Tag Archives: HTC

HTC M9 Review

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We got a chance to take the HTC One M9 out for a spin for several months. Does HTC still have the touch or does the phone come up short.  Take a look below to find out.

 

 

Likes:

  • Gorgeous Screen – HTC has put a lot into making this phone and it’s quite evident with the build quality of the HTC One M9. The first thing you’ll notice is the very capable 5.0 inch, Full HD 1080p display. It is Gorilla Glass so it’s super tough as well. The colors are very vibrant and it was a welcome step up from my Nexus 5. When playing games, the display really shines making games like World of Tanks or any other high def game look awesome.
  • Speakers – HTC hit a home run with their dual front facing speakers earlier on and haven’t fixed what wasn’t broken. This is easily one of my favorite features of the phone. I do consume quite a bit of media on my cellphone in general so this is a big deal for me. . What I love most about it is that my hands don’t get in the way of the speaker as much. Usually, when the speaker is at the bottom when I hold my device in landscape mode one of my hands is muffling sound from the speaker. This doesn’t happen nearly as often with the front facing speakers on the M9. They’ve also got what they’re calling “HTC Boom Sound” which I initially thought was going to be gimmicky. It’s not. It does make a difference. I’ve even caught myself looking around because I thought someone else was in my apartment because of a sound that came from one of the speakers. They are very crisp and loud enough for personal use. If you are using it for outdoors or for an impromptu dance party you’ll still want some external bluetooth speakers. The HTC One M9 does have the ability to stream to multiple bluetooth speakers and control setup of each one individually but I don’t ever use that as I don’t have that many speakers – but some may. While I’m here, I might as well mention that there is also included an expansion microsD card slot which theoretically can support up to 2TB of additional storage. This will come in handy for taking media with you wherever you want.
  • Luxurious Feel – I loved the way the phone felt in my had as soon as I picked it up. Compared to many of the Nexus earlier Nexus devices, this phone has a lot more heft to it. It feels solid and you definitely don’t want to drop it on your toes as it will hurt. Seriously. The polish really does make you feel like you have something very expensive in your hands and I really like that. I have the Gold on Gold option which is a lot more shiny than my usual tastes but it is something that is immediately noticeable in a room once you pull it out. I’ve already gotten more than a few “What phone is that” inquiries. I’ll also take some time to mention here how tough the phone is. As you probably already guessed, I’ve dropped this phone a few times and it doesn’t have any noticeable damage. No scratches on the back and the screen has held up to the punishment of city living. I haven’t gotten a case for it yet, but it’s doing pretty well naked. It’s been in the pocket with keys and change and it’s totally fine. Full marks in my book for durability which is what I’d expect from a phone that is this well made.
  • Camera Features – I liked the rear facing 20MP camera as it took well balanced photos but I wasn’t wowed out of my seat with image quality but it does record video in 4K – not that I have a 4K display to view it on yet. I did like the fact that it has a sapphire crystal lense cover, but it might have been over kill as I’ve never had a scratch on any of my lense covers on previous phones. That said, I’m happy to have it as it makes me feel elite! I was actually more impressed though, with the front facing camera and some of the camera features. The front facing camera took really good selfie shots in low light and without a flash. I was super impressed and this phone is now my official selfie phone. The front facing camera didn’t have a megapixel count that I could glean, but it is what HTC is calling “Ultra Pixel” whatever that means. Long story short, it’s just a way of saying that the pixels in their images are are bigger than normal sized pixels so you get more bang for your buck where pixels are concerned. Not as many pixels, but the pixels you do have are ummm… Ultra!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               I did like some of the features that came standard with the phone like a slow-mo cam and saving camera settings as selectable icons.
    • slow mo – with a nice camera you can have lots of fun in social media using this functionality. Comes in handy on vacation, night out with the guys, or dilly-dallying around at home or work. It works well and I like having this extra option when taking videos.
    • Saving camera settings – I’ve already saved slow-mo as a separate setting so that I don’t have to fiddle with the settings in camera every single time if I want to use it. This saves so much time and headache especially when you have to think fast. I can just maneuver to that setup and oila! This works for other settings such as ISO and Exposure settings. It’s already come in super handy.

