Released in 2015 as the flagship mobile device of the Taiwanese company. Alas, he failed to repeat the success of his predecessors - progress from competitors and a number of his own shortcomings did not allow him to gain a foothold at the top. The Taiwanese manufacturer lost its leadership position and lost customers and profits for the next two years.
To understand why the M9 was not a success, you need to take a closer look at competitors' devices - the iPhone 6/6s and Samsung Galaxy S6. The Koreans from Samsung managed to get rid of one of the biggest shortcomings of their flagships - the nondescript design. Samsung Galaxy S6 came out in a new design made of glass and metal, and it instantly won success and recognition from users. Apple devices with their multimillion-dollar audience have always been successful, and the “sixth” line of smartphones itself was very, very good.
Unlike its competitors, HTC decided not to make radical changes. In terms of design, the HTC One M9 is not much different from the M8 - even more so, the smartphones use almost identical displays. Most manufacturers introduced new cameras, hardware capabilities and batteries. How can HTC respond to this? Is it just a slightly redesigned shell? HTC Sense 7.
In any case, the HTC One M9 corrected the mistakes of its predecessor and showed a number of improvements. But neither the redesigned main camera nor the more capacious battery turned out to be as revolutionary as they should have been. And, frankly, it's not that unexpected. In any HTC case The One M9 remains a very, very worthy flagship.
In terms of design, the HTC One M9 and M8 are the same as the iPhone 5s and 5. Both smartphones follow the same design concept and are equipped with the same displays. Only a number of minor changes differentiate the M9 from the M8.
The most noticeable of these changes is the new two-tone paint job. The smartphone is available in three color options: gold and silver, all-gold, and metallic on grey.
As for the rear panel, instead of a curved surface, HTC decided to use a thick edge connecting the front panel to the back. The front of the smartphone seems to have been squeezed into the back. There is a small advantage to this - HTC was able to make a thinner frame between the screen and the panel itself. In addition, the smartphone is now lighter and stronger in the hand, without trying to slip out of your hands. It's even easier to hold in one hand, although it's still less comfortable than the M8.
In all other aspects, the design of the phone has improved. It became 0.2 mm thicker, but the engineers managed to narrow it by almost a millimeter. The smartphone weighs 157 grams – not too little and not too much. Sometimes it may seem heavy, but this is even better - the user will never have the feeling that he is holding a children's toy in his hands.
The lock and power key has been moved from the top to the right panel. It is now located directly below the volume buttons. In addition, the material has been changed - the button is now metal and equipped with an etched surface. The user will be able to immediately distinguish it from the volume controls. The latter, by the way, have also been improved - they are now a little harder and require a little more pressure to operate.
Unfortunately, the phone is still difficult to use if you are used to using only one hand. Competitors have already come up with solutions - in the iPhone, for example, the top of the screen moves down when you double press the Home key, and Samsung has a separate mode. HTC apparently decided not to pay attention to such a “trifle”, and there are no ways to make it easier to use the phone with one hand.
On the bottom edge there is a 3.5 mm headphone jack and a microUSB input. The grille on the front panel covers the new BoomSound speakers.
Almost the entire top edge is covered with translucent black plastic. Below it is an infrared emitter that allows you to use the M9 as a remote control.
Another change is the camera design. The HTC One M9 uses a square camera that protrudes slightly from the body. The corners of the module are slightly rounded so that the phone does not get stuck when you try to put it in your pocket.
Display
In 2015, “2K hysteria” began among smartphone manufacturers, and they all began equipping their flagships with displays with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. HTC decided not to give in to the trend and, according to tradition, equipped the 5-inch screen of the HTC One M9 Full HD matrix.
2K displays are sharper than Full HD displays, but that doesn't make any difference with a 5-inch diagonal. The grain of the image is completely indistinguishable to the eye - the density of 441 pixels per inch allows you to work with the display without any problems. By comparison, Apple's Retina specifications only require 336 pixels per inch. In other words, the lack of 2K resolution is not a problem.
The Super LCD3 matrix displays colors well and has sufficient contrast and black depth. It still can't compare to Samsung's Super AMOLED, but it will be more than enough for normal use. The brightness and viewing angles are very good, but the display still reflects the sun's rays very strongly - the user will probably have to turn it at an angle so that the sun does not hit the eyes.
Built-in speakers and sound quality
As is tradition, the HTC One M9 is equipped with a pair of stereo speakers with a built-in amplifier and Dolby Audio support. Compared to other speakers, they separate sound better in stereo mode, but this is not their main feature. What makes the HTC One M9 truly special is how deep the speakers sound and how well they deliver mids given their size. Competitors' devices can't compare with the M9 in terms of sound quality.
Due to its small size, it will not be possible to achieve good low-frequency sound. Luckily, the amplifier and Dolby Audio support work even if you plug in headphones.
In short, you won't find better speakers anywhere, HTC has the best sound quality.
Performance
Before the release of the HTC One M9, the flagship smartphone market was dominated by models with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8-series processors. The Galaxy S5 and Sony Xperia Z3 were equipped with these processors and they were unrivaled in terms of performance.
The HTC One M9 uses the Snapdragon 810, the latest processor from Qualcomm. Its main feature is support for 64-bit computing and eight cores with big.LITTLE architecture. In fact, the smartphone is equipped with two quad-core processors operating at 1.55 GHz and 1.96 GHz. Few powerful processor is responsible for processing calls, receiving and sending text messages, receiving data from sensors, playing music and Internet browsing - in other words, for actions that do not require significant processing power. In this way, energy consumption can be significantly reduced. A second, more powerful processor is connected only when running demanding applications - for example, 3D games. In power-saving mode, high-performance cores are completely disabled.
As for performance, the smartphone works just perfectly. We never encountered any slowdowns or freezes - the system worked perfectly. In games, the smartphone also showed its best side, but the main problem of the Snapdragon 810 - overheating - still managed to show itself. After playing games for a long time, the phone becomes noticeably warm, and if it is also charging at the same time, the temperature rises even more. Fortunately, it never reached the point of complete overheating.
In synthetic benchmarks, HTC One M9 scores the following:
- * 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited: 15602 (21625 with power saving mode disabled);
- * GeekBench 3 multi-core: 2268 (3545 with power saving mode disabled).
Operating system and software
HTC One M9 runs on Android 5.0 OS, which can be upgraded to Android 7.0 Nougat. The proprietary HTC Sense shell is installed on top of the system.
One of key features HTC Sense is a redesigned home screen called Sense Home. It works as follows: the system studies what time and where the user is and what applications he is using at this time, and adjusts the home screen accordingly. For example, when the user is at work, Sense Home will display a list of eight frequently used work apps. There are three main categories: “Home”, “Work” and “Outdoor”. The third mode is for navigation using Google Maps and similar applications.
The built-in theme center has been redesigned, allowing for deeper device customization. The user is no longer limited by the available themes - he can now create his own. The application analyzes the image that the user wants to use as wallpaper and selects icons, fonts and the general design of the system to match it. Sometimes Theme Center doesn't handle third-party app icons correctly, but overall it works quite well.
The smartphone also has a new Cloudex application. It brings together collections of custom images in Dropbox, Google Drive, Facebook and Flickr, showing them all in one application.
The built-in “Remote” application has returned to the M9, allowing you to use the infrared transmitter as a remote control. You can control almost everything - TVs, audio systems and other devices with an IR receiver. Also came back and child mode, which prevents users from opening apps that contain content that is unsafe for children.
In addition to Google Play Music, HTC One M9 comes with its own audio player, HTC Music App. Considering that the Google app is more aimed at streaming and purchasing audio content from its own store, the phone needs a separate audio player - and the HTC Music App fits this role perfectly.
Memory expansion and wireless connectivity
Unlike other manufacturers, HTC still allows users to expand the internal memory using memory cards. HTC One M9 is no exception - despite the fairly large amount of internal memory (32 GB), users can expand it using microSD cards. In addition, as a bonus, HTC is offering all users an additional 100 GB of Google Drive cloud storage for two years.
The smartphone supports dual-band Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n/ac) with DLNA and Wi-Fi Direct, MHL 3.0 for connecting directly to a TV via cable, and 4G. In addition, for energy-efficient pairing with other devices, there is support for Bluetooth 4.1.
Camera
Cameras have always been a weak point in the HTC One smartphone line. In the M9 it is still not the best - truly good cameras began to appear only after the release. However, compared to the M8 and M7, progress is obvious.
The M9 camera uses a 20.7 megapixel sensor. In principle, this is already better than in other flagship devices - for example, the iPhone 6 has only an eight-megapixel matrix. However, megapixels are not the most important thing. Unfortunately, the HTC One M9 doesn't have optical image stabilization, which means low-light photography will suffer.
Since the HTC One M9 does not have a dual camera, an artificial bokeh effect is used instead of a physical depth of field effect. It works, alas, not in the best way - the transition from clear to blurry image performed abruptly rather than smoothly. In addition, objects must be no further than 60 cm from each other, and image processing takes about five seconds. So it’s better to forget about this function.
The editor built into the application allows you to add a number of filters, frames and effects to the image. Double Exposure allows you to merge two photos. Elements adds moving elements to your photos, like falling leaves or bubbles. Finally, HTC Zoe allows you to make small video clips consisting of several photos.
But no matter how wonderful the effects are, they are useless without a good camera. Let's look at the operation of the camera itself.
After switching to a 20-megapixel matrix, the quality of photos should have improved. However, the M9's camera is objectively inferior to its competitors (iPhone 6/6s and Samsung Galaxy S6). Object detail leaves much to be desired, and the background looks too soft and blurry.
