play Edition) so we still had that Blinkfeed homescreen as part of the UI.

So far, design-wise and hardware-wise the HTC One M8 2014 is a very promising upgrade by HTC coming from the HTC One last year.

HTC One 2014 (M8) specs:
5-inch full HD Super LCD3 @ 1080×1920 pixels, 441ppi
Corning Gorilla Glass 3
2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core CPU
Adreno 330 GPU
2GB RAM
16/32/64GB internal storage
up to 128GB via microSD
4MP and 2PM Ultrapixel rear cameras, dual-LED flash
5 megapixel front-facing camera
LTE, HSPA+
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, WiFi Direct, DLNA, WiFi hotspot
Bluetooth 4.0 w/ A2DP
NFC
GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS
IR Blaster
Stereo FM Radio w/ RDS
HTC BoomSound
Android 4.4.2 Kitkat w/ HTC Sense UI 6
2,600mAh battery
146.4 x 70.6 x 9.4 mm (dimension)
160 grams (weight)
Metal Gray, Silver, Black, Gold (colors)