 

Dislikes:

  • Runs Hot – This is something that hasn’t traditionally bothered me before in any other device, but I found it concerning on this one. It can get really, REALLY hot when doing something graphically intensive like playing a particularly long video or playing a graphic heavy game for more than 20 minutes. I really can’t imagine down in a place like Florida or the Caribbean on a hot day playing a quick game outside. I mean you could, but at your own risk. It gets so hot that I honestly worry about the phone’s innards at times. It’s hot enough to bring discomfort to the hand. I’ve left a game on for a little while and come back and have been significantly worried that I may have caused long term damage to the screen or chipset because of how hot the phone was.
  • Volume buttons – I really don’t like the placement of the volume buttons right above the power button on the right side. I do like the power button where it is on the right side as I find it very handy when turning off the screen or waking the phone with just one hand, but I often struggle to adjust volume with one hand because the device is so tall. When watching a video in the dark I also accidentally turn off the device when trying to turn the volume down which happens a little more often than I would like and is actually pretty annoying. I end up feeling up the device to make sure I have the right buttons ahead of time which take a little time but is a little more accurate. In the future, I’d really like to see HTC move the volume buttons back to the left side and the single power button on the right.
  • Interface – Back in the day, was the bomb and did a much better job than many of the major stock OSs in terms of cleanness and simplicity. Honestly, I think Android, and Microsoft for that matter, have cleaned up their act significantly and so Sense isn’t as needed as it once was. I find myself drawn back to the stock Android experience. I do like a few of the Sense features like the “Boom Sound” or the Camera features like Bokeh, Slow-Mo and Photobooth but that’s really it. I don’t use anything else and I actually got another launcher just because I didn’t really like stock designs. Granted, you can actually take a picture and have Sense take colors from the picture you took and integrate them into the interface which is impressive, but I’m not really a photo-as-a-background sort of guy. Others may find Sense just fine, but it didn’t work well for me.

Overall – This is pretty solid phone. It will turn heads because it’s quite stylish and well made. It is quite capable as well with it’s 3GB of DDR4 RAM, 20MP Front Facing Camera with Dual LED Flash, and Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 64 bit processor. It’s no slouch when compared to other flagship phones and it’s speakers set it apart as a go-to device for media consumption. I wasn’t as impressed with the Sense Android skin as I once was but I think this has more to do with Android stepping up their game than it does with HTC slipping on their software development. I was really concerned about the heat issue which I hope gets better with further iterations but I’d have no problems recommending this device to anyone who asked.

HTC Desire EYE Review

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HTC Desire EYE

We got a chance to play with HTC’s new Desire EYE. Is it the next phone you should buy? Does it live up to all the hype? Let’s find out shall we?

 

Design:

The first thing I notice about the Desire EYE is that it seems more playful in it’s design than some of HTC’s previous phone designs. It ditches the sleek, but drab black and grey colors from the HTC One and replaces it with a slick colored strip around the side of the phone. It doesn’t have a curved back so the phone sits flat on the desk. If you’re not used to a large phone, this phone does look pretty big and really long coming in at 5.2 inches. You will most likely have to use two hands to operate it, but HTC made some good button location choices to accomodate. The power button is below the volume rocker on the right side so righties will be able to easily toggle the screen on and off. There is also a dedicated camera button below the power button on the bottom right corner. It’s got a sort of matt finish which makes it feel comfortable in the hand, but that still didn’t make me completely take away my fears of dropping the device.

Looking at the phone dead-on, you mainly see the very large front facing camera and the dual LED Flash. I definitely have more to say about this in the “Likes” section. I didn’t realize until later that they’ve kept the speakers on the front of the device as well, but you have to do a bit of searching to find them…which is a very good thing. This phone also comes with the ability to take a micro SD card for extended memory if you need it.

