We've now reached peak smartphone design. It's not enough for a phone to have beastly performance, a really sharp screen, all-day battery life and a premium design. Smartphones need to be great cameras, too.
A great camera isn't a nice extra on a smartphone anymore — it's an essential. For a company that insists it's a mobile photography innovator, HTC blew it with the One M9.
[seealso slug="http://mashable.com/2015/03/26/unlocked-htc-one-m9-available-march-27/"]
I've cited American photographer Chase Jarvis's famous quote before in many of my camera reviews and I'm going to do so again: "The best camera is the one you have with you." For just about everybody, that camera is now our smartphone.
Our smartphone's camera is literally the lens connecting us to photo and video content platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Meerkat, etc.
Metal design is still One-derful
The One M9 — $649 unlocked directly from HTC and available on all four major U.S. carriers including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon with varied pricing — is very similar to the One M8. So similar that they're easy to confuse when held next to each other.
The M9's still got a unibody aluminum design, this time with sharper edges for better grip-ability. In the U.S., it comes in two models: a gold/silver mix and gunmetal gray. I tested the gold/silver model, which HTC likens to having a jewelry-like finish, but I found the gold-anodized sides gaudy. I'd personally go with the stealthier gunmetal gray, although its anodized body is likely to scratch easily.
The top of the phone is still occupied by an infrared sensor (for controlling TVs and entertainment systems), but you'll notice the power button has moved to the right side.
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The repositioned power button is more accessible than on the top, but it's positioned too low. Even with my small hands, my right thumb always pressed the volume down button instead. That's no bueno.
The 5-inch full HD (1,920 x 1,080) display is as sharp as ever. HTC's signature front-facing BoomSound speakers return on the M9 but they've been enhanced with Dolby Audio with virtual surround sound. The M9 is also part of a new breed of Android smartphones capable of playing high-res music encoded at 24-bits, but like Neil Young's PonoPlayer, you'd be foolish to buy into it.
Iron Man specs
I'm a glutton for the fastest, most powerful everything. For my phones, it's always go big (performance, not size) or go home.
But the spec race is pretty meaningless today. The M8 had a then-state-of-the-art quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor and 2GB of RAM. I dug it up from our gadget chest, factory reset it, then updated it to Android 5.0.2 "Lollipop" and installed my usual apps (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Feedly, etc.) and you know what? It's still blazing fast and responsive.
The M9 is armed with a rocket engine. It's loaded with an octa-core (2GHz quad-core + 1.5GHz quad-core) 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor and 3GB of RAM. It's way more power than the average smartphone user needs and approaches overkill territory.
My usual go-to 3D-intensive games like Asphalt 8: Airborne and Dead Trigger 2 couldn't even slow it down. Facebook sure as hell isn't noticeably faster on the M9 than on the M8.
In the lead-up to the M9's announcement, there were concerns that the Snapdragon 810 processor was prone to overheating. Mashable Tech Editor Pete Pachal didn't notice any unusual heat issues on the LG G Flex 2, which also uses the same chip, and neither did I while testing the M9. The phone gets a little warm when it's pushed hard with 3D games, but so does every smartphone.
Unlike other phones that come with several storage models, the M9 only has one: 32 gigabytes (GB). If that's not enough, you can expand the storage through the microSD card slot, which takes memory cards up to 2 terabytes (TB), although those aren't actually commercially available. SanDisk makes a 200GB microSD card, but it'll set you back $400.
The 2,840 milliamp-hour (mAh) battery lasts a full day, which is pretty standard. Battery life can be stretched some more if you switch on the power savings mode.
Un-Sense-sational software update
The M9 runs Android 5.0.2 "Lollipop" with Sense 7. Like the hardware, Sense 7 doesn't mess too much with the established formula; BlinkFeed, HTC's Flipboard-like news reader, is still a swipe in from the left on the main homescreen and the widgets, icons and notification shade still look very HTC-like.
The only giveaway that the M9's running Sense 7 is the new Sense Home widget on the homescreen. Sense Home uses location tracking and app preference behavior to show different apps. When you're at work, you might want to show productivity apps like email, Google Drive and Google Calendar; at home, music, YouTube, the Kindle app and perhaps some games; and outdoors, Google Maps, Yelp and maybe a fitness-tracking app.
