HTC One M9 Impressions!

**Hands-on with the HTC One M9**

When I got my hands on the new HTC One M9, I was excited to dive in and test it out. I have to say, I'm still blown away by the sound quality of the BoomSound speakers, which are still some of the loudest and crispest and clearest I've ever heard from a phone. It's hard to believe it's been a year since I had this phone, and yet these speakers still hold up today.

The camera on the back is also one area where HTC has made some significant improvements. The new 20 megapixel sensor is a big step up from the 1.3 megapixel sensor that was in my previous M8. While it's not optical image stabilization, it can take 4K video and produce some incredibly high resolution photos. I'm excited to put this camera through its paces and see how it handles different lighting conditions.

One of the things that struck me when I picked up the phone was the display. The 5-inch 1080P display is still a great performer, with excellent brightness, color accuracy, and viewing angles. While some people may have wanted to see Quad HD on this phone, I'm not sure it's necessary - the 441 PPI screen that comes with it is still plenty sharp and clear.

Another area where HTC has made some tweaks is in the hardware department. The new M9 features a Snapdragon 810 chip, which should provide a nice boost in performance compared to the previous model. Additionally, there are now 3 GB of RAM on board, which should help smooth out any lag or stuttering you might experience.

In terms of software, HTC has stuck with Android 5.0 Lollipop, but they've added some new features and tweaks that make sense. The Sense 7 interface is a bit more streamlined than before, and it seems to be faster and more responsive. There's also a new custom widget called "Quick Themes" that uses your location to suggest apps you might need at different times of the day.

One thing I was a bit disappointed by when I first saw the M9 was the bezel design. As you can imagine, those speakers take up a significant amount of space on either side of the screen. While it's not as dramatic a change as some people might have hoped, I think HTC made the right call in keeping the familiar design that we loved last year.

Overall, I'm excited to spend more time with the M9 and see how it holds up against other flagship phones out there. If you're looking for a phone that's still in line with the standards set by last year's model, but with some significant upgrades, this might be the device for you.

**Full Review**

(Note: The full review will be available soon, when the author gets their hands on a physical unit of the HTC One M9.)