 

Functionality:

I really liked the Operating system, but to be honest I still like stock Android better. That said, HTC does a really good job of not overloading the look and feel of the OS and it comes off feeling very light and simple. Definitely not as gaudy as some of the other Android skins I’ve come across, but that is a matter of taste. I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty here because if you’ve used an Android phone – there really isn’t too much more to note. Rather, I’d like to talk about the software that governs the impressive cameras. They’ve got a slew of things that you can do with the 13MP front and rear facing cameras that I’ll point out here. Some are really useful, while others are nothing to write home about, but this is where the Desire EYE stands out from other phones.

They’ve got Face Tracking which zooms in on your face while on a video chat session. Though a relatively small improvement, this can be hugely useful when video chatting with someone while doing something else or while walking around. I’ve been in those situations before and I find this a welcome addition. They’ve also added screen sharing support with skype which could prove useful in a business setting. However, I can’t really see myself using that feature too often, but it would be cool to show it off the one time it proves useful. Split Capture is something I’m still undecided on. It’s where you can take a selfie and a shot with the main camera at the same time. The software then merges the two pictures with your selfie on the left and the main image on the right. I think it’s really cool and is something I can imagine using on vacation or in group pictures where the person shooting can finally be involved. Voice Selfie is super useful for taking selfies with the main camera, but the front facing camera is so good I wonder if it’s necessary. I could totally use voice selfie with my current phone (Nexus 5) because the front facing camera is terrible and even worse in low light. But sometimes it’s hard to hit the shutter button from the back of the phone so just yelling out “Cheese” would be a welcome change. Either way, I think it’s a step in the right direction so I welcome that functionality.

 

Likes:

I really like the sound of the front facing speakers. It really is impressive for a mobile phone and the fact that they are pretty much hidden allows for more focus on the huge screen. When I’m playing games I can hear everything which is cool. currently, my palm muffles the sound since the speaker is at the bottom of my Nexus 5.

I also love the front facing camera with dual LED lights. It’s 13 MP! I mean c’mon. I love the move though because now video calls and selfies using the front camera are now totally worth it. Add to that the HTC EYE suite of camera functions and you’ve got a sweet deal.

 

Dislikes:

Honestly, I didn’t like how big the phone was. I’ve got smaller hands, and it’s really hard for me to do what I need to do with one hand. I’m a New Yorker and I multi-task constantly so I really would like my left hand free. I also didn’t like the message center that much, and I noticed it hung a few times. If you swipe all the way to the left you get to this center where it flags relevant news and updates. It’s not terrible and I may learn to like it if I bought this phone, but initially I was put off by it. I’d rather find an app of my choosing to do that sort of thing for me.

 

Summary:

All-in-all, the phone is a solid buy. I could recommend it without hesitation. Sure, there are some things that didn’t float my boat, but the HTC Desire EYE really shines when it comes to it’s cameras. Android phones haven’t had too leaders in the camera category, but I’d say that the Desire EYE is one such phone. If you’re into selfies and a really big screen, you should give this phone a try.

More Android Love from T-Mobile

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If your anything like me then you can’t wait to get your hands on the latest and greatest gadgets. The next lust-worthy piece of electronics is coming to T-mobile it seems and this phone is the successor of the G1. Three guess for what the name will be…that’s right…in a surprise move – they will be calling it the (wait for it….) G2! I actually still have my G1 and if it weren’t so slow, I would probably still be using it. Those of you who have had the G1 will attest to Google’s diligence in keeping it up to date as best they could despite the phone’s lack of horsepower and the phone’s sturdiness. It wasn’t the sexiest phone, but it definitely surprised you with it’s subtle elegance once you had it in your hand. Keyboard was killer and the snappy slide mechanics were cool.

Now its elder brother, the G2, comes in to take its place as the #1 Android phone in the T-mobile Stable. I say number one because it will be the only one carrying stock Android at launch. Personally I much prefer it that way instead of having to do with the phone company’s vision of what they think is cool. Stock Android has a simplistic beauty about it that I find to be both charming and refreshing unlike the business of Motorola’s “Motoblur” or Samsung’s iPhone-reminiscent “Touchwiz.” Sadly, I doubt it will come with Android’s ability to tether since T-mobile has traditionally killed that option on all its smart phones – but the rest is still there. The specs are as follows according to HTC’s G2 info page found here.

