to bad you do not compare 2 generations back as well (in this case the M7) as most people have 2 year contracts not 1 year (as i have the M7 i had to look at the charts) so GPU side seems to be twice as fast CPU side seems to be 50% faster than the M7 (and that horrible cam on the M7 is now 20MB witch should of happened on the M8) battery looks like its going to be good (but need the m9 part 20) but most of that is due to Larger battery (witch in my view should be 3000-3100mAh
"Doing some quick calculations would mean that the M9 consumed about an average of 1.22 watts throughout the test, while the M8 consumed about an average of .91 watts throughout the test."
Average of what? Per minute? Per hour? Per run? Average throughout the test?!
"Running this same test on HSPA+ actually increases the gap in efficiency between the M8 and M9, but the difference is around 5%."
5% of what exactly?
"..in PCMark I noticed that the M9 reached about 40C, which brings it close enough to the new update's maximum skin temperatures that all three tests must be re-done."
Huh?
In page 2, is the charge time measured with the supplied charger (1.5A) or using a 2.0A charger?
charge time is measured using the included 1.5A charger, as far as i can tell. this makes sense for most people, but i'd still like to see if a good quick charge 2.0 enabled charger can improve charging time. please?
My first entry to Android was the M8 and while I loved Android - I found the M8 wasn't all that great. It had a great spec sheet, but real world battery life and standby time to my 5s was pretty bad. The camera on the M8 was also really bad so I'm glad they fixed that. Sense blows. The worst part about sense is how it locks out any customization of the lock screen. The only widget sense allows is it's own on that lock screen. Horrible. I really hated that.
So while I'm sure the m9 is better, it really only seems to fix the camera problem. It doesn't fix the inherent build quality issues I found with the m8s design, and the excessive size of the device.
I haven't given up on Android though. I recently got my Z3 Compact in the mail and it's perfect. It has outstanding real world battery life, has a better physical design, has the top end hardware, and Sony doesn't ruin Android with touch wiz/sense type of crap install all that much.
you seem to have quite unique complaints about the m8, since most points you disliked are things other users and reviews applauded htc for. build, battery, sense... all this are generally considered strengths of the m8.
also, as we see, the m9 doesn't really improve on many aspects of the m8, even the camera seems to be as sub par es ever, if we can believe first reviews.
i agree that the z3 compact is a very nice phone, but its hardware isn't truly better than the m8 neither. camera and battery life yes, but the rest is mostly the same or up to personal opinion.
Well battery and camera are a pretty big part of the experience, no?
The Z3 compact at least has one thing going for it, the size. It seems to be the only quality Android phone that isn't right around 5 inches. If I would ever switch back to Android from iOS, it would definitely be my first choice...
To wrap things up: - Lackluster screen when compared to M8 and competition - Generally improved software but either Sense 7 is unoptimised or it's the S810 - Snapdragon 810 dissapointing performance when compared to older Snapdragons - Throttling - Battery life is worse with same resolution and size screen, lower brightness, newer SoC and bigger battery - The camera is better in theory So basically they took the One M8 improved the camera and software, relocated the power button but at the same time the screen, battery life, performance, and temperatures suffered quite a bit. How do they expect people to buy this phone? Many were already dissapointed when they heard that M9 is only going to be a minimal upgrade, but to see that it's worse that the M8?
HTC is just like most of other companies - they're just cranking up the specs without really improving anything. They've lost their senses in how to make a great device. Sad.
Truly sad, I too have an M7. The size is better than the new M8 and M9, the screen is better and I could get it in black. I don't want another me too gold/silver phone.
they should just stop with those fugly gold/champagne/rose colors already. since when is it ok to offer a high end phone in silver/gold dual tone, instead of a pure and simple black?
I Still have an M7, and it shocks me to see HTC keeps getting worse with each generation. Sure it's faster at gaming and such forth, but speed isn't everything. My phone is plenty fast for everyday items, and even some lite gaming, but for most gaming I use My Shield Portable. Sad really.
Also a (very happy) M7 owner here, looks like I'll be keeping my phone for at least another generation. Loving the screen, other metrics still competitive, newer smartphones not really enticing me even with how relatively old the M7 is. Shame I have one of the ones with a crappy low-light sensor (purple all the things!)
There are some batch of M7 with defective camera module. You can get it changed. I have several friends who get it swapped and it is all well till now.
Mine is almost 2 years old and other than a screen crack in one corner and dust under the front camera (which I never use), I love the phone. Battery life is still good for a 2 year old phone and the boom sound cant be beat.
This review doesn't bode well for HTC. Throttling, heat, poor display and mediocre CPU gains don't compel me to upgrade.
I feel some pain when I think of my past M7 too, the size was perfect, the build was lovely, display is one of the very best I've seen, but the charge time did it for me.
My GS5 charges quick (under 2hrs), and when I can get a charge, I get more quicker too, thus making me more mobile. But the GS5 screen (in MY opinion) is horrible.
Now I've nowhere to look; M9 no front buttons, GS6, no front speakers. Event the amazing Note Edge I tried at the weekend - no front spearkes.
But its my money, and I can wait. Someone will come along with the right product eventually.
The Moto X 2014 comes close to a spiritual successor of the One M7. I've passed it tho for 3 reasons:
* One front firing speaker instead of two, subjective tests all give the nod to boomsound. * Amoled - great for movies, not so great for Android white-infused-Lollipop. Several counts of far reduced battery life. * No IR blaster
But ergonomically, bezel size, etc. it is much better than the HTC M8+. It also has the quick charge spec.
Fix these for the Moto X 2015 - update the SOC, keep the physical size/1080p, maybe improve camera performance a bit, and I'm dropping my HTC...
Those are the dumbest reasons I have ever seen. One front speaker is infinitely better than one rear speaker. IR blaster is a gimmick feature. Amoled.. You're blaming Amoled for lollipop being white.. Jesus.
One front speaker is worse than 2 front speakers. You call it a gimmick, others call it a great feature; I certainly wouldn't buy a new phone if it didn't have an IR blaster. And no, where did he blame amoled? He said that because lollipop is so white then the power saving ability of amoled is not really relevant in lollipop.
Of course you can get used to having no front speakers. It's not as though rear-facing speakers don't work at all.
Presumably the M9 also comes with a headphone jack and Bluetooth audio functionality, both of which offer listening options incomparably better than crappy phone speakers, whatever their orientation.
Whatever 'other' audio connectivity exists, that will not suffice if I lean over to the phone in the car whilst in its holder, and choose to answer with 'speaker'. My GS5 can barely be heard, so bad to the point that I end the call and dial back when I stop.
I drive many company / rental cars, I'm not bluetoothing to each and every one, and I'm not the greatest fan of bluetooth headsets.
No Sir. I can't get used to having no physical buttons, or M9 it would be for me.
