HTC One M9

The One M9 is HTC’s flagship smartphone for 2015. The Taiwanese firm hasn’t altered the design of the M9 much compared to the M8 or even the original HTC One. It’s more a case of design evolution.

It would be easy to criticise HTC for having another similar-looking smartphone, but we can hardly blame it considering how stylish the previous two generations are. Look beneath the surface, though, and some changes have been made.

The One M9 is made from a similar metal block to that of the M8, and has the same curved shape and hairline finish. However, new to HTC’s latest handset is a scratch-resistant coating, machine drilled buttons and a sapphire glass lens on the rear camera. The power button is now on the side instead of the top, which we think is a much better place for it. It also has a textured finish, so you can feel the difference next to the smooth volume buttons. It’s still easy to get confused between them though, and we think that the volume buttons would be better placed on the left. Motion Gestures mean that the power button isn’t needed half as much, though.

Colour options are similar to previous generations, but HTC has employed a new two-tone look, with the back and sides getting contrasting adonisation. Two options are available – Gold on Silver (pictured) and Gunmetal Grey.

The One M9 is comfortable in the hand, and like the M8, is one of the only phones on the market to compete with the iPhone on build quality. It screams of craftsmanship, but the stepped design might not be to everyone’s taste as at certain angles it looks like a case.

We were hoping for a thinner and lighter design, and although HTC tells us the device is slightly lighter than its predecessor, we weighed them both at 158g. It’s also marginally thicker at 9.7mm, compared to 9.6mm. It’s 10.4mm where the camera slightly sticks out.

HTC’s original Dot View case was a winner and there’s a new version for the M9. It’s a similar affair and you can customise what is shown through the tiny holes in the front cover. The big difference is a clear back, which partly wraps round the side so you can still admire the metal chassis. There’s little worse than buying a gorgeous-looking product, then hiding it behind a case.

Hardware

HTC has decided to stick with a 5in screen for the M9 and has also kept the resolution at Full HD (1080x1920). This might seem a letdown when compared to Quad HD devices such as the LG G3, but HTC tells us the higher resolution isn’t needed on a display this size and that it would affect the battery life.

Five inches is a solid size that is neither too big, nor too small, but we can’t help but feel disappointed that HTC has done nothing here to upgrade. We’ve seen Quad HD on the LG G3 and now the Samsung Galaxy S6, and it’s simply better. The M9’s screen looks good but the aforementioned rivals look incredible.

Other specifications that remain unchanged include the 32GB of internal storage (around of which is 21GB available) and a microSD card slot capable of accepting up to 128GB cards. There is a 64GB model, but this has not been confirmed for the UK market.

Wireless setup remains strong, with 11ac dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 with aptX, NFC and an IR blaster. The One M9 also supports 4G LTE networks via the nano-SIM slot if you have the right tariff. If you were hoping for any new features such as a fingerprint scanner or heart-rate monitor, then it’s bad news. What HTC has done instead is focus on improving existing hardware in the audio and photo departments.

It’s not all business as usual, though, and HTC has made a number of improvements to its flagship phone. Memory, for example, has been boosted by 50 percent to 3GB and there’s a new processor in the form of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810, which is both octa-core and 64-bit (quad-core 1.5GHz Cortex-A53 and quad-core 2GHz Cortex-A57). It comes with the Adreno 430 GPU and we can’t fault the performance. It’s only the camera app that doesn’t open instantly.

This is the first phone with a Snapdragon 810 processor that we’ve been able to benchmark in the lab, and the results are impressive. It’s got the best Geekbench 3 score we’ve ever seen and matches the iPhone 6 on graphics. The SunSpider web browsing score isn’t as good as the M8’s, but we don’t have any problems in this area from a user’s perspective.

The BoomSound front-facing stereo speakers are still a key feature and HTC has added support for High-Res 24-bit audio, which puts this phone on a par with Sony’s top-end smartphones and tablets. HTC has also added Dolby Audio. Once again the built-in speakers sound amazing offering the best experience you’ll find on a smartphone.

A new audio feature called HTC Connect means a simple three-