Apparently, the culprit is not the best exposure algorithm. The camera can't balance the brightness, especially when there are multiple light sources in the picture - and as a result, some environments are "drowning" in the dark, and you won't find detail in images during the day with fire.
The M9's camera doesn't shine in low light either. The quality of the photos turned out a little better than that of the Galaxy S5, but the lack of optical image stabilization makes itself felt - the photos are far from being as good as they could be.
In normal lighting the photos come out great. Even better - when shooting under normal conditions, the HTC One M9 produces some of the brightest and most saturated photos. The HDR mode works very well and improves color and brightness balance. However, processing takes about two seconds.
The M9 uses a four-megapixel UltraPixel module as the front camera - in fact, the main HTC camera One M8 has moved to the front panel. This camera is ideal for selfies, which are mostly taken in low-light conditions.
The selfie camera works much better than the iPhone 6 Plus and Galaxy S5. If you like selfies, you'll love this camera.
The HTC One M9 can shoot 4K video up to six minutes long. Slow motion shooting at 120fps is also supported. Video quality is decent, but it suffers from the same problems as photos.
Autonomy
HTC One M9 is equipped with a battery with a capacity of 2840 mAh. Using the big.LITTLE architecture should, in theory, reduce energy consumption.
For the test, we ran SD video on the smartphone with the display brightness reduced to 50%. The HTC One M9 lasted about 10 hours - only slightly more than the M8, but less than the Galaxy S5 or iPhone 6 Plus. In more everyday scenarios, the battery performed well, but not in the least bit outstanding. If you browse the Internet for three hours (3G/4G), watch videos for an hour and play 3D games for another two hours, the battery will be completely discharged in 13 hours. In less intensive usage scenarios, the chances that the phone will survive until the evening increase.
If your smartphone is about to run out of power, you can turn on extreme power saving mode. It disables almost all functions except the basic ones - calls and messaging.
Like most flagship smartphones, the HTC One M9 does not come with a removable battery. This means that you will have to carry a power bank or other UMB with you. The phone supports fast charging - when using a special cable, the HTC One M9 charges up to 50% in half an hour.
Results
The HTC One M9 is far from the worst flagship smartphone. He simply failed to introduce something truly innovative when competing firms introduced something completely new. The updated design in the Samsung Galaxy S6 and LG G5, 3D Touch in the iPhone 6s helped these smartphones not slide into repetition and become a commercial success, while the M9 was just a “slightly updated” M8. Partly because of this, HTC began to have financial problems, which the company was only able to solve now.
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– retained the design of its grandfather (HTC One), received hardware typical of a modern flagship (with the exception, perhaps, of a QHD display), software(that is, Android 5.0 and the new generation HTC Sense interface) and finally a camera with megapixels familiar to the average person. We will look at whether all these improvements are worth purchasing this particular flagship device this year in our review.
What is this?
One M9 is HTC's flagship smartphone from the first half of 2015. It is equipped with a 5-inch FullHD display, a top-end 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor, runs Android 5.0 and with all its appearance and content claims to be one of the main devices of this year.
How to distinguish the brand new HTC One M9 from last year's HTC One (M8)?
HTC consistently uses the names of its lines - One for flagship devices, Desire for those that are cheaper. The design that this year's flagship One sports is inherited from the 2013 device. Yes, the HTC One M9 has been refreshed a lot and has even grown a little compared to the HTC One from the year before, but it is so similar to the One (M8) that you can’t tell the difference without an experienced eye and a tape measure with scales. This year's flagship is slightly larger, but lighter than last year's. On the one hand, repeating HTC's brilliant trick with a metal body and speakers on the front panel became a little boring in the third year. On the other hand, the design is good, you can’t say anything. There's no new one lying around on the road.
The differences in appearance between generations can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The One M9 has a memory card slot. The screen diagonal remains the same (5 inches), and the speakers are now entirely Harman Kardon, but you can only read about this in the press release; there is no mention on the case. The sound of the smartphone was excellent both in the speakers and in the headphones, and remains so. On the HTC One M9, the screen lock key has moved to the right side under the volume buttons. I liked this, but I didn’t like the fact that the shape and size of the screen lock button is no different from the other two - so I often press the wrong button. However, the gestures supported by the interface allow you to dispense with the button in many cases.
A large black stripe appeared at the top - apparently hiding the communication modules. It is so large that it is noticeable even on the front panel. Apart from that, nothing fit on the top end.
The front panel, apart from the color, is no different from the One M8. The top and bottom are decorated with speakers, which is why the body is traditionally long. Near the front camera (4 ultra-pixels, correct solution for the “front camera”, which usually takes photographs from an arm’s length distance and night selfies - exactly those things in which such a camera module is strong) there are light and proximity sensors. Somewhere between the speakers, an LED gleams, notifying you of missed events and a low battery.
At the back there is one camera instead of two, the flash is still two-color LED.
This is where the uninteresting differences end and the interesting begins - the difference in color. The smartphone that we had in our hands could be called both silver and gold at the same time. And even a little (at a certain angle and lighting) pink. In fact, according to HTC nomenclature, this color is gold. The edge of the smartphone is clearly yellow, but the front and back sides are of a mysterious iridescent color. The metal gives the impression of being precious. The movement of the keys tells you that you are holding a very, very expensive thing in your hands. Even the iPhone 6 is not nearly the same experience. One M9 looks more expensive and smarter. But iPhone case 6 is more universal, perhaps.
The HTC One M9 fits in the hand no worse or better than its predecessor. Compared to its competitors, the smartphone is elongated and has too large frames at the top and bottom. Due to its length, it constantly peeks out of jeans pockets. I would like to see the thickness in the next models be smaller - if other manufacturers can keep within 6-8 millimeters, then it’s time for HTC to take this height. According to first impressions, the smartphone body has become less susceptible to scratches. At least compared to HTC One Mini 2 for sure, and it is supposed to be made of the same aluminum as the One (M8). When HTC One Mini 2 turned out like this:
The HTC One M9 has this:
True, the HTC One M9, unlike the younger model, did not go to the sandy beach with me.
Does it really get hot?
There have already been complaints on the Internet that the HTC One M9 is overheating. Metal case, top-end Qualcomm processor, still untested software. Therefore, it is not surprising that the temperature of the device under load can exceed the desired values. In fact, the HTC One M9 doesn't just get hot. After half an hour of talking on Skype, for example, I literally got burned when I tried to move my smartphone from the table to another place. For comparison, the main competitor, the Samsung Galaxy S6, after the same load, becomes slightly warm at the back and noticeably warm at the edges, where metal is used. But the story with HTC heating is temporary - in the final version of the firmware, which has already arrived to Western users, but has not yet reached our latitudes, the problem, according to journalists, has been solved. IN everyday tasks I did not observe any problems with temperature.
How long does he work?
HTC One M9 is equipped with a 2840 mAh battery. His predecessor had 240 mAh less with similar screen characteristics and a less energy-efficient processor. In fact, the autonomy of the smartphone has not improved. Although I expected the HTC One M9 to last longer. With a connected Bluetooth accessory and GPS, the smartphone works for about a day, but for some reason in standby mode it is not gentle on the battery charge. It feels like this is not because the processor is very power hungry (it should be even better than its predecessor), but because the company needs to work a little more on the firmware. Surprisingly, the HTC One M9 is even slightly inferior to the Samsung Galaxy S6 in time battery life in real life, both in tests and when broadcasting streaming video (under the same conditions, the smartphone worked half as long, about 4 hours). If you turn off GPS, the smartphone will last about a day and a half. As a result, neither Samsung nor HTC have demonstrated a revolution in battery life in their current flagships. In my typical usage scenario, the iPhone 6, by the way, works the same day. We're waiting for Apple to make everyone sweat again.
The HTC One M9 settings have several power saving modes, and although I usually disable power saving on all the smartphones I test, here I was forced to change my habits so as not to be left without a smartphone at the wrong time.
Well, what about performance?
The HTC One M9 is a flagship for that reason, so as not to experience performance problems either in real life, or in resource-intensive applications (tested on all sorts of games for Cardboard), or in benchmarks. At the level of synthetic tests, it is inferior to the Samsung flagship. In terms of the smoothness of the interface, the Korean competitor also managed to do the impossible and outdo HTC and catch up with Sony's flagships. But the difference is so unimportant that only geeks and IT journalists can notice it.
For those who want to know more
The HTC One M9 has a 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor with four Cortex-A57 (2 GHz) and four Cortex-A53 (1.5 GHz) cores and Adreno 430 graphics. All this is seasoned, as in the best houses, 3 GB random access memory. A typical picture for a flagship device from 2015. New processor made using a 20nm process technology (although CPU-Z sees it as 28nm), so it should be more energy efficient compared to its predecessor. So far there is no difference for the better, but I hope that this problem will also be resolved in the next firmware update.
What's new in the interface?
Most of the innovations in the HTC Sense interface came from Android 5.0. Smartphone interface on current version OS manufacturers try to make them as close as possible to the bare OS. HTC retains the same shell - with BlinkFeed, a small number of pre-installed branded HTC programs and vertical scrolling of the application menu. The same fonts remain, but options for personalization have been added. For example, a widget with applications that change depending on where the user is - at work, at home, on the go. To be honest, I didn’t understand why this was necessary at all. Personally, I want everything on my smartphone to stay in place when I arrange my apps in the order I want. So I didn’t use the Sense Home widget. But I was happy to change the order of the icons on-screen keyboard smartphone. Now this is allowed. My favorite Motion Launch gestures for unlocking the screen remain: double tap and swipe in different directions.
