A powerful and classy-looking Android phone, but its beauty is only skin deep
Many new Android phones have flashy technologies like curved screens, but HTC has taken a different route with it latest phone, the One M9. It looks almost identical to its predecessor, the One M8, with HTC opting to change most of its internal components and software instead.
Like previous One phones, the One M9 looks very classy and feels exceptionally robust thanks to its brushed metal construction.
While previous One phones were a little slippery, HTC has added a ridge around the edge of the M9’s screen to give your fingers extra grip - a small but helpful change. It’s still a very big phone, though, and if you have small hands you’ll find it hard to use one-handed.
One of the biggest disappointments in the M8 was its camera. Its ‘ultrapixef sensor took better quality shots in low light than other phones of the time, but with a big catch: large amounts of detail were lost, both in low light and on brightly lit shots. The M9 has a standard 20-megapixel sensor instead, but it’s still flawed. While photos taken in dim conditions were well lit with noise kept to a minimum, they were prone to blurriness and fine details were lost. Flesh tones in portraits, even those taken with plenty of light, were a little smeared and looked unnatura|l. Only landscape shots were consistently good.
The 5in screen’s image quality is top notch. It’s bright with good contrast and colour accuracy. Touch-sensitivity wasn’t quite spot-on, though, sometimes lagging behind our finger movements, which is disappointing for a phone at this price.
We had no complaints about performance, though. Its eight-core processor, paired with 3GB of memory, sprinted through our demanding benchmark tests. The phone’s metal casing did become noticeably warm as a result, but not uncomfortably so.
Call quality on O2’s 3G network in London’s West End was generally good. Callers did sound a little quiet to us, but we sounded loud and clear to them despite the sound of a building site in the background. However, battery life was disappointing, coming in at just under 24 hours when we used the phone for calls, photography, web browsing and Google Maps. This is a very average score.
The M9 is one of the first Android phones to come with Android 5.0 Lollipop pre-installed, but HTC has added its own custom interface on top. There are some useful features, such as the ability to silence the ringer by flipping the phone over and a Kid’s Mode so your little ones can use your phone but with restrictions you control. But there is also lots of fluff, such as the option to have the icons and other parts of the interface change colour to match your wallpaper. Most irritating of all. Lollipop’s handy ‘do not disturb’ features are buried in the settings app, making them harder to get to.
We don’t mind that HTC has only slightly changed the casing of the One M9 - it’s a strength of the One series, after all. The mediocre camera and battery life are less easy to forgive, and while performance, screen and call quality are up to scratch, many other phones also share these advantages. Unless looks are everything, you can get better elsewhere.
VERDICT
Modest improvements over its predecessor and some gimmicky, annoying tacked-on software make for a smartphone that’s only fair value.
SPECIFICATIONS
5in 1920x1080-pixel touchscreen • 1.56GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 eight-core processor • Adreno 430 graphics chip • 3GB memory • 32GB storage • 4G • nano SIM • microSD • Android 5.0 Lollipop • 157g • 145x70x10mm (HxWxD) • One-year warranty