Of the many smartphones competing for your attention, none stand out more than HTC. That goes for the newest flagship HTC one M8 launched in New York last Tuesday.
Many thought last year’s HTC one would be the last high-end smartphone from HTC, but here we are in 2014 and there was HTC CEO Peter Chou announcing the new HTC one M8 with more smart and cool features one could imagine in a new annual version phone with a similar name.
The similarities differ the moment you pick up the phone. It oozes with quality design and construction with an all-around metal wrapped body with smooth gently rounded edges. According to Chou, much went into keeping maximum radio antenna reception with so much metal wrap.
The coolest feature on the M8 are many but here are some that make it stand out.
-The Duo Camera records the picture you see while the second lens, offset by a few centimetres, records “depth” information.
Why? Because when viewing the pictures, you can change the focus between near and far objects for making your subjects stand out more, especially flowers and portraits. As long as the original photo is in the phone, you can go back and change your focus. The Foregrounder effect changes the main subject’s background with pencil, motion blur and other artistic effects.
-Same goes for the 3D view filter that shows you different perspective views making it look like you took the picture from the left, right higher or lower. Crazy.
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-You can apply seasonal animations like falling snow or autumn leaves and save or share as a still photo or animations.
-Battery performance is improved by 40 per cent on the 5-inch Full HD super sharp screen managing with smart use, you can get two days between charges. No one was talking in New York, but I bet the M8 uses Sharp’s energy-saving and thin IGZO technology.
-The Zoe camera captures stills and short videos of an event and creates an artistically edited presentation with cuts, pans and selectable music. You can share it online and impress your friends!
-Improved sound, I though last year’s was good enough, with enhanced HTC Boom Sound impresses once again, especially when playing back Zoe projects.
-BlinkFeed, a customizable news and information magazine-like feature has many more partners contributing to endless information of what you like to know about.
-The TV/Stereo remote is beefed up with HYC Sense TV with an online experience as you watch a particular show on TV. Now you can watch the show’s Facebook and Twitter to check out what others are saying while HTC Sense TV Sport lets you follow sports, scores and more.
– HTC Connect uses a three-finger swipe to connect to Blutooth or Wifi devices, like speakers or supported current DLNA and Miracast devices. Look for quality labels like Awox, Netgear and Librations and Yamaha to be compatible this year.
-HTC Sense 6 rocks. By simple up, down, sideways and straight presses, you can start you turned off M8 straight to voice dialing, double tap to wake up, unlock, get widget panel or launch Blinkfeed. The coolest HTC one M8 case is small with a tight fit and sports a flip cover with hundreds tiny holes. When the cover is on screen, HTC Dot View kicks in showing simplistic images like current weather, alarm, call receive/stop/call back, mail notification and more. Very cool.
-The front selfie camera if 5 megapixels with a extra wide angle lens and full FH video. Simply the best around, if your Skype connection can keep up.
One comment on the similar Ultra Pixel camera the M8 has like last year’s phone. It’s really only four megapixels, small by today’s competition, but unless you want to make blow-ups, the quality of the images is equal or better than what most folks will view and use the camera pictures with.
The video is better than average with smooth Full HD record and playback.
HTC argues the quality of pictures is better in dark scenes. I would say yes with a qualifier, some cameras can do just as good and don’t expect more details in these seemingly normal photos.
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