Sense now has the ability to personalize themes, which is a nice touch, although not something that would make anyone buy a smartphone. Themes can be downloaded from the Internet (to get to the right place, you need to go to the “Themes” application), if you have (or if you create) an HTC account. In addition to themes, you can download fonts, designs, templates for HTC Dot View (that is, for the case), sounds and icons. This place also has a social component - you can subscribe to designs, you can share your inventions. I think that the younger part of the audience should like all this and even occupy it for a while. True, due to the diversity of third-party icons Android applications, the result of custom design sometimes looks stupid. For example, like this.
In addition to the design themes, HTC significantly improved the photo editor - they added a lot of filters and effects to it, and made it possible to overlay images one on top of another. The editor menu was redrawn in the style of Android 5.0 - with a side menu and a sliding curtain. Anyone who likes to take photos with a smartphone for the sake of filters should like this thing. A purely hipster application, and I think that among all the interface improvements, it is the most interesting for the audience who choose HTC smartphones for their design and non-pop.
In Android 5.0, the notification system was improved, now there are more of them, and it has become more comfortable to navigate between them. But if you don’t want strangers to read your messages on your locked screen, you can turn all this off in the settings. The LED that notifies you of new events can also be turned off when the device is in use. In general, of course, you can now customize an incredible amount of things.
Is the screen good?
HTC did not take the path of increasing the resolution or screen diagonal and installed exactly the same display as in the previous model. It is made using Super LCD3 technology, the diagonal is 5 inches, the resolution is FullHD, and it supports working with gloves. In numbers, the display brightness in our sample is lower than in last year’s flagship (368.177 cd/m2), the contrast is worse (733:1 versus 2088:1) and the black color is slightly lighter (0.502 cd/m2 versus 0.22 cd/m 2). But in fact, under the sun, the One M9 screen behaves the same. It reads well, but it is difficult to take photographs and check their quality in the sun. The Samsung Galaxy S6 has a similar story. Alas, today there is not a single Android smartphone lying around close to the iPhone in terms of behavior under the sun.
Is the new camera good?
The HTC One M9 has a 20-megapixel main camera, and our old familiar ultrapixels have moved to the front camera, where they belong (ultrapixels are good for macro photography, shooting close objects and shooting at night, just what selfie lovers need). The camera has definitely become more consistent with the title of flagship. The “native” aspect ratio for the matrix is 10:7. The interface is familiar to us from HTC Desire Eye. A new shooting mode has appeared - “Bokeh”, and “Photo Kiosk” and “Double Shooting” (you can learn more about them, as well as about the camera interface, from this material) must be downloaded additionally. The camera has become noticeably better at shooting during the day and has reached the level of detail compared to its competitors. Ever since the previous flagship model, it starts quickly (in the interface settings you can enable startup when you press the volume key in the horizontal position of the smartphone) and quickly shoots. But unlike the cameras of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and iPhone 6, the HDR mode in it must be turned on separately.
It shoots noticeably slower in HDR, although the results are generally better than the competition. For macro photography, you should also launch the appropriate mode. IN good conditions The HTC One M9's camera is on par with the Galaxy S6 and iPhone 6, but it's downright weak in low light. It is also predicted to improve its performance along with updated firmware. This is how the HTC One M9 camera shoots in different conditions (photo in original resolution).
For comparison, this is how the Samsung Galaxy S6 camera shoots (photo in original resolution).
And these are pictures taken on an iPhone 6 (photos in original resolution). In the dark, it takes about the same photos as the HTC One M9, and the Galaxy S6 significantly outperforms both devices.
What about others?
HTC One M9 enters the market simultaneously with Samsung Galaxy S6/S6 Edge, where iPhone 6 and Sony Xperia Z3 are already waiting for them. A little later, the LG flagship will appear. Much is already known about it. But despite the abundance of interesting top-end devices, the One M9 will continue the long-standing tradition of competing with the top-end Samsung smartphone. From a purely technological point of view, the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge turned out to be more interesting - smartphones have software and hardware tools for protecting personal information, they have a better camera and a more agile interface. HTC counters this with a more interesting (albeit old) case design and interface features that will be appreciated more by the younger generation than by mature people with serious matters. Although I don’t believe that users will choose such an expensive device based on the ability to use wireless charging or change menu themes. Most likely, the choice will again lie in the plane of design, camera and trust in the brand - after all, in the top segment there should be a lot of all this. And in these matters, gadgets are almost equal.
The Sony smartphone Xperia Z3 and its smaller copy Xperia Z3 Compact stand apart from the main characters of spring 2015. A Sony smartphone, in turn, can offer a more interesting price to a user eager for flagship devices at no less interesting performance. And at the same time - interesting body colors, protection from dust and moisture, excellent battery life and a close relationship with the PlayStation (let me remind you that you can play from a smartphone remotely, for example, while lying in the bathroom). Although, after contact with two ambitious new products, meeting with the Xperia Z3 is no longer so exciting: the smartphone is large, less interesting in the classic black color, its screen is blue. But even with all these physical shortcomings, he should not be discounted.
Can HTC One M9 and iPhone 6 be considered competitors? I don’t know, HTC has always been a more geeky brand. The iPhone is, on the contrary, a smartphone for those who don’t want to bother with anything. But HTC can offer the user not only a complex and sophisticated Android, but also an equally expensive body. But appearance plays one of the key roles in buying an expensive smartphone.
Video review of HTC One M9
Bottom line
This year, the HTC flagship was a little less lucky than the Samsung flagship. Over the years of its existence, the company managed to accumulate fewer dissatisfaction from users, and therefore was forced to correct a smaller list of errors. And this is partly why its newly-minted flagship does not give the impression of something that has become better in literally everything. On the contrary, HTC diligently preserved previous achievements (design, materials, accessories that no one will see in our country, interface design style. And they increased only those that were considered not good enough - the camera (hurray!), the capabilities of some proprietary applications (but not everyone will notice) and gave the user the opportunity to embellish the menu. It doesn’t seem like a revolution. But if you are a fan of the HTC brand and your last update was the HTC One, then it’s time to replace the flagship. If your smartphone is the HTC One ( M8), then you should only change your device if you really care about the camera. The update to Android 5.0 should reach last year's flagship, which means that some software features should appear without extra money. If you are not a fan of the brand, but a fan expensive and new smartphones, then wait to make a decision - we have conceived a detailed article on choosing a flagship device, where everything will be sorted out.Perhaps the One M9 is what you need, but maybe not.
4 reasons to buy HTC One M9:
- you love the brand and have not yet updated your HTC One;
- you enjoy creating and controlling the appearance of the things you use;
- beautiful metal case of unusual colors;
- improved front and main cameras.
2 reasons not to buy HTC One M9:
- the camera is not important to you, and then, in principle, you can buy the HTC One (M8), which will cost much less;
- Samsung Galaxy S6 has a better camera and screen.
The announcement of the HTC One M9 was received, to put it mildly, coolly - the company planned to update the hardware platform and camera of the smartphone, and, at first glance, left everything else unchanged. On the other hand, modern wisdom says – it works, don’t touch it! In addition, the average user has long lost interest in annually updating smartphones, and with flagships, in principle, there is no such need - they have enough performance reserves for several years. So maybe you shouldn’t try to come up with something new and minor improvements are enough to win the hearts of the consumer? Let's figure it out.
If you put HTC One M8 and M9 next to each other – last year’s and the latest flagships of the company, only a company employee will be able to tell them apart the first time. But the difference is really minimal - this is not Samsung with their Galaxy S5 and S6, which look like products from different manufacturers; maximum continuity is preserved here.
The general idea of the design, design and arrangement of elements remained almost unchanged. The body of the HTC One M9 is made from a single piece of aluminum, and the texture of the back cover retains its natural metal look.
Not much space is given to the display on the front side - there are wide plastic grilles at the top and bottom, under which the famous stereo speakers are hidden, and the company logo still flaunts above the bottom, lengthening the body by a couple of extra millimeters.
There is a small indicator light hidden under the top grille. To the right of it is a slot for sensors and a large front camera lens.
Trays for memory cards and NanoSIM are located in the upper part of the sides, MicroUSB and 3.5 mm are crowded at the bottom, and a glossy black insert on the upper end hides the infrared port for controlling household appliances.
Important changes compared to the HTC One M9 can be listed point by point.
First. The power key, after many years, has returned to its place; it is located under the separate volume buttons on the right. This makes using your smartphone much more convenient – you don’t have to reach for the key on top. Of course, I would like the button to be located a little higher, just under the thumb, but this place is already occupied by the volume keys.
Second. HTC has changed the shape of the side edges of the One M9. In M8 they were rounded, but now they are sharper. As in the Galaxy S6 Edge, you need to get used to the relatively sharp sides; personally, I stopped paying attention to this feature after a couple of days of use.
Third. The main feature of the One M8 was its dual camera. They decided to abandon it and replace it with a regular module. It protrudes slightly above the lid, but it looks worse in photos than in real life. In addition, the lens is protected by sapphire glass, so you don’t have to worry about the safety of the camera.
An additional change is the new colors of the case, to which fashionable gold has been added. HTC One M9 can be completely gold (Gold on Gold), silver with gold sides (Gold on Silver), or completely black (Gunmetal Gray). All colors have the same lid texture.
Otherwise, One M9 is one of the most metallic smartphones on the market, the abundance of metal is clearly felt in the hands. As before, it is larger than other models with 5-inch screens, but it can be operated normally with one hand.
Display
HTC did not pursue high resolutions and installed a traditionally good SuperLCD3 display with a diagonal of 5 inches and a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels (441 ppi) in its flagship. The screen is covered with Corning glass Gorilla Glass 4.