It matters not how many devices in existance have them, for I simply find them too buggy to use, they take up valuable screen space, and their nature of appearing / dissappearing gives me chest pains, for want of a better description.
And yes, once you've have had 'quality' front facing stereo speakers, 'it just seems illogical to do it any other way'.
GFXBench 3.1 was recently released only 2 weeks ago and is currently only available for Lolipop devices. We will adopt it in future reviews, but for now we can present more useful comparison data for 3.0.
Also, I think the Manhattan 3.0 and T-rex are more representative of real world performance then the ultra-high load of 3.1 in which the one with more compute performance wins.
True, but the same was told last year for Manhattan 3.0 as it was very compute for that time. I guess in about 6 months- 1 years all mobile devices will run the new GFX 3.1 smoothly.
Seriously Josh, you need to stop abusing that word. I've seen multiple instances of starting two sentences with while in several of your reviews. It's getting pretty tedious. I bet if I were to ctrl-f in other reviewer's articles, there will be significantly fewer matches.
It's always sad to see someone addicted to abusing a word. There is help out there, but the first step is admitting you have a problem, and wanting to be helped.
Just say "NO". (But not too often, or you could get hooked on it)
Any ETA for more on SD810? At least a vague range. Anyway, guess not much to say here, it's all bad. Maybe a drastic price cut would change the picture.
I wonder if the issues with software are something that running a different OS would solve. I have two M8s one with Android and the other with Windows Phone 8.1 and the Windows phone version gets better battery life by about 24 hours in standby. When I use it for testing web sites, the Windows version also last longer and supports more JavaScript features than Chrome, its almost scary compared to desktop IE.
I guess we will see if MSFT makes good on their promise that any Android phone can run Windows Phone 10 and see what this thing can do.
With android it almost always seems to be misbehaving apps. Its hard to compare unless you keep the OS stock. I've spent a fair amount of time chasing down wakelocks.
She went to buy a new Windows phone after she 'fell' into the pool this weekend, drowining the Nokia 820 I bought her. Ok, I dunked her...
But alas the top models were out of stock at the biggest shopping center available. Eventually she left with a Galaxy A7 (Octa core, 5.5" 1080, fast ram, dual sim) and whilst I'm impressed, she, not too much. She really wanted a Windows Phone it seems.
I feel bad. They've focused too much on the physical materials of the phone, hurting the other parts. They could have also went for a larger display at the same resolution to increase battery size and minimize bezels. This will be competing with the S6 which is the phone to get in 2015 because of its very nice camera.
A larger display is not what it needs. What it needs is the same display but in a chassis that is smaller and doesn't have all that useless area needlessly increasing the size of the phone.
Pretty underwhelming, I'm starting to wonder whether I'll hold on to my current phone even longer than 2 years, it's the first one I've had for more than a year as it is. Z3c was the only thing that tempted me last year...
IMO the Z3C is the best phone in the market. It's just a shame it's been largely ignored.
I'm an iPhone fan and the Z3C is the first Android running hardware that hasn't led to disappoint for me. Great battery life, great build quality, feels nice in normal usage, has top end hardware packed in, and is running pretty much vanilla Android.
It can be had for a really great price now too. Low $400s, and you can get it in that same price range direct from Sony with a 1 year warranty if you make a free student account to receive 10% off through them.
It's really the best phone if you can't stand/deal with these larger monsters that are frankly a pain to use on a day to day basis for simple things like phone calls.
The Z3C has a few problems. It would be the best phone in the market if it had better display and protective glass. I wish my Z3C has the same display quality as the M7 and Gorilla 3 front and back glass.
Yeah, 1080p is really overkill for a phone right around 4 inches. I honestly couldn't tell the difference between 1080p 720p and the 1136*640 on a 4 inch screen in regular usage. As long as it's above 300 PPI few people would be able to tell...
If I was buying a phone today I'd probably pick it over my Nexus 5 (are they even still selling the N5?), tho I'd have to switch carriers for it... I'm satisfied with Sprint in my area for now and that's one of the reasons I've kept the N5.
A Z3c with Qi wireless charging and OIS would be the perfect compact Android phone IMO. Hopefully Sony doesn't abandon smaller devices (or the smartphone market altogether) any time soon.
Whatever they follow up the Z3c might just be the replacement for the N5 I've had since Nov 2013... I had three HTC phones before the, pretty happy with them, the One just hasn't done it for me.
Ergonomically it's always felt odd and it seems they're treading water in most other senses (no pun intended).
Heh, that's kinda funny... iPhone owner here too, a fairly happy one at that, and the Z3Compact is also the only Android handset I find the least bit tempting!
I was considering replacing my Lumia 920 with the M9, but at this point I'd rather wait for the M10 with the Snapdragon 820. Too bad, because HTC really had a good template with the M7(always felt that the M8 was a step back in tersm of design).
Before any downputting comments arise, find the quoted piece at the design section, directly under the picture showing off HTC's brand. Which I avoid for this specific reason....
Wow, after skimming through the review I really wonder... Do we really need an HTC as a competitor? This device feels completely unnecessary. If they can't even get an improvement right, they're better off making room for someone who can. Sony could use more exposure, I've got the impression their lineup wipes the floor with HTC's.
Seriously, I usually compare the plots (benchmarks and whatnot) to both my current phone or my aspired-to-next-phone (currently: Moto x 14 / none) - in this case, there is not a single feature I'd like to see from the M9 in the device I have....
Plus, that logo... (Any company worth its sh*t should be proud enough and confident enough not to spoil the front like that)
Sony has some great phones(The compacts are excellent), but they are plagued by lackluster camera performance(lack of OIS and terrible processing), which is ironic considering Sony produces most of the sensors on the market today.
The Z4 will be one to watch though, and I hope there will be a compact version of it.
Back when the reviews first came out for the HTC One X, they certainly didn't mention the problems listed in this article's introduction. Of course, I don't remember what Anandtech had to say about it but I definitely remember several sites praised it as if it was the second coming for Android. Based on those reviews, I decided to "upgrade" to it from an iPhone 3GS. What a huge disappointment. The only good thing about it was the camera I think. Performance was pathetic and the battery life was barely tolerable. They were also terrible with software upgrades but of course, this could not have been foreseen by reviewers. It almost made me go back to Apple but I stuck around and got a Z1 Compact after my contract was up and has been very satisfied ever since. The fact that the M9 has received hardly any design changes from the M8 or M7 for that matter and suffers from performance and battery life problems show that HTC is a relic of a company and deserves to be put down. In this day and age, there's simply no room for idiocy like this, especially not when the competition is so strong and definitely not when they are already playing catch up. I'll be buying a S6 Edge next month, the M9 won't even be factoring into my consideration.
This actually might be the worst successor in a phone line ever made since smartphones became a thing. Someone is getting fired at HTC when they post record lows in profits.
