HTC has announced its new flagship smartphone -- the HTC One M8.
In the battle of the high-end smartphones, this is the third contender alongside the forthcoming Samsung Galaxy S5 and Sony Xperia Z2. They're all tricked-out, top-spec systems with the latest Qualcomm CPUs.
Each manufacturer wants to separate itself from the market though (Samsung: health, fitness, lifelogging; Sony: photography, gaming, entertainment) and HTC's angle on this harks back to its Evo 3D from 2011 -- it features two cameras on the rear.
Check out our full comparison of the three phones.
This stereo pairing of cameras allows for photographs to be refocussed after they have been captured. Wired.co.uk went hands-on with the device ahead of its official unveiling and tried out the feature, albeit briefly. After a photograph is taken it's possible, in an editing menu, to choose a different part of the photograph to be the point of focus.
It's an effective feature but wasn't quite as mind-blowing as we had hoped. This is because even with the two cameras, the phone's software has to be able to determine what's in the foreground or background. The result was a very obvious shifting of focus, but with byproducts such as soft or blurred edges. It makes it ideal for the Instagrams and Facebooks of the world but doesn't inject us with the same level of "wow!" as the image quality the main camera delivers on its own.
In this instance its another of HTC's 4.1 "UltraPixel" lenses that use smaller, but larger, pixels to capture light and combine that with a big f2.0 aperture (big = better in low light) and a wide 28mm lens. It records 1080p video and includes a high-dynamic range recording option, but unlike the Galaxy and Xperia rivals does not record 4K video. No great shame -- no-one's got a 4K TV right now anyway.
Hardware specifications
Inside the metal-enclosed device, which has a pin-sharp 1,920x1,080-pixel screen a little larger than last year's HTC One at (5 inches), is a quad-core 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor paired with 2GB of RAM. These are significant speed bumps (on paper) as last year's HTC One ran Qualcomm's mid-range Snapdragon 600 CPU, clocked at 1.7GHz.
The device will run the latest version of Android -- 4.4 KitKat with HTC's Sense 6 UI. It's a slick piece of kit, but like its internal specifications the physical specs have been bumped up as well. Last year's HTC One weighed 143g, but the 2014's M8 weighs 160g. It's also wider (146mm versus 137mm) and taller (71mm versus 68mm). Depth is by and large unnoticeably changed (officially it's only 0.5mm thicker, which we certainly couldn't tell during out hands-on time).
Some other neat features: you can unlock the screen by double-tapping it while it's switched off (the screen is always "listening" for fingers), which we can see becoming as close to second nature as using the fingerprint sensor is on the iPhone 5s; the front-facing camera is a full 5 megapixels and has a wide-angle lens and the same f2.0 aperture as the primary rear camera (selfie quality apparently now a key concern for multiple manufacturers); larger front-facing speakers are also much louder; battery life is rated at 40 percent better than last year's HTC One (our review will prove this to be true or not); and it includes the FitBit app, allowing you to monitor steps taken each day using the device's built-in pedometer.
The outlook
Presently it really feels like it's industrial design and price setting these three devices -- the Samsung, Sony and HTC -- apart.
Sony goes for the biggest screen and a fat bezel; Samsung goes for thin-as-possible plastic; HTC prefers all-metal and to hell with the extra weight. Their internal specifications are damn-near identical as far as anyone will really notice and it means all three will need to rely more heavily on their marketing than ever before.
But HTC, for all its challenges, has followed up last year's popular One with a promising new iteration. Albeit one that forgoes its compact luxury approach to differentiation with an all-guns-blazing mission to catch up to Samsung and Sony in terms of size and specification.
The outlook is good, even if we weren't blown away by the twin camera functionality. Look out for our full review on Wired.co.uk tomorrow.
Wired.co.uk understands the HTC One M8 will be on sale immediately.
See how it measures up against the Sony Xperia Z2 and the Samsung Galaxy S5.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