The screen brightness varies from 8 to 418 cd/m², the measured contrast is 1:773. The quality of factory calibration is at a good level - color gamut corresponds to the sRGB space, the color temperature is slightly too high, and the gamma curve has slight differences.
The screen supports operation with gloves, which is useful in the cold season. The ability to control gestures has not gone away - to turn the screen on or off, just double tapping. In addition, with a simple swipe you can immediately unlock the screen, open the BlinkFeed feed, or launch voice control.
The screen makes a very pleasant impression. Automatic brightness adjustment works correctly in most cases, the backlight reserve is sufficient both for working in the dark and for a bright sunny day, and the oleophobic coating allows you to quickly remove fingerprints. The display has a very calm color rendition - the colors are as close to natural as possible, there are no flashy bright shades that are typical of AMOLED displays and individual IPS matrices. The screen of the HTC One M9 leaves only pleasant impressions.
Hardware platform
HTC, as a rule, uses the latest developments from Qualcomm as the basis for its flagships. This year, the company did not change traditions - the heart of the One M9 is the eight-core 64-bit Snapdragon 810. It is complemented by 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal memory, the volume of which can be increased using memory cards.
There is also support for all current standards mobile networks, dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, DLNA, Bluetooth 4.1 (apt-X), GPS+GLONASS, NFC, infrared and even FM radio. For the “full set”, the HTC One M9 lacks only wireless charging capabilities, but given the all-metal back, this is not possible.
Naturally, with such a filling, the smartphone ranks first in most benchmarks and works as quickly as possible during normal use. Adreno GPUs always get good optimization in different games, so there will be no problems with them either. Moreover, for most tasks the existing performance will even be excessive. There is no 2K screen, so there is nowhere to use the available “power” (except for games).
The only negative point is the heating of the case. During normal use, the M9 remains cool, but as soon as you play a little resource-demanding games or run a couple of tests, it warms up noticeably. Of course, it doesn’t burn your hand, but you can feel the heat.
Calls, multimedia
The appearance of BoomSound speakers in HTC flagship smartphones allowed them to stand out among their peers. In One M9, the speakers remain in place. Subjectively, they have not changed over the year. They can still be called the best solution, if you like to watch YouTube videos or play fast-paced games without headphones. They play loudly, quite loudly and clearly. When playing music through headphones, things are also good - the sound is clear, spacious, without extraneous noise and with a good volume reserve.
The HTC One M9 also has no problems with telephone functions, with the only exception that you need to select the melody a little more carefully - when the smartphone is in your trouser pockets, the sound is muffled, so you can accidentally miss a call. The vibration alert is average in strength and can be felt in pockets and when the device is lying nearby on the table. In talk mode, the speaker has a normal volume, in most situations it is sufficient, there is a small margin. No problems with network signal reception were found during testing.
Operating system and shell
The smartphone runs the latest version of Android 5.0.2 Lollipop with the proprietary HTC Sense 7.0 interface. It may seem that no visible changes have occurred in the shell over the course of a year, they are simply hidden.
One of the innovations is the ability to customize on-screen keys, which can add a fourth button. In addition, a theme store has appeared. They allow you not only to change the appearance of icons, but affect absolutely everything - wallpaper, ringtones, fonts, and even the design of system control keys.
One of the innovations is hidden on the desktop. This is a widget that collects frequently used applications and newly installed programs. The arrangement of icons changes depending on the frequency of use of specific programs and your location - this solution turns out to be convenient.
Working hours
From the built-in 2840 mAh battery, the HTC One M9 runs confidently for a day under average load, showing three to four hours of screen operation. This is a normal indicator for modern flagships, which will probably improve slightly with the release of updates.
Cameras
The potentially interesting Duo Camera with ultra-pixels turned out to be the main drawback of the One M8; the HTC One M9 uses a regular module for the main camera, and the ultra-pixels have moved to the front camera.
The main camera uses a BSI sensor with a resolution of 20 megapixels. The flash is dual-tone LED, the 27.8mm f/2.2 lens is protected by sapphire crystal. The front camera has the following characteristics: 4 MP, HTC UltraPixel, BSI, f/2.0, 26.8mm.
Compared to the M8, progress is visible - the quality of the images has really improved, at least due to increased detail.
In practice, under normal non-ideal shooting conditions, everything is not so simple. We can certainly say that the camera in the HTC One M9 is inferior to the best modern photo flagships like the Galaxy S6 or iPhone 6. difficult conditions The device may miss focusing and mistakenly determine the white balance. In addition, you need to work on focusing speed - in this parameter the smartphone is also inferior to its competitors.
The above will be important if the quality of the smartphone camera plays an important role for you, and the pictures are studied and processed on a computer. Shots taken in clear weather look good. Plus, you shouldn’t write off the fact that the smartphone is just entering the market; the quality of shooting will probably be improved in future updates.
The front camera, on the contrary, can already be called one of the best.
The average quality of the main camera by flagship standards is slightly compensated by the software. You can add new ones to the existing shooting modes; there is a functional built-in editor.
Results
The HTC One M9 really doesn’t present any surprises – it’s an evolutionary development of the smartphone introduced a year ago. The company was able to improve the main drawback of the One M8 - the camera, although not so much that the new flagship could compete on equal terms with the best competitors. It is important that nothing was spoiled. There are the same high-quality case materials, speakers, screen, productive platform and excellent operating speed. Due to the power key moving to the side, ergonomics have improved. But the fully preserved design deprives the feeling of novelty that you expect from any smartphone that is proudly called a flagship. From this purely emotional point of view, the HTC One M9 looks boring. Owners of One (M8) may be interested mainly in the improved camera. For users of the first HTC One, released in 2013, the hero of the review will be much more interesting, but it’s worth remembering that the One M8 has remained quite relevant, and is also more affordable.
Liked:
Housing materials
High quality screen
Platform and operating speed, memory card slot
Stereo speakers
Front-camera
Did not like:
— Case dimensions
- Average main camera by flagship standards
— Case heating under load
 | operating system | Android 5.0.1 (Lollipop) |
| RAM, GB | 3 | |
| Built-in memory, GB | 32 | |
| Expansion slot | microSD/SDHC (up to 2 TB) | |
| Dimensions, mm | 144.6×69.7×9.61 | |
| Weight, g | 157 | |
| Protection from dust and moisture | — | |
| Accumulator battery | Li-Ion, 2840mAh (non-removable) | |
| Operating time (manufacturer's data) | talk time up to 25.4 hours on 2G networks; up to 21.7 hours on 3G networks | |
| Diagonal, inches | 5 | |
| Permission | 1920x1080 | |
| Matrix type | Super LCD 3 | |
| PPI | 441 | |
| Dimming sensor | + | |
| Touch screen (type) | capacitive | |
| Other | Corning Gorilla Glass 4 | |
| CPU | Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 MSM8994 + GPU Adreno 430 | |
| Kernel type | Cortex-A53 + Cortex-A57 | |
| Number of Cores | 4 + 4 | |
| Frequency, GHz | 1,5-2 | |
| Main camera, MP | 20.7 (f/2.2) | |
| Autofocus | + | |
| Video shooting | + (2160@30fps, 1080@60fps, 720@120fps) | |
| Flash | + (double LED) | |
| Front camera, MP | 4 (f/2.0) | |
| Other | sapphire lens coating | |
| WiFi | 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot | |
| Bluetooth | + (4.1) | |
| GPS | + (A-GPS, GLONASS) | |
| IrDA | + | |
| NFC | + | |
| Interface connector | USB 2.0 (micro-USB, MHL, HDMI) | |
| Audio jack | 3.5 mm | |
| MP3 player | + | |
| FM radio | + | |
| Type of shell | monoblock (non-separable) | |
| Housing material | aluminum | |
| Keyboard type | screen input | |
| More | stereo speakers (HTC BoomSound with Dolby Audio), fast charging, magnetic sensor, accelerometer, compass, gyroscope |
Improved and updated flagship
The central figure at the stand of the Taiwanese company NTS during the spring MWC 2015 exhibition in Barcelona was this time a new flagship smartphone called One M9. And this is somewhat surprising, because before this, in all previous years, the company organized separate large-scale presentations outside of any international exhibitions to present its mobile flagships.
But what’s even more surprising is that, unlike market leaders such as Apple and Samsung, who this time made quite a lot of fundamental changes to the new generations of their products, the next NTS flagship has changed very little compared to its predecessor last year. A more recent hardware platform was installed, the battery capacity was slightly increased, but the screen, as the main and main measure for any modern mobile product, remained absolutely the same - both in size and resolution. The body has also undergone almost no changes - the dimensions and weight remain almost the same. And this is completely surprising against the backdrop of the general boom in “shovel building”, which even Google got involved in, whose smartphones in past years were considered almost the standard of elegance and which in the new season unexpectedly released one of the largest and heaviest smartphones in the world. In this regard, the Taiwanese remained true to themselves; they maintained a good balance of size and weight, providing an outlet for those users who, for some reason, still do not want to switch to huge tablet phones. And that's not bad at all.
And yet, who in the new season could well be satisfied with the “improving” prefix “s” in the name is the next flagship of NTS, since on new model The number of changes is clearly not enough. The main and most significant “innovation” compared to the previous version is a return to “normal” cameras. Having played enough with “ultrapixels”, the developers finally came to the conclusion that this is not the most the best option, and turned their attention to the “classics”. Instead of 4 megapixels (the main camera!), “20 megapixels” is now proudly displayed here, which may finally allow true fans of the brand to breathe a sigh of relief. Read about whether the camera of the new NTS flagship takes better pictures, and about other changes that have occurred with the next representative of the famous family.