HTC isn't the first company to leverage your location and app preferences to serve up relevant info. There are several location-based launchers for Android such as Nokia's elegant Z Launcher.
The other new Sense feature HTC's pushing is themes. HTC says there's a large group of people who spend their free time finding ways to hack Android to customize icons, fonts, sounds, UI colors, etc. The average user, apparently, wants the convenience of swapping out these elements, without having to spend hours sifting through online forums.
In a few taps, you can create your own theme from an image or download and install one made by someone else in the Themes app. (In the future, HTC says it hopes to let creators sell their themes.) For those who want more control over their theme creations, HTC has a tool called Maker Pro.
I like the idea of poking around with the colors and icons, but I don't think the average person cares about going that deep. Enthusiast tinkerers will love it, but people like my parents can't be bothered with these little customizations. Consistency and clarity is why stock Android rocks.
20-megapixels of mud
HTC invented the "UltraPixel" camera to go against the grain — to take low-light pictures to the next level at a time when all smartphone cameras sucked at shooting anything with even a hint of darkness.
The M7's UltraPixel camera's low-light prowess came at the expense of image resolution: It was only 4-megapixels. That's fine for viewing on a smartphone, but terrible on a computer screen. Then the M8 paired a secondary "Duo" camera to the 4-megapixel camera, letting you adjust the point of focus, Lytro-style, after taking a pic.
The M9 scraps the UltraPixel camera on the back, replacing it with a 20-megapixel shooter. Meanwhile, the UltraPixel camera moved to the front.
Switching to a higher-resolution sensor silences the resolution whiners. While the camera fires off shots quickly, pictures are pretty average; exposures are sometimes blown out and images are afflicted with image noise. Low-light performance, however, regresses significantly. Don't just take my word for it, check out these comparisons between the M8 and M9:
And the M9 and iPhone 6:
By default, the back camera records video in full HD resolution (1,920 x 1,080). That can be cranked up to 4K resolution (3,840 x 2,160), but unless you've got a 4K TV or monitor, you'll probably want to leave it at 1080p just to conserve battery life.
The UltraPixel front-facing camera, however, is an improvement. The 26.8mm lens is wide enough to fit in a bunch of friends and the low-light capabilities means pictures taken in dark bars are better.
It also records video in 1080p, which is nicer than what the iPhone 6's 720p FaceTime camera can do.
Lesson not learned
The One M8 stood above the Android crowd chiefly for its all-metal body. Fast forward a year later and HTC's no longer the only with a premium design. Samsung's svelte Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge already has staunch fans wetting themselves and it's not even out yet. And Chinese companies like Xiaomi are creeping up fast with well-made metal and glass phones like the Mi Note.
The One M9's refined design dazzles, just like the M8 and M7 before it did, but its rear camera is rubbish. Sense Home is a cool widget, but not game-changing. Being able to change themes is cute until the novelty of new icons and different UI colors wears off.
With excellent smartphone cameras like the iPhone 6/6 Plus and upcoming Samsung Galaxy S6/S6 Edge as foes, the M9 couldn't afford to screw up the back camera.
All HTC needed to do was slap on a killer camera that competes with the iPhone 6 and call it a day.
I'm all for creating an iconic design language and product design that withstands the tests of time, but the smartphone competition is more relentlessly aggressive than ever.
The iPhone gets away with sticking to an industrial design for two years because its "S" model always gets a better camera, not a crappier one.
When you're an underdog like HTC trying to claw back a slice of the smartphone pie from Apple and Samsung, you need to pull out all the stops. With the One M9, HTC really did rest on its laurels.
HTC One M9
The Good
Premium all-metal design
Monster performance
Great UltraPixel selfie camera
Loud BoomSound speakers
Custom themes
The Bad
Weak 20-megapixel rear camera
No fingerprint sensor
Sense Home and themes feel like gimmicks
The Bottom Line
HTC's One M9 is yet another beautifully-machined metal phone, but its camera lags so far behind its biggest competitors.