Yeah, right, 2W. Under significant throttling and 1GHz frequency. 2W chip cant produce that much heat. And btw, where did you get the information about 2W?
I saw the 810 present on new Sony Tablet experia. It doesnt have the same problem of this one due less thermal constrain, but the performance are far away from the K1 or A8X, with huge disappointment.
Um. One, you're K1 numbers are WAY OFF, For either version. A15 cores draw ~3.5W @ 1.9Ghz. Over 4W at 2.3Ghz. The 1 SMX Kepler GPU and uncore draws far over 1 Watt. A lot more.
The K1 is a 10W power usage part at best. The 810 isn't much higher... Which seems bad, until you realized the A57 cores draw over 50% more power.
I wonder how this is going to play out with Microsoft who is locked in to Qualcomm for SOC's?
They have the luxury of (some) time as the new premium handsets are waiting for Windows 10. Will they release late with this same crap underclocked 810 like the M9? Will they switch to another SOC? Will Qualcomm fix the 810?
I used to be an HTC fanboy, and I think the M8/M9 are awesome phones. However, I was really disappointed with the Nexus 9. Awesome display and internals, but the body is shoddy as hell.The first really bad android device i got.
Big disappointment. I still have an M7. The M8 wasn't enough to upgrade, and this gives even less reason. Of course, the processor and performance is next gen, but the poor display, battery life and poor ergonomics (button placement) are all show stoppers.
The M7 kept me from switching over to an iPhone when that came out - not sure what I'll do this year.
The first thing all phone reviews should have are: 1) Waterproof? (IP rating) 2) Replaceable battery? 3) Battery life? 4) Sim card? Then we can decide whether to read more.
Waterproofing and user-replaceable batteries are niche features, and virtually any phone is going to have a SIM card (since Verizon and Sprint have moved to LTE). So the remaining point Is battery life, which you'll note has been moved to the first page after the intro.
Do you people not understand that this is subjective? I don't care whatsoever about waterproof. Definitely not replaceable batteries which are just stupid. Sim card? What???
On the other hand, these things are on my MUST HAVE list: Front speakers. Need to hear the phone. Wireless charging. 10x better than replaceable batteries.
So let me get this right, It's practically indistinguishable from the old M8 design wise, has an under-clocked SOC, worse screen, no Qi, and they still haven't fixed the giant wasted HTC bezel space...
I think that with the recent change in software, Anandtech should be commended with releasing some review data on the HTC ONE M9 even in an incomplete state. This review might save someone who has been chomping at the bit from making a potential mistake.
With that said and taking into account the disappointment with Snapdragon 810, I would ask and believe that it is about time we got a review of the Droid Turbo. It is one of the only phones to have the 805 refresh and i don't understand why such a major release for Motorola went without any review by Anandtech. I mean AT reviewed that POS Moto X but the real flagship phone went completely unnoticed. Aside from the GS6 and Sony Z3C there really are no other phones worth buying as of right now.
Please reconsider AT and review the Turbo. While the display is far from perfect, most other aspects are quite nice for the price.
The Droid Turbo is made significantly less compelling by the fact that it's exclusive to Verizon, unlike the Moto X & Nexus 6. When was the last time AnandTech reviewed a Droid?
Given that we have multiple S805 devices in the graphs we decided that it would be best to leave Nexus 6 results out. They can be seen in Bench or in previous reviews.
I can't believe my Nexus 5 still holds up LOL. I was thinking about getting the Zenfone 2 but 5.1 came out and fixed a lot of bugs and I am back to being happy again. My brother has the M7 I may just help him flash GPE to get 5.1 on his device and call it a day. I would love to see the Zenfone 2 in these benchmarks. I wonder if Anandtech will do a review?
With 1080p snapdragon 801 phones regularly pricing in at $300, this phone clearly offers nothing to justify twice as much money. Why would anyone want this over an M8 for half the price? The battery dont even last as long. Wow.
I wonder if it sticking far from its max clock speed has to do with the "fix" for its initial overheating issue, imaged below. I wish Android SoC makers would stop pursuing stupidly high clocks that they throttle back from in seconds. This whole thing might be confirmation that Samsung moved away from Snapdragon for the throttling/overheating.
Yes, not running the SoC at a level where the heat dissipation was to high for the case to handle fixed problems.
Anyhow, the 810 has no thermal problems. Phone manufacturers cramming a 10W+ SoC into a phone and than people expecting it to be able to draw 10W+ over an extended period of time without causing heat issues are the problem.
>>> For those that are unfamiliar with how HTC's CPU cheats work, HTC continues to rely on some level of benchmark detection, and it seems that when a benchmark is detected it enables a "High Performance" mode in the developer settings with no option to disable this mode. It's possible to work around this mode by using benchmarks that evade such detection mechanisms (and we do), but it's also possible manually toggle this mode on and off if a benchmark isn't detected. <<<
1) Was High Performance mode disabled in all CPU/GPU tests performed in Part I?
>>> We'd normally go into depth about the PCMark, GFXBench, and Basemark OS II battery life results at this point but the new software update precludes this from happening at all as all three could be significantly impacted by changes to thermal throttling. In GFXBench, I saw a change from 1.73 hours to around 3 hours of battery life on our infinite T-Rex rundown test, and in PCMark I noticed that the M9 reached about 40C, which brings it close enough to the new update's maximum skin temperatures that all three tests must be re-done. <<<
2) So are we to see infinite GFXBench test with actual fps in Part II? And why must you re-done tests because of the thermal throttling - isn't it going to be constant part of M9's software? Are you going to disable this thermal throttling in your following tests?
It seems quite reasonable with high performance mode off, but if you disable throttling (enabled by M9's software) will it represent M9's real performance?
We can't disable the throttling mechanisms without root. For performance benchmarks (not thermally limited) we will often use cooling pads to try and avoid throttling.
So you don't root and disable throttling, do you? But I don't understand what's the purpose of using cooling pads, if it doesn't represent real situation of the users. Do you allways use cooling pads in tests "not thermally limited"? I'm afraid I don't know which test are thermally limited and which are not.
Sorry for asking many questions, I'm a tech blogger from Russia and often quote your reviews (I believe they are the most professional and unbiassed).
In general it isn't necessary to use additional cooling for most phones, but we do this in order to try and standardize the test conditions because we can't standardize room temperature and what surface the phone is on well enough. The tests where we don't do this are part of the battery life tests, which is why throttling is often seen in those tests.
Disappointing display, disappointing battery life - enough for me, these are key aspects of a mobile phone. And the camera is disappointing also and lacks OIS.
I think the really amazing things when you look at all the benchmarks is how well the LG G2 has held up at the 18 month point since launch. It's battery life is excellent and overall performance of the Snapdragon 800 is quite good overall with an excellent 1080p IPS panel.