Video review
To get started, we suggest watching our video review of the HTC One M9 smartphone:
Now let's take a look at the characteristics of the new product.
Key Features of HTC One M9
| HTC One M9 | Meizu MX4 | LG G Flex 2 | Nexus 6 | Samsung Galaxy S6 | |
| Screen | 5″, S-LCD 3 | 5.36″, IPS | 5.5″, P-OLED | 5.96″, AMOLED | 5.1″, Super AMOLED |
| Permission | 1920×1080, 441 ppi | 1920×1152, 418 ppi | 1920×1080, 401 ppi | 2560×1440, 493 ppi | 2560×1440, 577 ppi |
| SoC | Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 (4x Cortex-A57 @2.0 GHz + 4x Cortex-A53 @1.5 GHz) | Mediatek MT6595 Octa-core (4 Cortex-A17 @2.2 GHz and 4 Cortex-A7 @1.7 GHz) | Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 (4x Cortex-A57 @2.0 GHz + 4x Cortex-A53) | Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 (4 cores Krait 450 @2.7 GHz) | Exynos 7420 (4x Cortex-A57 @2.1 GHz and 4x Cortex-A53 @1.5 GHz) |
| GPU | Adreno 430 | PowerVR G6200 | Adreno 430 | Adreno 420 | Mali-T760 |
| RAM | 3 GB | 2 GB | 2 GB | 3 GB | 3 GB |
| Flash memory | 32 GB | 16/32/64 GB | 32 GB | 32/64 GB | 32/64/128 GB |
| Memory card support | microSD | — | microSD | — | — |
| operating system | Google Android 5.0 | Google Android 4.4 | Google Android 5.0 | Google Android 5.0 | Google Android 5.0 |
| Battery | non-removable, 2840 mAh | non-removable, 3100 mAh | non-removable, 3000 mAh | non-removable, 3220 mAh | non-removable, 2550 mAh |
| Cameras | main (20.7 MP; 4K video), front (4 MP) | main (20.7 MP; 4K video), front (2 MP) | main (13 MP; 4K video), front (2 MP) | main (16 MP; 4K video), front (5 MP) | |
| Dimensions and weight | 145×70×9.6 mm, 157 g | 144×75×8.9 mm, 147 g | 149×75×9.4 mm, 154 g | 159×83×10.1 mm, 184 g | 143×70×6.8 mm, 138 g |
| average price | T-12259334 | T-11010064 | T-11883628 | T-11153512 | T-12259333 |
| HTC One M9 offers | L-12259334-10 | ||||
- SoC Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 (MSM8994), 64-bit platform, two clusters of four processor cores: ARM Cortex-A57 with a frequency of 2.0 GHz and ARM Cortex-A53
- GPU Adreno 430 @600 MHz
- Operating system Android 5.0.2, Lollipop
- Touch display Super LCD 3 (IPS) 5″, 1920×1080, 441 ppi
- Random access memory (RAM) 3 GB, inner memory 32 GB
- SIM cards: Nano-SIM (1 pc.)
- Supports microSD memory cards (up to 2 TB)
- Data transfer 4G LTE Advanced Cat 6 (up to 300 Mbps)
- Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac MIMO (2.4/5 GHz), Wi-Fi hotspot, Wi-Fi Direct
- Bluetooth 4.1, NFC, IR port
- GPS, A-GPS, Glonass
- USB 2.0, OTG, MHL 3.0
- Camera 20.7 MP, autofocus, 4K video
- 4 MP UltraPixel camera, front
- Gyroscope, proximity sensor, light sensor, accelerometer, electronic compass
- Battery 2840 mAh, non-removable
- Dimensions 145×70×9.6 mm
- Weight 157 g
Contents of delivery
The HTC One M9 smartphone is sold in a very small flat box of a familiar shape - the same as all HTC product packaging (but smaller in size). The box is made of thin white cardboard with a minimum number of logos and inscriptions.
The accessory kit contains a charger (5 V, 1.5 A), a Micro-USB connecting cable, as well as a stereo headset with a tangle-free flat wire and in-ear headphones. The covers on the side slots for installing cards are opened using the supplied metal key-clip.
Appearance and ease of use
Unlike the all-metal cases that NTS once laser-cut for its top-end smartphones, the new flagship M9, like last year’s M8 model, received a case that was only half metal. A solid aluminum trough, a sort of tray that makes up the back wall and sides, is completely open at the front - here a lid with a glass/display fixed in it is glued to it, and this frame is made entirely of plastic, painted to match the color of the metal. This is immediately noticeable, to the touch, and even at a quick glance, the texture of the front part is noticeably different from the back surface, although the developers clearly tried to create the appearance that the body was all-metal.
All the usual forms of corporate design are observed: in appearance, the new flagship HTC One M9 is practically indistinguishable from its predecessors M7 and M8. All the same streamlined shapes, strongly rounded corners, and most importantly, this sloping back cover, rounded in the manner of a paperweight, because of which the smartphone sways when lying on the table. It is decidedly inconvenient to work with the One M9 NTS lying on a hard surface, since the body sways with any pressure.
As for the dimensions of the device, we can only praise the developers here. Apparently, it was difficult for them to resist the temptation and not succumb to the general movement of manufacturers towards increasing dimensions, but they managed to do it. As a result, NTS released a five-inch smartphone to the market in the new season, the dimensions of which would have been considered gigantic just a few years ago, but now it is one of the most elegant and small top-level smartphones in the world. Due to the thoughtful combination of dimensions, matte back surface and strongly sloping lid, the smartphone is held very comfortably in the hand. The surfaces are not easily soiled, but metal still remains, by definition, more slippery than plastic, nothing can be done about it.
The upper and lower parts of the frame around the screen on the front panel are traditionally very wide, since under them there are front-facing stereo speakers, covered with grilles in the form of an array of round holes. In addition, the wide black strip under the screen is usually not occupied by anything except the corporate logo, and, as usual, a whole centimeter of extra space on the front panel is spent on it, although the control buttons here are virtual. The developers claim that this strip is necessary due to the presence of a speaker underneath it. Be that as it may, in the lower part under the screen the width of the frame reaches almost 20 mm, and this is unusual by modern standards.
Above the screen at the top, in addition to the speaker grille and sensor and camera eyes, there is also such a useful element as an LED alert indicator. A small bright dot shines directly through the hole in the speaker grill, alerting you to charging status and incoming events.
On the back side, accordingly, there are no grilles for sound output; on the entire rear surface you can only find a large square camera eye with a dual multi-colored LED flash next to it. The flash can be used as a flashlight using a special preset program. The stripes that can be seen on the back surface of the case are the now familiar chamfers cut into the metal for placing antennas in them. NTS was the first to think of this when creating its first all-metal NTS One (M7), and now both Apple and Samsung have followed this path.
The SIM card and memory card are usually inserted into the side slots, sliding into them on plastic trays with a metal base. The slides are pulled out of the connectors using the familiar method of pressing hidden buttons using a key or any paper clip. It should be noted that this time the holes for the key have become wider, now any paperclip can actually fit here.
The slots are located on the sides of the case: one is for a Nano-SIM SIM card, and the other is for a microSD memory card up to 2 TB. It is not possible to insert a second SIM card in place of the memory card; such an option is not provided here.
Until recently, NTS stubbornly installed the power and lock buttons on the top end, but after even Apple moved this element to the side, it finally gave in. In the HTC One M9, the power button has also been moved to the side, but it is still unclear whether it has improved. Now the power key is embedded below the central axis, and this is completely inconvenient. Tactilely, the keys are practically indistinguishable from each other; your finger constantly presses the button in the middle, which is responsible for decreasing the volume, because it is in the most comfortable place. In general, NTS once again went too far with the buttons, although it would seem that everything had been invented and perfected a long time ago; it was enough to just spy on the competitors.
At the bottom end of the case there is a universal Micro-USB 2.0 connector with support for connecting external devices in OTG mode. A 3.5 mm audio output connector to the headphone minijack is also embedded here, which may perhaps cause some inconvenience when connecting both plugs at the same time.
It is possible that all this nonsense with the strange placement of buttons and connectors on the case is caused by the presence of an infrared port on the upper end of the case. However, who forced this element to be made so large that it completely occupied the entire surface of the end? After all, other developers also have models with an infrared port - take the same Samsung Galaxy S6, for example. But there is not the slightest problem with this; all control elements are distributed throughout the body conveniently and comfortably.
As for the color options of the new product, no revelations have happened here: the device goes on sale in three colors that have already become familiar: silver, dark gray and gold. The smartphone does not have sealed covers on its connectors, since it is not protected from water and dust. There is no fastening for the strap on its surface. The device also does not support wireless charging.
Screen
HTC One M9 is equipped with a Super LCD 3 (IPS) sensor matrix - in terms of external parameters, it is exactly the same as that used in the previous M8 model. The screen dimensions are 62x110 mm, diagonal - 5 inches, resolution - 1920x1080 pixels. Accordingly, the dot density is very high, reaching a value of 441 ppi.
The thickness of the frame from the edge of the screen to the edge of the body is not a record. From the sides it is approximately 3.5 mm, from the top - 15 mm, from the bottom - almost 20 mm.
The brightness of the display can be adjusted manually, or you can use automatic adjustment based on the operation of the light sensor. Multi-touch technology here allows you to process 10 simultaneous touches, but for this, as is usual in NTS smartphones, you need to enable 3-finger gesture recognition in the settings. When you bring the smartphone to your ear, the screen is locked using a proximity sensor. The screen can be unlocked by double tapping the glass, and it is possible to operate the screen while wearing gloves.
