The HTC One M9 is a really lovely mobile, very premium in design and style. It’s really nice in the hand, not too wide and doesn’t feel like a massive unwieldy mobile. The metal back stands out against a sea of plastic mobiles, although compared to other phones the HTC One M9 does get rather warm at times.
Android runs really smoothly and HTC have done a great job adding some nice additional features, such as Blinkfeed and the smart icons that change depending on where you are (e.g. game icons when you’re at home, map icons when out and about).
The headphone jack is on the bottom, the top of the phone has an IR transmitter that allows you to use the phone as a remote, it’s quick and easy to setup and worked well with an LG TV and Virgin Tivo making use of the Peel Smart Remote app.
Games run really well on this and the two front facing speakers do a great job. Sound quality isn’t as good as a pair of headphones or decent bluetooth speaker, but it’s on par with a lot of low cost bluetooth speakers and has the benefit of being stereo rather than mono.
There are two cameras, a front facing 4 ‘utrapixel’ camera and a 20 megapixel rear camera. When the lighting is good you can get some really great shots and there are loads of modes available out of the box. However, the camera did sometimes struggle on auto mode in some situations, with people coming out shadowed unless HDR mode was used. After you’ve taken photos there are loads of options to adjust (e.g. removing red-eye) and enhance them (e.g. adding frames).
You can also use a photo you’ve taken to change the look and feel of the phone via the inbuilt themes app. And if you want to share your photos in a more interesting manner than usual you can use the Zoe app to stitch photos and videos together with a theme applied to them (e.g. black and white) as well as background music.
The battery isn’t removable, expect to get a days use out of this as a casual user. If you’re a really heavy user you’ll likely want to invest in a portable battery.
Although the back isn’t removable you do still get the option to add a micro-SD card, something some premium mobiles are missing.
Great all round mobile that backs up style with substance.
Available from Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/1hwaNz8 and Amazon US: https://amzn.to/1JaykSu