Has anyone else read any reviews of the M9, and if so did they have the same complaints of the screen? They might be using a different vendor for screens and Anandtech might have just gotten a lemon.
From the article, "but the plastic bezel has been updated to surround the entire front of the device instead of just the speakers"
Can you double check whether the front piece is plastic or metal?
Engadget posted a review yesterday saying "... the M9 is the first One with a front plate hewn from a single block of aluminum, with holes machined in to hold the screen and speakers in place. ..."
Looking at the pictures, the texture of the front looks a lot like what plastic usually looks like. Completely different from what the metal parts at the back look like.
Snapdragon 810 is literally breathing fire. Sad that the first 64bit soc from qualcomm runs hot... They really dropped the ball by not having a Krait 64 bit soc by now.. Apple's done shipped 3 64 bit soc's, soon to be 5...
That's right, by the time Qualcomm ships Krait 64bit. Apple will have already shipped 5 different 64bit SOC's counting the A7, A8, A8X, A9, A9X. And probably 250 million of them (didn't do the math since release but it's safe to say it's close)
This has really hurt android as a platform. It will certainly recover, but the damage is done.
Seems I'd rather have an M8. Phones are 'good enough' power wise unless you're a big gamer and have been there for a couple years. Battery life improvements are what I really care about and they keep either throwing away any improvement to drive WQHD or 4k screens (who cares?) or are outright regressing like this one. Sad.
Let's not forget HTC has always been pretty friendly to the dev community. Unlock-able boot loader matters. While I realize not everyone will go that route, being able to run Xposed, Greenify, and Amplify on my AT&T M8 has improved battery life so much that I really cannot see upgrading to a device without the ability to root. If the M9's battery problems can be solved with software, I'd consider it a non-issue. The screen however can probably not be forgiven, and the only reason to upgrade from an M8 would be the camera, which from initial reports is better, but not in the same league as the S6 or iPhone 6.
3DMark Physics Test is a CPU Stress Test. Do you have any good reason to include it in GPU Performance section? The description for Physics Test on FutureMark's site states: "The Physics test is a pure CPU performance benchmark using lightweight rendering techniques to minimise any GPU impact on scoring. The test contains a multi-theaded simulation of a large number of rigid bodies, some connected with joints, colliding using the Bullet Open Source Physics Library."
I think in your reviews you could include more info about audio capabilities which are important for some people. And for example - the loudness when playing audio via headphones is very important for me because many surce materials have low volume and high M7/M8/M9 volume can compensate for this.
Why, HTC? Just give me the M7 form factor with updated internals. For crying out loud, I even LIKE the UltraPixel camera. I've never had an issue with the camera, and unless I zoom WAY in on the pics, they look just fine. Waiting on the Xperia Z4.
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
132 Comments
Back to Article
PC Perv - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
"Unfortunately, with the move to the Peel remote application it seems that the default application no longer supports receiving OR codes."What the heck doss that mean?
Ryan Smith - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
IR codes, we meant.PC Perv - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
Really, so can I use it as a remote or not?JoshHo - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
The key distinction is IR receiving vs transmitting. Transmission is generally universal, receiving is generally not as universal among smartphones.leexgx - Friday, March 27, 2015 - link
to bad you do not compare 2 generations back as well (in this case the M7) as most people have 2 year contracts not 1 year (as i have the M7 i had to look at the charts)so GPU side seems to be twice as fast CPU side seems to be 50% faster than the M7 (and that horrible cam on the M7 is now 20MB witch should of happened on the M8) battery looks like its going to be good (but need the m9 part 20) but most of that is due to Larger battery (witch in my view should be 3000-3100mAh
PC Perv - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
"Doing some quick calculations would mean that the M9 consumed about an average of 1.22 watts throughout the test, while the M8 consumed about an average of .91 watts throughout the test."Average of what? Per minute? Per hour? Per run? Average throughout the test?!
"Running this same test on HSPA+ actually increases the gap in efficiency between the M8 and M9, but the difference is around 5%."
5% of what exactly?
"..in PCMark I noticed that the M9 reached about 40C, which brings it close enough to the new update's maximum skin temperatures that all three tests must be re-done."
Huh?
In page 2, is the charge time measured with the supplied charger (1.5A) or using a 2.0A charger?
I only finished reading the first 2 pages.
Ryan Smith - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
"Average of what? Per minute? Per hour? Per run? Average throughout the test?!"An average of 1.22 watts throughout the duration of the test.
wiz329 - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
A Watt is a unit of power, not energy, so it makes perfect sense.It's an average power usage throughout the entire test. It used X energy per time on average throughout the entire test.
garbagedisposal - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
Are you genuinely retarded?I feel for AT's writers who have to hold back when they reply to comments by idiots like these.
GC2:CS - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
One watt = one joule per secondfokka - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
charge time is measured using the included 1.5A charger, as far as i can tell. this makes sense for most people, but i'd still like to see if a good quick charge 2.0 enabled charger can improve charging time. please?tipoo - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Lol. Watts already include time.mchart - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
My first entry to Android was the M8 and while I loved Android - I found the M8 wasn't all that great. It had a great spec sheet, but real world battery life and standby time to my 5s was pretty bad. The camera on the M8 was also really bad so I'm glad they fixed that. Sense blows. The worst part about sense is how it locks out any customization of the lock screen. The only widget sense allows is it's own on that lock screen. Horrible. I really hated that.So while I'm sure the m9 is better, it really only seems to fix the camera problem. It doesn't fix the inherent build quality issues I found with the m8s design, and the excessive size of the device.
I haven't given up on Android though. I recently got my Z3 Compact in the mail and it's perfect. It has outstanding real world battery life, has a better physical design, has the top end hardware, and Sony doesn't ruin Android with touch wiz/sense type of crap install all that much.
fokka - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
you seem to have quite unique complaints about the m8, since most points you disliked are things other users and reviews applauded htc for. build, battery, sense... all this are generally considered strengths of the m8.also, as we see, the m9 doesn't really improve on many aspects of the m8, even the camera seems to be as sub par es ever, if we can believe first reviews.
i agree that the z3 compact is a very nice phone, but its hardware isn't truly better than the m8 neither. camera and battery life yes, but the rest is mostly the same or up to personal opinion.
V900 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Well battery and camera are a pretty big part of the experience, no?The Z3 compact at least has one thing going for it, the size. It seems to be the only quality Android phone that isn't right around 5 inches. If I would ever switch back to Android from iOS, it would definitely be my first choice...