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A detailed examination using measuring instruments was carried out by the editor of the “Monitors” and “Projectors and TV” sections Alexey Kudryavtsev. Here is his expert opinion on the screen of the sample under study.
The front surface of the screen is made in the form of a glass plate with a mirror-smooth surface that is scratch-resistant. Judging by the reflection of objects, the anti-glare properties of the screen are no worse than those of the Google Nexus 7 (2013) screen (hereinafter simply Nexus 7). For clarity, here is a photograph in which a white surface is reflected when the screens are turned off (on the left is Nexus 7, on the right is HTC One M9, then they can be distinguished by size):
The screen of the HTC One M9 is slightly darker (brightness according to photographs is 104 versus 108 for the Nexus 7). The ghosting of reflected objects in the HTC One M9 screen is very weak, this indicates that there is no air gap between the layers of the screen (more specifically, between the outer glass and the surface of the LCD matrix) (OGS - One Glass Solution type screen). Due to the smaller number of boundaries (glass/air type) with very different refractive indices, such screens look better in conditions of strong external illumination, but their repair in the case of cracked external glass is much more expensive, since the entire screen has to be replaced. The outer surface of the screen has a special oleophobic (grease-repellent) coating (slightly better in efficiency than the Nexus 7), so fingerprints are removed more easily and appear at a slower rate than with regular glass.
With manual brightness control and when the white field was displayed in full screen, the maximum brightness value was about 480 cd/m², the minimum was 9.7 cd/m². The maximum brightness is high, which means, given the excellent anti-glare properties, readability even on a sunny day outdoors should be at a good level. In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable value. There is automatic brightness adjustment based on the light sensor (located to the left of the front camera). IN automatic mode When external lighting conditions change, the screen brightness both increases and decreases. The operation of this function depends on the position of the brightness adjustment slider. If it is 100%, then in complete darkness the automatic brightness adjustment function reduces the brightness to 9.7 cd/m² (a bit dark, but you can read the screen), in an office illuminated by artificial light (about 400 lux) the brightness increases to 150 cd/m² m² (normal), in a very bright environment (corresponding to lighting on a clear day outdoors, but without direct sunlight - 20,000 lux or a little more) is set to 450 cd/m² (not the maximum, but enough). Brightness slider at 50% - the values are as follows: 7.2, 110 and 340 cd/m² (acceptable values), at 0% - 4.8, 72 and 230 cd/m² (the logic is clear). That is, the auto-brightness function works adequately. Only at the lowest level of backlight brightness does significant modulation appear, but its frequency is high - 2.3 kHz - so we can assume that there is no screen flickering at all.
This smartphone uses an IPS matrix. The microphotographs show a typical IPS subpixel structure:
For comparison, you can see the gallery of microphotographs of screens used in mobile technology.
The screen has good viewing angles without significant color shift even with large viewing deviations from perpendicular to the screen and without inverting shades. For comparison, here are photographs in which identical images are displayed on the screens of HTC One M9 and Nexus 7, while the screen brightness is initially set to approximately 200 cd/m², and the color balance on the camera is forcibly switched to 6500 K. There is a white field perpendicular to the screens:
Note the good uniformity of brightness and color tone of the white field. And a test picture:
Color reproduction is good, but the color balance varies significantly and the picture on the HTC One M9 is clearly dark. Now at an angle of approximately 45 degrees to the plane and to the side of the screen:
It can be seen that the colors have not changed much on both screens, but on the HTC One M9 the contrast has decreased to a greater extent due to the strong bleaching of blacks. And a white field:
The brightness of the screens at an angle has decreased (by at least 5 times, based on the difference in shutter speed), but the HTC One M9's screen is slightly brighter (the average brightness in photographs is 234 versus 229 for the Nexus 7). When deviated diagonally, the black field brightens greatly and acquires a purple tint or remains a conditionally neutral gray. The photographs below demonstrate this (the brightness of the white areas in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the screens is the same!):
And from another angle:
When viewed perpendicularly, the uniformity of the black field is very good:
The contrast (approximately in the center of the screen) is normal - about 700:1. The response time for the black-white-black transition is 14 ms (8 ms on + 6 ms off). The transition between halftones of gray 25% and 75% (based on the numerical value of the color) and back takes a total of 21 ms. The gamma curve, constructed using 32 points with equal intervals based on the numerical value of the shade of gray, did not reveal any blockage in either the highlights or the shadows. The exponent of the approximating power function is 2.13, which is lower than the standard value of 2.2. In this case, the real gamma curve deviates somewhat from the power-law dependence:
Due to the dynamic and very aggressive adjustment of the backlight brightness in accordance with the nature of the output image (in dark areas the brightness decreases), the resulting dependence of brightness on hue (gamma curve) does not correspond to the gamma curve of a static image, since the measurements were carried out with sequential output of shades of gray almost in full screen. For this reason, we carried out a number of tests - determining contrast and response time, comparing black illumination at angles - when displaying special templates with a constant average brightness, and not monochromatic fields in the entire screen. Let us show the dependence of brightness (vertical axis) on time when switching from a black field to a white field in half of the screen alternately, while the average brightness does not change and dynamic adjustment of the backlight brightness does not work (graph 50%/50% ). And the same dependence, but with alternate display of fields in full screen (graph 100% ), while the average brightness is already changing and dynamic adjustment of the backlight brightness works in full:
In general, such non-switchable brightness correction does nothing but harm, since constantly changing the screen brightness can at least cause some discomfort, reduce the visibility of gradations in shadows in the case of dark images and reduce the readability of the screen in bright light.
Color gamut is close to sRGB:
The spectra show that the matrix filters moderately mix the components with each other:
As a result, the colors have a natural saturation. The balance of shades on the gray scale is mediocre, since the color temperature is significantly higher than the standard 6500 K and the deviation from the blackbody spectrum (ΔE) is more than 10, which is considered a bad indicator even for a consumer device. The balance is shifted, of course, due to an excess of blue and green, thereby the manufacturer overestimates the brightness, neglecting the quality of color rendition. But it’s good that at least the color temperature and ΔE change little from hue to hue - this has a positive effect on the visual assessment of color balance. (The darkest areas of the gray scale can be ignored, since color balance there is not very important, and the error in measuring color characteristics at low brightness is large.)
Let's summarize: the screen has a fairly high maximum brightness and has good anti-glare properties, so the device can be used outdoors without any problems, even on a sunny summer day. In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable level. The mode with automatic brightness adjustment works adequately. The advantages of the screen include the presence of an effective oleophobic coating, the absence of flicker and air gap in the layers of the screen, good uniformity of the black field, as well as a color gamut close to sRGB. Significant disadvantages include low black stability due to gaze deviation from perpendicular to the screen plane, average color rendering quality, as well as aggressive, non-disabled dynamic adjustment of the backlight brightness. Nevertheless, taking into account the importance of characteristics for this particular class of devices, the quality of the screen can be considered high.
Sound
In terms of sound, the flagship NTS One series smartphones have always had everything at the highest level. This time the developers went even further; in collaboration with the Dolby laboratory, they achieved the effect of surround sound produced by stereo speakers. With the help of built-in HTC BoomSound and Dolby Audio technologies, the smartphone copes with music of any complexity and any genre - it can even handle multi-channel tracks from YouTube. The device, as usual, is equipped with two front stereo speakers with built-in amplifiers, so the smartphone sounds excellent. The sound is quite loud, clear throughout the entire spectrum, there are plenty of low frequencies, and no distortion was noticed at the maximum volume level. The same applies to the sound in headphones, and in general the sound of the HTC One M9 is nothing but admirable. In conversational dynamics, the voice of a familiar interlocutor, timbre and intonation remain recognizable.
To play music, the device uses its own proprietary NTS Music player. All sound effects are combined with BoomSound technology and are left to automation - almost nothing can be configured manually.
The smartphone comes standard with an FM radio, and a voice recorder was also found. Record telephone conversations from a smartphone line regular means can not.
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Camera
As for the cameras, this time the HTC developers have finally put everything in its place. Unlike the previous model in the series, in which the same controversial 4-megapixel module called HTC UltraPixel played the role of the main camera, here it was used only for the front camera, where it probably belongs. Let us remind you that the HTC UltraPixel is a specific module developed by NTS, with a pixel size of 2.0 microns, a sensor size of 1/3″, matrix back-illumination technology, a special HTC ImageChip 2 processor, an F2.0 aperture and a 26.8 mm lens. Unlike, for example, HTC Desire Eye, here the front camera is not equipped with its own LED flash and autofocus.
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The main camera in HTC One M9 is equipped with a 20.7-megapixel module with a BSI sensor and a 28 mm wide-angle lens with f/2.2 aperture. The camera has auto focus and dual color LED flash. The objective lens is covered with sapphire crystal. Video recording is carried out with a resolution of up to 4K.
The camera control menu is exactly the same as in the HTC Desire Eye model. The menu is drawn large, easy to use and intuitive. You can take pictures by touching the screen, pressing a mechanical button on the side, as well as using gestures and voice. The new proprietary service, called HTC Eye Experience, includes face tracking, screen sharing, simultaneous dual shooting, real-time makeup, voice and automatic selfies, Photo Kiosk and Crop Me In modes, as well as Face Fusion. The dual capture function allows you to take photos or videos with the front and rear cameras, either synchronously or sequentially, and simultaneously display both images on the screen, so users can capture not only events, but also their reactions to them. There is also a proprietary Zoe mode - a photography mode in which the camera not only takes several pictures in a row, but also stitches them together into a micro-video.
