We tested the HTC One M9, HTC's new attempt at the high-end

At the last Mobile World Congress held in the city of Barcelona, ​​HTC officially presented its new flagship, the HTC One M9, which with a design very similar to its predecessor and improved specifications, is trying to gain a foothold in the market, going through various difficulties due to its few innovations and its problems, mainly present in its processor.

You solve most of the complications, Now the problem is that nothing more than holding it in your hands you are disappointed and we could say that it is more of the same. Of course, of undoubted quality, but more of the same without practically novelty.

Integrated

The design is undoubtedly one of the things that is saved from this HTC One M9 and is that no matter where you look, it is for almost everyone a beauty, although there are people who do not like it. However, the design has very few innovations compared to what we saw in the HTC One M8, which has undoubtedly taken away the possibility of surprising us.

With an aluminum body it gives us a feeling that we are really facing a so-called high-end smartphone, although it is far behind, for example, from the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and its glass finishes. In addition and unfortunately, the design is more of the same in every way and is that the hideous black strip on the front that we could already see on the M8 is still present.

As for its dimensions, we see how the height of this HTC One M9 is reduced compared to its predecessor, but how its thickness grows to 9,6 millimeters. Its weight of 157 grams remains in line with other mobile devices on the market.

And to finish with the design of this terminal and how we know that it is more of the same We continue to see the double front speaker, which is undoubtedly one of the great bets of the latest HTC terminals. In case there were doubts, we can already tell you that this One M9 sounds very, very good.

Main Features and Specifications

Next we are going to list the main features and specifications of this HTC One M9;

• Measurements: 144,6 x 69,7 x 9,61 millimeters
• Weight: 157 grams
• 3-inch IPS SuperLCD1920 FullHD (1080 × 5) display with Gorilla Glass 4 - 441ppi
• Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8994 processor (4xCortex A53 at 1.5GHz + 4xCortex A57 at 2.0GHz)
• Adreno 430 GPU Graphics Processor
• 3GB LPDDR4 RAM and 32GB internal memory + microSD up to 128GB
• Rear camera: 20.7MP f / 2.2 BSI sensor
• Front camera: BSI UltraPixel 4MP f / 2.0 sensor
• 2840 mAh battery (non-removable)
• LTE connectivity
• Wifi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac, Bluetooth LE 4.1, accelerometer sensor, proximity, gyroscope
• A-GPS Glonass / MicroUSB 2.0, MHL 3.0, NFC
• Android 5.0.2 Lollipop operating system with Sense 7.0

Video review of this HTC One M9

https://youtu.be/SPD8cI3I-HI

The drums, shadows and lights

The battery of this HTC One M9 must start by saying that it is 2.840 mAh, which has grown compared to previous models, thanks in part to the increased thickness of this terminal. However, autonomy is not to say to shoot rockets and we will reach the end of the day, in the case, to do it in a very fair way.

The positive point is that we will have the possibility of charging it quickly, which in part compensates for the low autonomy that the battery will offer us, which should not let us fool us with its 2.840 mAh.

Did this HTC One M9 deserve such a poor screen?

The screen of the HTC One M9 we can say that without a doubt it is not up to what we expected, and is that if we take a look at the screens of other high-end terminals we find QHD or even 2K resolutions. The new terminal of the Taiwanese company mounts a 5-inch screen with 1920 × 1080 FullHD resolution, with a density of 441 pixels per inch. So far everything would be passable, but we are not even before the panel that mounted the HTC One M8, it is still below.

This makes the maximum brightness better, as well as the contrast ratio, which makes the viewing angles very bad, not to be called otherwise.

The screen is bad, we could say that it has some shortcomings and more if we face it with, for example, the LG G4 or the Galaxy S6.

Camera

The camera was undoubtedly one of HTC's pending issues and that it has managed to solve, more or less, in this HTC One M9 that offers us a camera with a BSI sensor manufactured by Toshiba and having 20.7 megapixels with an aperture f / 2.2.

Despite the fact that this camera offers us optimal results, an optical image stabilizer is quite missing, which we did see in other terminals of the company. Furthermore, once again we could say that we expect something more from this camera, which without being bad, as we already said is not what we expected.

Below you can see several images taken with the camera of this HTC One M9;

My personal experience with this HTC One M9

After using this HTC One M9 for a little over two weeks, the truth is that hI was delighted with the design, although I have to say that sometimes it is a bit strange to take it and that it is absolutely frozen. Another of the strengths is undoubtedly its terminal that offers us its Snapdragon processor. However, I think it will not be able to highlight many more positive aspects except the sound., and is that this terminal allows you to play music or any sound with a very high quality.

Its screen is certainly not up to expectations and far below, in my humble opinion, of other high-end mobile devices, the camera, although good, can be improved and the customization layer does not convince me , especially the movements that are in the opposite direction than in other software and in other terminals.

To conclude, and I find it difficult to say, I think there are much better options on the market for about the same price or for even a little less. This HTC One M9 is not a bad smartphone, but for its price and for everything we expected from it, it is not up to par.

Prices and availability

This HTC One M9 has already been available on the market for a few weeks and we can find it in almost any store, both physical and virtual, for a price of around 620 euros. You can buy it for example on Amazon from this link.

What do you think of this HTC One M9?.

Editor's opinion

Pros and cons