Yesumanu - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
To wrap things up:- Lackluster screen when compared to M8 and competition
- Generally improved software but either Sense 7 is unoptimised or it's the S810
- Snapdragon 810 dissapointing performance when compared to older Snapdragons
- Throttling
- Battery life is worse with same resolution and size screen, lower brightness, newer SoC and bigger battery
- The camera is better in theory
So basically they took the One M8 improved the camera and software, relocated the power button but at the same time the screen, battery life, performance, and temperatures suffered quite a bit. How do they expect people to buy this phone? Many were already dissapointed when they heard that M9 is only going to be a minimal upgrade, but to see that it's worse that the M8?
hung2900 - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
You forgot cheating in benchmarking also.sonny73n - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
HTC is just like most of other companies - they're just cranking up the specs without really improving anything. They've lost their senses in how to make a great device. Sad.warezme - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Truly sad, I too have an M7. The size is better than the new M8 and M9, the screen is better and I could get it in black. I don't want another me too gold/silver phone.fokka - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
they should just stop with those fugly gold/champagne/rose colors already. since when is it ok to offer a high end phone in silver/gold dual tone, instead of a pure and simple black?dandroid45 - Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - link
Man, I feel the same way, black, blue, silver, and white and maybe red, call it a day after thatflyingpants1 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
I'd give it all up for the front speakers and mSD. The metal is pointless since it's going in a case on day 1.Jumangi - Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - link
Yea your better off getting a cheaper used M8 off of Ebay than one of these. HTC is in for another long year of losses.ol1bit - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
I Still have an M7, and it shocks me to see HTC keeps getting worse with each generation. Sure it's faster at gaming and such forth, but speed isn't everything. My phone is plenty fast for everyday items, and even some lite gaming, but for most gaming I use My Shield Portable. Sad really.VoraciousGorak - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
Also a (very happy) M7 owner here, looks like I'll be keeping my phone for at least another generation. Loving the screen, other metrics still competitive, newer smartphones not really enticing me even with how relatively old the M7 is. Shame I have one of the ones with a crappy low-light sensor (purple all the things!)RYF - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
There are some batch of M7 with defective camera module. You can get it changed. I have several friends who get it swapped and it is all well till now.Refuge - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
I also own and still love my HTC One M7. Great phone, and nothing has driven me to upgrade yet. I've never had a smart phone as long as this one.superflex - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Mine is almost 2 years old and other than a screen crack in one corner and dust under the front camera (which I never use), I love the phone.Battery life is still good for a 2 year old phone and the boom sound cant be beat.
This review doesn't bode well for HTC. Throttling, heat, poor display and mediocre CPU gains don't compel me to upgrade.
Notmyusualid - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
I feel some pain when I think of my past M7 too, the size was perfect, the build was lovely, display is one of the very best I've seen, but the charge time did it for me.My GS5 charges quick (under 2hrs), and when I can get a charge, I get more quicker too, thus making me more mobile. But the GS5 screen (in MY opinion) is horrible.
Now I've nowhere to look; M9 no front buttons, GS6, no front speakers. Event the amazing Note Edge I tried at the weekend - no front spearkes.
But its my money, and I can wait. Someone will come along with the right product eventually.
Spoelie - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
The Moto X 2014 comes close to a spiritual successor of the One M7. I've passed it tho for 3 reasons:* One front firing speaker instead of two, subjective tests all give the nod to boomsound.
* Amoled - great for movies, not so great for Android white-infused-Lollipop. Several counts of far reduced battery life.
* No IR blaster
But ergonomically, bezel size, etc. it is much better than the HTC M8+. It also has the quick charge spec.
Fix these for the Moto X 2015 - update the SOC, keep the physical size/1080p, maybe improve camera performance a bit, and I'm dropping my HTC...
flyingpants1 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Those are the dumbest reasons I have ever seen. One front speaker is infinitely better than one rear speaker. IR blaster is a gimmick feature. Amoled.. You're blaming Amoled for lollipop being white.. Jesus.hughlle - Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - link
One front speaker is worse than 2 front speakers. You call it a gimmick, others call it a great feature; I certainly wouldn't buy a new phone if it didn't have an IR blaster. And no, where did he blame amoled? He said that because lollipop is so white then the power saving ability of amoled is not really relevant in lollipop.Nice try and trying to spin everything though.
flyingpants1 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Lol.. You can get used to having no buttons. You know like LG, Sony, Nexus 4,5,6, Motorola..You can't get used to having no front speakers.
Also the M9 has mSD which allows me to dump 128gb of music on there, or record 1080p videos continuously and switch out cards.
Black Obsidian - Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - link
Of course you can get used to having no front speakers. It's not as though rear-facing speakers don't work at all.Presumably the M9 also comes with a headphone jack and Bluetooth audio functionality, both of which offer listening options incomparably better than crappy phone speakers, whatever their orientation.
Notmyusualid - Wednesday, March 25, 2015 - link
I must humbly disagree with you Sir.Whatever 'other' audio connectivity exists, that will not suffice if I lean over to the phone in the car whilst in its holder, and choose to answer with 'speaker'. My GS5 can barely be heard, so bad to the point that I end the call and dial back when I stop.
I drive many company / rental cars, I'm not bluetoothing to each and every one, and I'm not the greatest fan of bluetooth headsets.
Notmyusualid - Wednesday, March 25, 2015 - link
No Sir. I can't get used to having no physical buttons, or M9 it would be for me.It matters not how many devices in existance have them, for I simply find them too buggy to use, they take up valuable screen space, and their nature of appearing / dissappearing gives me chest pains, for want of a better description.
And yes, once you've have had 'quality' front facing stereo speakers, 'it just seems illogical to do it any other way'.
lucam - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
Dear Anand,Why you haven't used the new GFXBench 3.1 as well as the new Basemark ES 3.1?
Andrei Frumusanu - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
GFXBench 3.1 was recently released only 2 weeks ago and is currently only available for Lolipop devices. We will adopt it in future reviews, but for now we can present more useful comparison data for 3.0.arayoflight - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Do you have a Galaxy S6 for review?Also, I think the Manhattan 3.0 and T-rex are more representative of real world performance then the ultra-high load of 3.1 in which the one with more compute performance wins.
lucam - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
True, but the same was told last year for Manhattan 3.0 as it was very compute for that time.I guess in about 6 months- 1 years all mobile devices will run the new GFX 3.1 smoothly.
Snark Attack - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
while while while while while while whileSeriously Josh, you need to stop abusing that word. I've seen multiple instances of starting two sentences with while in several of your reviews. It's getting pretty tedious. I bet if I were to ctrl-f in other reviewer's articles, there will be significantly fewer matches.
Thanks for the review.