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The camera can shoot video in a maximum resolution of 4K, and there is also the ability to shoot in an even more interesting combination of size and video image quality, 1080p mode at 60 fps. The slow motion mode has not been forgotten either. Examples of various test videos are presented below.
- Video No. 1 (35 MB, 1920×1080@60 fps)
- Video No. 2 (32 MB, 1920×1080@30 fps)
- Video No. 3 (81 MB, 3840×2160@30 fps)
- Video No. 4 (76 MB, 1280×720@30 fps, Slo-mo)
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Good sharpness and work with noise, although for such a high resolution the noise reduction work is clearly too rough. |
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Sharpness drops a little in the corners, but overall everything is good. |
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Despite a high resolution, the camera does not cope well with small details, which is clearly visible in the branches. |
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There are some unpleasant artifacts in the sky. |
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Sometimes small parts The camera does a good job, but often a multi-colored outline appears around them, which is probably a consequence of the pixel being too small. |
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But often small details simply go out of focus. The license plates of all cars are distinguishable. |
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A slight sharpening is noticeable on the wires. |
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The dynamic range of the sensor is narrow. If the program could “filter out” the noise coming through the tree branches, the image would benefit greatly. |
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The camera copes well with macro photography. |
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The flash significantly improves the situation. |
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The camera handles text with flash well. |
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Without flash it's a little worse, but still not bad. |
We also tested the camera on a laboratory bench using our method.
Having practically abandoned the idea of "ultrapixels", HTC decided to move straight to "large megapixels", but, unfortunately, such a sharp jump was beyond their strength. There is nothing surprising in this: beautifully describing the advantages of a “low-pixel” camera, which itself takes good pictures, you can easily relax and forget that the transition to a “multi-pixel” one requires a lot of work in every sense. HTC decided to “wave without looking” by equipping the new smartphone with the currently highest resolution sensor among cameras in this class. But they did not take into account that “ high resolution- great responsibility". And the result of this not fully thought-out step is before our eyes.
The fact that the pictures were taken with the flagship’s camera can only be guessed from the EXIF, since even the field test shows a result slightly below average. A laboratory test confirms what we saw: the camera doesn’t work that bad, but the sensor resolution is not great, although the optics fail in places.
In fact, HTC's main mistake is not in the crude program, but in the attempt to use the full resolution of the sensor, which also requires cleaner optics. Even Sony engineers, who used a similar sensor for the first time, cheated by limiting the output image resolution to 8 megapixels in auto mode. This allowed us to slightly increase the actual camera resolution and significantly improve the visual one. Here we see a good real resolution, which, after software improvements and a little compression, could be higher, but given the current state of affairs, this is nothing more than a dream.
As a result, with a little more competent and cunning formulation of the task, HTC could have achieved a very good result. After working a little harder on software processing and then reducing the image by half, it would be quite possible to claim a place at the top of the ratings. For now, everything looks crude and ill-considered, although it shows great promise. In addition, the camera copes well with documentary shooting.
For some reason, of the three possible aspect ratio options, 10:7 is called classic here, but 4:3 is absent, which indicates a non-standard sensor, since the maximum image resolution is obtained precisely with an aspect ratio of 10:7.
Judging by rumors, the camera supports shooting in RAW, but find this function we didn't succeed. However, the loss is small, since the ability to shoot in RAW with a smartphone camera is in itself questionable, and even more so with such a quality module.
The old “ultrapixel” module has moved to the front panel, although not without losses. Firstly, of course, the lens has changed, and secondly, the sensor itself has changed a little. But in any case, it is suitable for taking selfies even in not the best lighting, which is confirmed by a laboratory test of the front camera.
Telephone and communications
The smartphone works as standard in modern 2G GSM and 3G WCDMA networks, and also supports fourth-generation networks FDD-LTE, that is, frequencies used in Russia are also supported. In practice, with SIM cards from the domestic operator MTS, the smartphone is confidently registered and works in 4G networks. The communication capabilities of the smartphone are excellent: both are supported Wi-Fi range(2.4 and 5 GHz), NFC, Bluetooth 4.1 with aptX audio codec, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi Display, you can organize a wireless access point via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth channels. The Micro-USB 2.0 connector supports connecting external devices (USB Host, USB OTG), so you can connect flash drives and mice with keyboards to the Micro-USB port.
The navigation module works not only with GPS (with A-GPS), but also with the domestic Glonass, but the smartphone did not see the satellites of the Chinese Beidou network (BDS). There are no complaints about the operation of the navigation module; the first satellites are detected literally in a matter of seconds. Also among the smartphone sensors there is a magnetic field sensor, on the basis of which the digital compass, so necessary in navigation programs, works.
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OS and software
The system immediately uses the latest Google software platform Android versions 5.0.2 and an updated proprietary graphical user interface for HTC Sense 7. The update to the serial number of the Sense shell is mainly due to the fact that it works with new version Android OS, but otherwise remains the same appearance and the possibilities are almost the same. Branded elongated fonts, flat stylized icons, a vertical way of scrolling the program menu, the structure of the notification panel and quick access to main functions, support for working with gestures - everything is familiar. There is a “Do Not Disturb” mode for turning off sound notifications over time, two energy-saving modes, as well as a children’s mode. The Smart Remote program is responsible for the functioning of the IR transmitter as a remote control, and the BlinkFeed news service is on site. Now the BlinkFeed service will search for information based on the location of the smartphone.
There are not many pre-installed programs, they are all useful: available file manager, a package for working with office documents, its own archiving service and a convenient function for transferring personal data from an old device to a new one, a comprehensive program for cleaning memory and optimizing free space Clean Master is installed.
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Changes associated with the transition to the fifth version of Android OS were expressed mainly in the appearance of separate interactive information tiles with alerts; Otherwise, the developers have retained their own organization of all menus, notification panels, and recent menus. open source software without changes. The HTC One M9 now offers more personalization options. The HTC Theme application allows you to design your home screens in your own way: use your own photos and pictures from online resources, change the shape and size of icons. But what’s more interesting is that a context-sensitive home screen has appeared: a special widget now automatically detects the user’s location and selects applications based on his location and personal settings. As planned by the creators, the necessary services and tools will themselves appear on the home screen exactly at the moment when they are needed. In any case, you can manually switch the “Home” or “Work” modes on the widget with the appropriate set of applications displayed on the home screen in a separate widget.
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Performance
The HTC One M9 hardware platform is built on the latest and most powerful of the entire family of Qualcomm single-chip systems - Snapdragon 810. This 64-bit platform is made using a 20 nm process technology, and includes four powerful 64-bit ARM Cortex-A57 cores with frequencies up to 2 GHz, which is complemented by four simpler 64-bit Cortex-A53 cores with a frequency of up to 1.5 GHz, providing high energy efficiency or performance depending on specific tasks.
The modern Adreno 430 video accelerator is responsible for processing graphics in the SoC. The RAM capacity of the smartphone is a decent 3 GB. For the user's needs, the device has about 23 GB of flash memory out of 32 nominal. The memory can be expanded by installing microSD cards, the volume of which can reach 2 TB, which does not yet sound quite familiar, and such cards are not yet available for sale. The device also supports connecting external flash drives, keyboards and mice to the Micro-USB port in OTG mode.
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The HTC One M9 is not the first smartphone to feature Qualcomm's latest and most powerful SoC. At the beginning of the year, we already got acquainted with the capabilities of the Snapdragon 810 using the example of the LG G Flex 2, and it should be noted that in comparison with it, the results of the new HTC product were surprising. Perhaps the developers slightly “stifled” the powerful processor so that the metal case did not heat up too much, or there are some other explanations for this, but the fact remains: the HTC One M9 on the same platform showed lower results in literally all tests than Korean smartphone. In the 64-bit version of AnTuTu, the scores reached 50K, but in the standard test the resulting figure did not even reach 45K points. The same applies to all other tests with the exception of Bonsai Benchmark (in which the subject proved himself to be a true hero, losing only to himself powerful smartphone modernity, Samsung Galaxy S6). In other graphics benchmarks, the HTC One M9 is also not as bad as in complex and browser tests, but still, even in them it proved to be not at all on par with the faster Korean in everything.
Be that as it may, the hardware of the HTC One M9 smartphone is in any case powerful enough to cope with any tasks posed by demanding programs and heavy 3D games. Although now there is no need to talk about the unconditional superiority of Qualcomm in this field: the most powerful of the entire Snapdragon family is still inferior in the new season to the top platforms MediaTek and Samsung Exynos, and this is an alarming fact.
Testing in latest versions comprehensive tests AnTuTu and GeekBench 3:
For convenience, we have compiled all the results we obtained when testing the smartphone in the latest versions of popular benchmarks into tables. The table usually adds several other devices from different segments, also tested on similar latest versions of benchmarks (this is done only for a visual assessment of the obtained dry figures). Unfortunately, within the framework of one comparison it is impossible to present the results from different versions of benchmarks, so many worthy and relevant models remain “behind the scenes” - due to the fact that they once passed the “obstacle course” on previous versions test programs.