It has a Qualcom Processor humming along at 800 MHz, Android 2.2, 4GB ROM, 512 MB RAM, 3.7 inch WVGA display, GPS,5 megapixel camera with auto-focus and flash,wifi and bluetooth compatible, 1300 mAh.

It takes HD video, runs at 4G speeds on T-Mobile’s new network, and takes advantage of Android’s Voice Action Technology.

All-in-all I’d say its a pretty nice phone to give a try, but to be honest – I’m kinda wanting to see another phone besides the iPhone4 that has video-telephony. The rumored “MyTouch HD” should be just what the doctor ordered.

ATT Tilt 2 (HTC Touch Pro2) Review

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Hey guys,

so lets just get down to business here. If you are a guy (or gall) who is busy, and needs to stay connected business-wise as well as socially we would definitely say this phone is for you. Its not the perfect phone, but it will definitely suit your needs. So lets get to it!

Hardware:

We like the way it feels in hand. Its sturdy enough to be launched as a projectile while staying true enough to the course to hit its target. However, since it’ll run you over 300 smackers on a 2 year contract, we doubt you would let it leave your person that easily, but we’re just sayin’. Anyway, the highly glossy resistive screen is much nicer in person than in picture. It’s also a lot more responsive than you would think. We’re suckers for capacitive screens, but we’d make the switch with all this phone has to offer. The silver lining is something that AT&T hasn’t x-nayed from its version of the Touch Pro2 and we like it. It ads a certain amount of class and sex appeal that the modern man should have. Definitely turns heads in the board-room or at the coffee shop. In a perfect world it would be a little thinner, but we will survive.

Its running a 528Mghz processor which is definitely noticeable. There is barely any lag in normal tasks. We had lots of different programs running at the same time, and things still seemed nice and zippy fast. The 3.6 inch screen is great and loading internet pages is great. I also love the zoom bar at the bottom. True, you probably won’t use it all that often, but the option is there…and that’s what we really want isn’t it?Also the tilt feature, though nice…is a bit over-rated. After having it for a little while, the mechanism is still sturdy, but a little looser than it was out of the box. Its great for avoiding glare but not too much else in our opinion.

Keyboard:

Everything you’ve heard about the keyboard is true. We really can’t think of a hard keyboard on any other phone that beats the one on the TP2. It’s as close to perfect as we can tell. Little touches like the lighting for the Alt Keys and the extra spacing set this keyboard ahead of the pack.

Software:

It’s Windows 6.5, but you don’t have to know if you don’t want to. That’s the beauty of HTC’s Touch Flo 3D with “Sense.” Now we all know that Window’s mobile platform isn’t exactly easy on the eyes, and HTC fills in the gap almost flawlessly. In the video you will see how snappy the skin is, as well as beautiful. It makes normal tasks that much more interesting. You scroll through the main nav-bar with a swipe of the finger or stylus and which takes you to the main areas of interest such as stocks, contacts, weather, and internet. All and all, we’d say its HTC’s best performance yet.

Overall:

The overall consensus is not surprising. Its a well-rounded and extremely functional phone. The little things such as speakerphone by turning the phone on its face, and the zoom bar are what really sets this phone apart from other smart phones. It makes the experience that much better, and we applaud you HTC. Again, it could be slimmer,(Droid anyone?) but we’ll definitely take it as is. Check out the video for more tid-bits and a view of the phone in action. Special shout out to Joel for the vid

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YouTube Direkt

HTC Hero Video

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Three words…I WANT NOW!

Too bad though because HTC has let us know that the “sense UI” will not be coming to Google branded phones. Sorry G1 and soon-to-be Mytouch users. HTC’s  interface flows so smoothly, and looks exactly like I wanted the G2 to be. Also shows how powerful Android can be. Too bad its not launching in N.America just yet.  You can check the video below in lust and agony:

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Android Phone on ATT!

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Hey guys,

pretty sweet news for those who were waiting for a chance to try out the android interface, but were stuck with an ATT Contract. According to the folks over at Engadget.com, ATT has a nice line-up of phones coming through the pipe and one seems to be an Android Device from HTC called the HTC Lancaster. You can link to the full story here.

so sexy