JoshHo - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
While abuse has been alleviated to some extent, thanks for the feedback.FunBunny2 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
of course, my textual abuse is somewhat, of course, less lethal.TedKord - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
It's always sad to see someone addicted to abusing a word. There is help out there, but the first step is admitting you have a problem, and wanting to be helped.Just say "NO". (But not too often, or you could get hooked on it)
Quidam67 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
I enjoy reading the comments section for anandtech reviews because they attract a higher; more educated form of whiny b!tches.jjj - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
Any ETA for more on SD810? At least a vague range.Anyway, guess not much to say here, it's all bad. Maybe a drastic price cut would change the picture.
testbug00 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
What's the problem with the 810? It behaves exactly how an SoC that draws at least 7W running only the CPU at max clocks would...peterfares - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
HTC done messed upcandrews74 - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
I wonder if the issues with software are something that running a different OS would solve. I have two M8s one with Android and the other with Windows Phone 8.1 and the Windows phone version gets better battery life by about 24 hours in standby. When I use it for testing web sites, the Windows version also last longer and supports more JavaScript features than Chrome, its almost scary compared to desktop IE.I guess we will see if MSFT makes good on their promise that any Android phone can run Windows Phone 10 and see what this thing can do.
sprockkets - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
Interesting, yet arstechnica found that the power save mode on the android version beats the windows version. YMMV.Midwayman - Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - link
With android it almost always seems to be misbehaving apps. Its hard to compare unless you keep the OS stock. I've spent a fair amount of time chasing down wakelocks.Notmyusualid - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
My gf noticed too.She went to buy a new Windows phone after she 'fell' into the pool this weekend, drowining the Nokia 820 I bought her. Ok, I dunked her...
But alas the top models were out of stock at the biggest shopping center available. Eventually she left with a Galaxy A7 (Octa core, 5.5" 1080, fast ram, dual sim) and whilst I'm impressed, she, not too much. She really wanted a Windows Phone it seems.
zodiacfml - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
I feel bad. They've focused too much on the physical materials of the phone, hurting the other parts.They could have also went for a larger display at the same resolution to increase battery size and minimize bezels.
This will be competing with the S6 which is the phone to get in 2015 because of its very nice camera.
mchart - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
A larger display is not what it needs. What it needs is the same display but in a chassis that is smaller and doesn't have all that useless area needlessly increasing the size of the phone.Impulses - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Pretty underwhelming, I'm starting to wonder whether I'll hold on to my current phone even longer than 2 years, it's the first one I've had for more than a year as it is. Z3c was the only thing that tempted me last year...mchart - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
IMO the Z3C is the best phone in the market. It's just a shame it's been largely ignored.I'm an iPhone fan and the Z3C is the first Android running hardware that hasn't led to disappoint for me. Great battery life, great build quality, feels nice in normal usage, has top end hardware packed in, and is running pretty much vanilla Android.
It can be had for a really great price now too. Low $400s, and you can get it in that same price range direct from Sony with a 1 year warranty if you make a free student account to receive 10% off through them.
It's really the best phone if you can't stand/deal with these larger monsters that are frankly a pain to use on a day to day basis for simple things like phone calls.
sonny73n - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
The Z3C has a few problems. It would be the best phone in the market if it had better display and protective glass. I wish my Z3C has the same display quality as the M7 and Gorilla 3 front and back glass.mchart - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
The z3 has gorilla glass front and back. The display is high quality as well. It's just not 1080p. The ppi is still high enough for that size though.V900 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Yeah, 1080p is really overkill for a phone right around 4 inches. I honestly couldn't tell the difference between 1080p 720p and the 1136*640 on a 4 inch screen in regular usage. As long as it's above 300 PPI few people would be able to tell...Impulses - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
If I was buying a phone today I'd probably pick it over my Nexus 5 (are they even still selling the N5?), tho I'd have to switch carriers for it... I'm satisfied with Sprint in my area for now and that's one of the reasons I've kept the N5.A Z3c with Qi wireless charging and OIS would be the perfect compact Android phone IMO. Hopefully Sony doesn't abandon smaller devices (or the smartphone market altogether) any time soon.
Whatever they follow up the Z3c might just be the replacement for the N5 I've had since Nov 2013... I had three HTC phones before the, pretty happy with them, the One just hasn't done it for me.
Ergonomically it's always felt odd and it seems they're treading water in most other senses (no pun intended).
V900 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Heh, that's kinda funny... iPhone owner here too, a fairly happy one at that, and the Z3Compact is also the only Android handset I find the least bit tempting!polygon_21 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
"The One M7 was essentially the phone that saved HTC."The M9 might be the one that kills it.
Laxaa - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Ouch. HTC really dropped the ball here.I was considering replacing my Lumia 920 with the M9, but at this point I'd rather wait for the M10 with the Snapdragon 820. Too bad, because HTC really had a good template with the M7(always felt that the M8 was a step back in tersm of design).
jvl - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
"(...) but we’re basically fighting physics here."Uh really? Have you seeen... well, the Moto X? Either of those, that is?
How can you say something like that?!
jvl - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Before any downputting comments arise, find the quoted piece at the design section, directly under the picture showing off HTC's brand.Which I avoid for this specific reason....
jvl - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Wow, after skimming through the review I really wonder... Do we really need an HTC as a competitor? This device feels completely unnecessary. If they can't even get an improvement right, they're better off making room for someone who can.Sony could use more exposure, I've got the impression their lineup wipes the floor with HTC's.
Seriously, I usually compare the plots (benchmarks and whatnot) to both my current phone or my aspired-to-next-phone (currently: Moto x 14 / none) - in this case, there is not a single feature I'd like to see from the M9 in the device I have....
Plus, that logo... (Any company worth its sh*t should be proud enough and confident enough not to spoil the front like that)
sonny73n - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Yup, not to mention the logo is very ugly, plus the the off-centered display is a deal breaker for me.DeciusStrabo - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
The M9 gets an hour (15 %) more runtime than the Moto X. A single feature that I would think you'd see as worthy.Laxaa - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Sony has some great phones(The compacts are excellent), but they are plagued by lackluster camera performance(lack of OIS and terrible processing), which is ironic considering Sony produces most of the sensors on the market today.The Z4 will be one to watch though, and I hope there will be a compact version of it.
marcolorenzo - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Back when the reviews first came out for the HTC One X, they certainly didn't mention the problems listed in this article's introduction. Of course, I don't remember what Anandtech had to say about it but I definitely remember several sites praised it as if it was the second coming for Android. Based on those reviews, I decided to "upgrade" to it from an iPhone 3GS. What a huge disappointment. The only good thing about it was the camera I think. Performance was pathetic and the battery life was barely tolerable. They were also terrible with software upgrades but of course, this could not have been foreseen by reviewers. It almost made me go back to Apple but I stuck around and got a Z1 Compact after my contract was up and has been very satisfied ever since.The fact that the M9 has received hardly any design changes from the M8 or M7 for that matter and suffers from performance and battery life problems show that HTC is a relic of a company and deserves to be put down. In this day and age, there's simply no room for idiocy like this, especially not when the competition is so strong and definitely not when they are already playing catch up. I'll be buying a S6 Edge next month, the M9 won't even be factoring into my consideration.