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Testing the graphics subsystem in gaming tests 3DMark, GFXBenchmark, and Bonsai Benchmark:
When testing in 3DMark, the most powerful smartphones now have the ability to run the application in Unlimited mode, where the rendering resolution is fixed at 720p and VSync is disabled (which can cause the speed to rise above 60 fps).
| HTC One M9 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 810) |
Meizu MX4 (Mediatek MT6595) |
LG G Flex 2 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 810) |
Nexus 6 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 805) |
Samsung Galaxy S6 (Exynos 7420) |
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| 3DMark Ice Storm Extreme (more is better) |
Maxed out! | Maxed out! | Maxed out! | Maxed out! | Maxed out! |
| 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited (more is better) |
20538 | 16691 | 24102 | 23234 | 21204 |
| GFXBenchmark T-Rex HD (C24Z16 Onscreen) | 37 fps | 21.7 fps | 46 fps | 23 fps | 30 fps |
| GFXBenchmark T-Rex HD (C24Z16 Offscreen) | 36 fps | 23.2 fps | 46 fps | 29 fps | 46 fps |
| Bonsai Benchmark | 4092 (58 fps) | 4033 (58 fps) | 3613 (52 fps) | 3633 (52 fps) | 4185 (60 fps) |
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Below is a thermal image of the rear surface (the top of the image is on the right), obtained after 10 minutes of running the battery test in the GFXBenchmark program:
It can be seen that the heating is localized approximately in the center of the device, which apparently corresponds to the location of the SoC chip. At the same time, the metal part of the back cover distributes heat well over the entire surface.
Browser cross-platform tests:
As for benchmarks for assessing the speed of the javascript engine, you should always make allowance for the fact that their results significantly depend on the browser in which they are launched, so the comparison can only be truly correct on the same OS and browsers, and this is possible during testing not always. For Android OS, we always try to use Google Chrome.
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Playing video
To test the omnivorous nature of video playback (including support for various codecs, containers and special features, such as subtitles), we used the most common formats, which make up the bulk of the content available on the Internet. Note that for mobile devices it is important to have support for hardware video decoding at the chip level, since it is most often impossible to process modern options using processor cores alone. Also, you shouldn’t expect a mobile device to decode everything, since the leadership in flexibility belongs to the PC, and no one is going to challenge it.
According to the test results, the subject was not equipped with all the necessary decoders, in this case audio, which are necessary for full playback of most of the most common files on the network. To successfully play them, you will have to resort to the help of a third-party player - for example, MX Player.
| Format | Container, video, sound | MX Video Player | Standard video player |
| DVDRip | AVI, XviD 720×400 2200 Kbps, MP3+AC3 | plays normally | plays normally |
| Web-DL SD | AVI, XviD 720×400 1400 Kbps, MP3+AC3 | plays normally | plays normally |
| Web-DL HD | MKV, H.264 1280×720 3000 Kbps, AC3 | plays normally | |
| BDRip 720p | MKV, H.264 1280×720 4000 Kbps, AC3 | plays normally | The video plays fine, there is no sound |
| BDRip 1080p | MKV, H.264 1920×1080 8000 Kbps, AC3 | plays normally | The video plays fine, there is no sound |
Tested video output features Alexey Kudryavtsev.
We did not find the MHL interface, like Mobility DisplayPort, in this smartphone (although its presence is stated in the specification), so we had to limit ourselves to testing the output of video files on the screen of the device itself. To do this, we used a set of test files with an arrow and a rectangle moving one division per frame (see “Method for testing video playback and display devices. Version 1 (for mobile devices)”). Screenshots with a shutter speed of 1 s helped determine the nature of the output of frames of video files with various parameters: the resolution varied (1280 by 720 (720p), 1920 by 1080 (1080p) and 3840 by 2160 (4K) pixels) and frame rate (24, 25, 30, 50 and 60 fps). In the tests we used the MX Player video player in the “Hardware” mode. The test results are summarized in the table: Red marks indicate possible problems associated with the playback of the corresponding files.
According to the criterion of frame output, the quality of playback of video files on the screen of the smartphone itself is very good, since frames (or groups of frames) can (but are not required) be output with more or less uniform alternation of intervals and without skipping frames. The smartphone can even display files with a resolution of 4K up to 30 fps inclusive. When playing video files with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels (1080p), the image of the video file itself is displayed one-to-one pixel by pixel, exactly along the edge of the screen and in true Full HD resolution. The brightness range displayed on the screen corresponds to standard range 16—235, which is what is required for correct playback of typical video files.
Battery life
The HTC One M9 has a non-removable battery with a decent capacity of 2840 mAh, but even with a screen that is not the largest in area and resolution, the smartphone still did not demonstrate any outstanding results. Everything is within normal limits, but many modern flagships already show a better level of autonomy. The manufacturer itself promises up to 25.4 hours of talk time and up to 391 hours of standby time. It is also worth recalling that the HTC One M9, like other modern NTS models, has two energy-saving modes - normal and extreme: in the latter, most services and network modules are simply turned off, and the smartphone essentially turns into an ordinary phone for calls, but is capable last much longer in this mode.
| Battery capacity | Reading mode | Video mode | 3D Game Mode | |
| HTC One M9 | 2840 mAh | 11:00 am | 8 a.m. 20 p.m. | 3 hours 50 minutes |
| Samsung Galaxy S6 | 2550 mAh | 20:00 | 12:00 pm | 4:00 am |
| Samsung Galaxy A7 | 2600 mAh | 22:10 | 12:00 pm | 3 hours 20 minutes |
| Samsung Note 4 | 3220 mAh | 10:30 a.m. | 8:30 a.m. | 3 hours 50 minutes |
| Yotaphone 2 | 2500 mAh | 12:00 pm | 9:30 a.m. | 3 hours 15 minutes |
| Lenovo Vibe X2 | 2300 mAh | 13:00 | 6:00 am | 3 hours 15 minutes |
| Meizu MX4 | 3100 mAh | 12:00 pm | 8 hours 40 minutes | 3 hours 45 minutes |
| Meizu MX4 Pro | 3350 mAh | 16:00 | 8 hours 40 minutes | 3 hours 30 minutes |
| Sony Xperia Z3 | 3100 mAh | 20:00 | 10:00 am | 4 hours 50 minutes |
Our own tests in the most common modes of use showed that continuous reading in the FBReader program (with a standard, light theme) at a minimum comfortable brightness level (brightness was set to 100 cd/m²) lasted only 11 hours until the battery was completely discharged, and with continuous watching videos in high quality (720p) with the same brightness level through home network The Wi-Fi device lasted less than 8.5 hours. In 3D gaming mode, the smartphone did not reach 4 hours. The smartphone battery charges in just under 3 hours.
Bottom line
As for the cost of the HTC One M9, it has not yet been finally determined for our market, although pre-orders for the model are already open in some retail chains. The Taiwanese's next flagship was not just solid; The main thing is that the new model can rightfully be called a successful work on bugs. Almost everything that was unsuccessfully implemented in previous models of the series has been corrected here (with the possible exception of the ridiculous placement of the lock button). The smartphone has a stylish and expensive design, premium materials and is well assembled. An excellent screen, an improved camera and powerful hardware with an excellent set of network modules complete the overall picture. At the same time, it cannot be said that the NTS flagship is the most advanced device: there is no fingerprint scanner, no support for wireless charging, no water protection, and the level of autonomy also leaves much to be desired. In comparison with the most advanced modern top models of market leaders, the new flagship NTS, perhaps, has nothing special to brag about; it is a high-quality, high-quality smartphone, nothing more. And in this regard, there is hope that the manufacturer, realizing this, will not set the same exorbitant price for its new product as, for example, Samsung has set for its latest creations. All that remains is to wait for the official announcement of the price for the Russian market, this will put everything in its place and determine the final place in the sun for one of the best modern smartphones called HTC One M9.
Accelerometer(or G-sensor) - sensor of the device’s position in space. As the main function, the accelerometer is used to automatic change orientation of the image on the display (vertical or horizontal). Also, the G-sensor is used as a pedometer; it can control various functions of the device by turning or shaking.
Gyroscope- a sensor that measures rotation angles relative to a fixed coordinate system. Capable of measuring rotation angles in several planes simultaneously. A gyroscope together with an accelerometer allows you to accurately determine the position of the device in space. Devices that use only accelerometers have lower measurement accuracy, especially when fast movement. Also, the capabilities of the gyroscope can be used in modern games for mobile devices.
Light sensor- a sensor that sets the optimal brightness and contrast values for this level illumination The presence of a sensor allows you to increase the battery life of the device.
Proximity sensor- a sensor that detects when the device is close to your face during a call, turns off the backlight and locks the screen, preventing random clicks. The presence of a sensor allows you to increase the battery life of the device.
Geomagnetic sensor- a sensor for determining the direction of the world in which the device is directed. Tracks the orientation of the device in space relative to the magnetic poles of the Earth. The information received from the sensor is used in mapping programs for terrain orientation.
Atmospheric pressure sensor- sensor for precise measurement atmospheric pressure. It is part of the GPS system, allows you to determine altitude above sea level and speed up location determination.
Touch ID- fingerprint identification sensor.
Accelerometer / Geomagnetic / Gyroscope / Light / Proximity
Satellite navigation:
GPS(Global Positioning System) is a satellite navigation system that provides measurements of distance, time, speed and determines the location of objects anywhere on Earth. The system is developed, implemented and operated by the US Department of Defense. The basic principle of using the system is to determine location by measuring distances to an object from points with known coordinates - satellites. The distance is calculated by the delay time of signal propagation from sending it by the satellite to receiving it by the antenna of the GPS receiver.
GLONASS(Global Navigation Satellite System) - Soviet and Russian satellite navigation system, developed by order of the USSR Ministry of Defense. The measurement principle is similar to the American system GPS navigation. GLONASS is designed for operational navigation and timing support for land, sea, air and space-based users. The main difference from the GPS system is that GLONASS satellites in their orbital motion do not have resonance (synchrony) with the rotation of the Earth, which provides them with greater stability.
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