Laststop311 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
This actually might be the worst successor in a phone line ever made since smartphones became a thing. Someone is getting fired at HTC when they post record lows in profits.lilmoe - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Someone is already (sort of) fired...kron123456789 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Snapdragon 810 is a disappointment. I think it's less efficient than even Tegra K1 Denver(which is 28nm, btw).DeciusStrabo - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
You think? The K1 draws up to 5 Watts of power. The 810 does less than 2 (for the complete phone).kron123456789 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Yeah, right, 2W. Under significant throttling and 1GHz frequency. 2W chip cant produce that much heat.And btw, where did you get the information about 2W?
lucam - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
I saw the 810 present on new Sony Tablet experia. It doesnt have the same problem of this one due less thermal constrain, but the performance are far away from the K1 or A8X, with huge disappointment.testbug00 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Um. One, you're K1 numbers are WAY OFF, For either version. A15 cores draw ~3.5W @ 1.9Ghz. Over 4W at 2.3Ghz.The 1 SMX Kepler GPU and uncore draws far over 1 Watt. A lot more.
The K1 is a 10W power usage part at best. The 810 isn't much higher... Which seems bad, until you realized the A57 cores draw over 50% more power.
Gunbuster - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
I wonder how this is going to play out with Microsoft who is locked in to Qualcomm for SOC's?They have the luxury of (some) time as the new premium handsets are waiting for Windows 10.
Will they release late with this same crap underclocked 810 like the M9?
Will they switch to another SOC?
Will Qualcomm fix the 810?
testbug00 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Given Windows 10 for phones has a lot of CPUs from multiple companies supported, what's the problem?Also, what's broken with the 810? It behaves exactly like one would expect a 10-15W SoC to in a phone...
Gunbuster - Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - link
Would love to see a document that supports that claim.testbug00 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Eh, it works like any CPU in it's approx power draw range would in a phone.Konservenknilch - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
I used to be an HTC fanboy, and I think the M8/M9 are awesome phones. However, I was really disappointed with the Nexus 9. Awesome display and internals, but the body is shoddy as hell.The first really bad android device i got.JBVertexx - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Big disappointment. I still have an M7. The M8 wasn't enough to upgrade, and this gives even less reason. Of course, the processor and performance is next gen, but the poor display, battery life and poor ergonomics (button placement) are all show stoppers.The M7 kept me from switching over to an iPhone when that came out - not sure what I'll do this year.
maximumGPU - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
GS6 seem to have taken to right steps forward.testbug00 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
With what? No SD card, glass on the back, worse battery life?Dunno if anyone will find this amusing, but, I almost posted this saying "No SIM card" XD
ioconnor - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
The first thing all phone reviews should have are:1) Waterproof? (IP rating)
2) Replaceable battery?
3) Battery life?
4) Sim card?
Then we can decide whether to read more.
lowlymarine - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Waterproofing and user-replaceable batteries are niche features, and virtually any phone is going to have a SIM card (since Verizon and Sprint have moved to LTE). So the remaining point Is battery life, which you'll note has been moved to the first page after the intro.flyingpants1 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Do you people not understand that this is subjective? I don't care whatsoever about waterproof. Definitely not replaceable batteries which are just stupid. Sim card? What???flyingpants1 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
On the other hand, these things are on my MUST HAVE list:Front speakers. Need to hear the phone.
Wireless charging. 10x better than replaceable batteries.
docbones - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
So no waterproofing still? Love that feature on the Sony phone.Gunbuster - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
So let me get this right, It's practically indistinguishable from the old M8 design wise, has an under-clocked SOC, worse screen, no Qi, and they still haven't fixed the giant wasted HTC bezel space...flyingpants1 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
They just keep doing the same design over and over again... The metal is nice, but they should drop it IMHO.flyingpants1 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
In favor of wireless charging and larger battery. One Asian version of the HTC M7 HAD A 3200mah battery, but no LTE.pt2501 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
I think that with the recent change in software, Anandtech should be commended with releasing some review data on the HTC ONE M9 even in an incomplete state. This review might save someone who has been chomping at the bit from making a potential mistake.With that said and taking into account the disappointment with Snapdragon 810, I would ask and believe that it is about time we got a review of the Droid Turbo. It is one of the only phones to have the 805 refresh and i don't understand why such a major release for Motorola went without any review by Anandtech. I mean AT reviewed that POS Moto X but the real flagship phone went completely unnoticed. Aside from the GS6 and Sony Z3C there really are no other phones worth buying as of right now.
Please reconsider AT and review the Turbo. While the display is far from perfect, most other aspects are quite nice for the price.
SeannyB - Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - link
The Droid Turbo is made significantly less compelling by the fact that it's exclusive to Verizon, unlike the Moto X & Nexus 6. When was the last time AnandTech reviewed a Droid?DParadoxx - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Where is the Nexus 6 in these graphs?JoshHo - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Given that we have multiple S805 devices in the graphs we decided that it would be best to leave Nexus 6 results out. They can be seen in Bench or in previous reviews.hanseome - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
I am sure that Samsung Galaxy S6 is the only phone announced with LPDDR4. I am really surprised to see HTC M9 with LPDD4.Madpacket - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Looks like the Note 4 is still the best Android phone. Disappointed by HTC here.Guest8 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
I can't believe my Nexus 5 still holds up LOL. I was thinking about getting the Zenfone 2 but 5.1 came out and fixed a lot of bugs and I am back to being happy again. My brother has the M7 I may just help him flash GPE to get 5.1 on his device and call it a day. I would love to see the Zenfone 2 in these benchmarks. I wonder if Anandtech will do a review?Shadowmaster625 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
With 1080p snapdragon 801 phones regularly pricing in at $300, this phone clearly offers nothing to justify twice as much money. Why would anyone want this over an M8 for half the price? The battery dont even last as long. Wow.tipoo - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
I wonder if it sticking far from its max clock speed has to do with the "fix" for its initial overheating issue, imaged below. I wish Android SoC makers would stop pursuing stupidly high clocks that they throttle back from in seconds. This whole thing might be confirmation that Samsung moved away from Snapdragon for the throttling/overheating.http://www.droid-life.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/...
testbug00 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Yes, not running the SoC at a level where the heat dissipation was to high for the case to handle fixed problems.Anyhow, the 810 has no thermal problems. Phone manufacturers cramming a 10W+ SoC into a phone and than people expecting it to be able to draw 10W+ over an extended period of time without causing heat issues are the problem.
Tigran - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Dear AnandTech, two questions:>>> For those that are unfamiliar with how HTC's CPU cheats work, HTC continues to rely on some level of benchmark detection, and it seems that when a benchmark is detected it enables a "High Performance" mode in the developer settings with no option to disable this mode. It's possible to work around this mode by using benchmarks that evade such detection mechanisms (and we do), but it's also possible manually toggle this mode on and off if a benchmark isn't detected. <<<
1) Was High Performance mode disabled in all CPU/GPU tests performed in Part I?
>>> We'd normally go into depth about the PCMark, GFXBench, and Basemark OS II battery life results at this point but the new software update precludes this from happening at all as all three could be significantly impacted by changes to thermal throttling. In GFXBench, I saw a change from 1.73 hours to around 3 hours of battery life on our infinite T-Rex rundown test, and in PCMark I noticed that the M9 reached about 40C, which brings it close enough to the new update's maximum skin temperatures that all three tests must be re-done. <<<
2) So are we to see infinite GFXBench test with actual fps in Part II? And why must you re-done tests because of the thermal throttling - isn't it going to be constant part of M9's software? Are you going to disable this thermal throttling in your following tests?
JoshHo - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
We do not enable HTC's high performance mode for performance benchmarks but we try to avoid throttling the SoC.Tigran - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
It seems quite reasonable with high performance mode off, but if you disable throttling (enabled by M9's software) will it represent M9's real performance?JoshHo - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
We can't disable the throttling mechanisms without root. For performance benchmarks (not thermally limited) we will often use cooling pads to try and avoid throttling.Tigran - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
So you don't root and disable throttling, do you? But I don't understand what's the purpose of using cooling pads, if it doesn't represent real situation of the users. Do you allways use cooling pads in tests "not thermally limited"? I'm afraid I don't know which test are thermally limited and which are not.Sorry for asking many questions, I'm a tech blogger from Russia and often quote your reviews (I believe they are the most professional and unbiassed).
JoshHo - Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - link
In general it isn't necessary to use additional cooling for most phones, but we do this in order to try and standardize the test conditions because we can't standardize room temperature and what surface the phone is on well enough. The tests where we don't do this are part of the battery life tests, which is why throttling is often seen in those tests.Tigran - Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - link
Thanks a lot for your answers, Joshua. Looking forward to see Part II, with infinite tests and SD810's long-term real performance.xnay - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Disappointing display, disappointing battery life - enough for me, these are key aspects of a mobile phone.And the camera is disappointing also and lacks OIS.
Chaser - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Crap battery life. Pass. Bummer too because I like HTC.trivor - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
I think the really amazing things when you look at all the benchmarks is how well the LG G2 has held up at the 18 month point since launch. It's battery life is excellent and overall performance of the Snapdragon 800 is quite good overall with an excellent 1080p IPS panel.will54 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Has anyone else read any reviews of the M9, and if so did they have the same complaints of the screen? They might be using a different vendor for screens and Anandtech might have just gotten a lemon.aryonoco - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Yes every review of the M9 basically says the same. The panel is sub par, the colours have a green tint to them, and it's not accurate.M7's display was better than M8, which is itself better than M9. Such a massive disappointment to see this regression.
hp79 - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Is the front bezel plastic or metal?From the article, "but the plastic bezel has been updated to surround the entire front of the device instead of just the speakers"
Can you double check whether the front piece is plastic or metal?
Engadget posted a review yesterday saying "... the M9 is the first One with a front plate hewn from a single block of aluminum, with holes machined in to hold the screen and speakers in place. ..."
Thanks.
Kepe - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
Looking at the pictures, the texture of the front looks a lot like what plastic usually looks like. Completely different from what the metal parts at the back look like.JoshHo - Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - link
It's definitely plastic, just touching it when the phone is cold makes it obvious.Samus - Monday, March 23, 2015 - link
ohhh HTC, what a dud :(no wonder the CEO stepped down.
Morawka - Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - link
Snapdragon 810 is literally breathing fire. Sad that the first 64bit soc from qualcomm runs hot... They really dropped the ball by not having a Krait 64 bit soc by now.. Apple's done shipped 3 64 bit soc's, soon to be 5...That's right, by the time Qualcomm ships Krait 64bit. Apple will have already shipped 5 different 64bit SOC's counting the A7, A8, A8X, A9, A9X. And probably 250 million of them (didn't do the math since release but it's safe to say it's close)
This has really hurt android as a platform. It will certainly recover, but the damage is done.
Midwayman - Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - link
Seems I'd rather have an M8. Phones are 'good enough' power wise unless you're a big gamer and have been there for a couple years. Battery life improvements are what I really care about and they keep either throwing away any improvement to drive WQHD or 4k screens (who cares?) or are outright regressing like this one. Sad.Demi9OD - Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - link
Let's not forget HTC has always been pretty friendly to the dev community. Unlock-able boot loader matters. While I realize not everyone will go that route, being able to run Xposed, Greenify, and Amplify on my AT&T M8 has improved battery life so much that I really cannot see upgrading to a device without the ability to root. If the M9's battery problems can be solved with software, I'd consider it a non-issue. The screen however can probably not be forgiven, and the only reason to upgrade from an M8 would be the camera, which from initial reports is better, but not in the same league as the S6 or iPhone 6.Belse - Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - link
I wish they could just release a M7 with increased resolution and up-to-date internals.Siddharth Kapoor - Wednesday, March 25, 2015 - link
Dear AnandTech,3DMark Physics Test is a CPU Stress Test. Do you have any good reason to include it in GPU Performance section? The description for Physics Test on FutureMark's site states:
"The Physics test is a pure CPU performance benchmark using lightweight rendering techniques to minimise any GPU impact on scoring. The test contains a multi-theaded simulation of a large number of rigid bodies, some connected with joints, colliding using the Bullet Open Source Physics Library."
bhtalia - Wednesday, March 25, 2015 - link
This review makes me appreciate my One Plus.Refuge - Wednesday, April 1, 2015 - link
God I loved that phone, I still miss it sometimes. Great phone, great everything.I have the ONE M7 now, and I won't be upgrading this year I can assure you that...
Gunbuster - Wednesday, March 25, 2015 - link
It seems China is getting a version with a different SOC, fingerprint reader, different screen, and non fugly camera porthole. http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/25/htc-m9-plus-lea...Notmyusualid - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
Wow!Are those physical buttons, or screen buttons, it is not clear to me...
If physical, I don't mind importing a handset AT ALL. Balls to what our carriers offer... I usually buy cash, and not on contract anyway...
random2 - Friday, March 27, 2015 - link
I really need a banana for reference in these pictures as I suspect the hands used may be smaller than normal.rubyonrails3 - Thursday, April 2, 2015 - link
Why its part 1? is anything more coming?tom5 - Monday, April 6, 2015 - link
I think in your reviews you could include more info about audio capabilities which are important for some people. And for example - the loudness when playing audio via headphones is very important for me because many surce materials have low volume and high M7/M8/M9 volume can compensate for this.uberDoward - Monday, April 6, 2015 - link
Why, HTC? Just give me the M7 form factor with updated internals. For crying out loud, I even LIKE the UltraPixel camera. I've never had an issue with the camera, and unless I zoom WAY in on the pics, they look just fine. Waiting on the Xperia Z4.