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what is up guys MKBHD here and welcome to the HTC1 M9 Hands-On so this is the successor to one of the most well-liked phones from last year the HTC 1 M8 and most of the outside Hardware as you can see has stayed pretty much the same while the specs got the bump on the inside so that's really the long story short with this phone it's kind of like the equivalent of uh the HTC1 m8s so it's an incremental improve movement but I think in the best possible way because the 1 M8 was already one of the best phones of last year so of course it's metal everywhere again and the minor changes you get are you know one additional color choice in pink and there's also now a two-toned look so the sides have a different color than the front and back so this Silver version for example has gold stripes on the sides where the buttons are uh and these buttons are actually in a new place so I mentioned in my what to expect video the Rigid power button has moved to the right side underneath the volume button so it's much easier to reach now here and overall the metal has more of a brushed look so you can tell that when you put it up next to the 1 M8 now I'm not sure how slippery this is going to be this one is on a tether so it's keeping me from dropping it at all but I'm feeling like it's going to have the same pretty slippery feel on the hand is a 1 M8 so I think I'm going to end up putting a skin on it when I get it but I'll at least give it a shot with no skin or case uh for my full review but otherwise on the outside the boom sound speakers are still there so one year later they're still some of the loudest and crispest and clearest of any phone and they're supposedly enhanced this time around with Dolby Surround Sound but I'll have to get in a quiet area and test that out again for the full review uh to see if it's worth a change but otherwise yeah still boom sound uh you also still get micro SD card expandable storage so I guess that's something that was noticeably missing from Samsung's new flagship you also still get a 5 in 1080P display so not Quad HD and I don't mind this really I suspect we'll see Quad HD in the next HTC Flagship but with a 1080p screen here was still getting 441 PPI and it's still a great display you know awesome brightness great colors great viewing angles in fact this was one of the best 1080p displays of any smartphone last year too uh and I know some people wanted them to get rid of that bottom bezel with the HTC logo but you got to realize the display drivers have to go somewhere and that's pretty much all the bezel of this phone you got to remember how much space those speakers take up so the one main Hardware change that they really made to this phone was the camera on the back so that 1 M9 is rocking in all new 20 megapixel sensor no Optical image stabilization but it can take 4K video now and of course now it takes these very high resolution photos and this is the number one thing I will be testing in the full review process uh I got to spend a little bit of time with this phone obviously in a press room with this crazy terrible lighting and it's on a tether so I could really only point and shoot at so many things uh and the images looked okay on the one screen but I really want to go out and test this new camera as deeply as I can bring images back to the computer pixel Peep and everything everything so you can be sure that I know the most that I can about this new camera but you know we'll see how that goes uh so obviously no more Ultra pixels on the back but they did stick around and keep the ultra pixels for the front-facing camera which is this really wide-angle lens and I guess that makes sense for selfies so the ultra pixels aren't gone forever but that new camera module is definitely something to test a lot now inside this phone like I said you get a spec upgrade so Snapdragon 810 chip 3 GB of RAM and it TC sense 7 on top of Android 5.0 Lollipop in the software Department not a whole lot of pre-loaded apps here and this new version of sense does seem you know flatter and smoother and more responsive as it should on lollipop and they've added some new features like quick themes in the settings and even this custom widget which is essentially a grid of icons that changes what apps show up based on your location so I guess it's supposed to be smart enough that when you leave home and go to work it switches over to showing you your work apps so stuff like that should work automatically and of course you can manually toggle it if it's not smart enough but also it'll apparently suggest some new apps that you don't have installed so I hope that works well and isn't distracting but yeah you can see everything else looks really familiar here to previous HTC1 owners multitasking is smooth all the buttons and things you would expect are right where you'd find them on the last version I really can't wait to spend more time with this phone off of tether and in my pocket to really get to know it well but my sentiment really I read a lot of these tweets and people who are talking about oh I'm disappointed with this phone or I really expected more but if you're HTC you really you took the one of the best phones of last year in the 1 M8 and you fixed and improved everything that was wrong with it and you bumped up the specs boom there's your 1 M9 I can see why people are complaining cuz they wanted a big design refresh and a huge change but HTC can't do that every year so if it ain't broke don't fix it I imagine HTC is pretty happy with this phone and all the changes they've made seem to be for the better so the testing will begin as soon as I get my hands on one and I'm pretty pumped uh so be sure to subscribe if you haven't already to be one of the first to see the full review when it does come out until then thank you for watching this one and I'll talk to you guys in the next one peacehey what is up guys MKBHD here and welcome to the HTC1 M9 Hands-On so this is the successor to one of the most well-liked phones from last year the HTC 1 M8 and most of the outside Hardware as you can see has stayed pretty much the same while the specs got the bump on the inside so that's really the long story short with this phone it's kind of like the equivalent of uh the HTC1 m8s so it's an incremental improve movement but I think in the best possible way because the 1 M8 was already one of the best phones of last year so of course it's metal everywhere again and the minor changes you get are you know one additional color choice in pink and there's also now a two-toned look so the sides have a different color than the front and back so this Silver version for example has gold stripes on the sides where the buttons are uh and these buttons are actually in a new place so I mentioned in my what to expect video the Rigid power button has moved to the right side underneath the volume button so it's much easier to reach now here and overall the metal has more of a brushed look so you can tell that when you put it up next to the 1 M8 now I'm not sure how slippery this is going to be this one is on a tether so it's keeping me from dropping it at all but I'm feeling like it's going to have the same pretty slippery feel on the hand is a 1 M8 so I think I'm going to end up putting a skin on it when I get it but I'll at least give it a shot with no skin or case uh for my full review but otherwise on the outside the boom sound speakers are still there so one year later they're still some of the loudest and crispest and clearest of any phone and they're supposedly enhanced this time around with Dolby Surround Sound but I'll have to get in a quiet area and test that out again for the full review uh to see if it's worth a change but otherwise yeah still boom sound uh you also still get micro SD card expandable storage so I guess that's something that was noticeably missing from Samsung's new flagship you also still get a 5 in 1080P display so not Quad HD and I don't mind this really I suspect we'll see Quad HD in the next HTC Flagship but with a 1080p screen here was still getting 441 PPI and it's still a great display you know awesome brightness great colors great viewing angles in fact this was one of the best 1080p displays of any smartphone last year too uh and I know some people wanted them to get rid of that bottom bezel with the HTC logo but you got to realize the display drivers have to go somewhere and that's pretty much all the bezel of this phone you got to remember how much space those speakers take up so the one main Hardware change that they really made to this phone was the camera on the back so that 1 M9 is rocking in all new 20 megapixel sensor no Optical image stabilization but it can take 4K video now and of course now it takes these very high resolution photos and this is the number one thing I will be testing in the full review process uh I got to spend a little bit of time with this phone obviously in a press room with this crazy terrible lighting and it's on a tether so I could really only point and shoot at so many things uh and the images looked okay on the one screen but I really want to go out and test this new camera as deeply as I can bring images back to the computer pixel Peep and everything everything so you can be sure that I know the most that I can about this new camera but you know we'll see how that goes uh so obviously no more Ultra pixels on the back but they did stick around and keep the ultra pixels for the front-facing camera which is this really wide-angle lens and I guess that makes sense for selfies so the ultra pixels aren't gone forever but that new camera module is definitely something to test a lot now inside this phone like I said you get a spec upgrade so Snapdragon 810 chip 3 GB of RAM and it TC sense 7 on top of Android 5.0 Lollipop in the software Department not a whole lot of pre-loaded apps here and this new version of sense does seem you know flatter and smoother and more responsive as it should on lollipop and they've added some new features like quick themes in the settings and even this custom widget which is essentially a grid of icons that changes what apps show up based on your location so I guess it's supposed to be smart enough that when you leave home and go to work it switches over to showing you your work apps so stuff like that should work automatically and of course you can manually toggle it if it's not smart enough but also it'll apparently suggest some new apps that you don't have installed so I hope that works well and isn't distracting but yeah you can see everything else looks really familiar here to previous HTC1 owners multitasking is smooth all the buttons and things you would expect are right where you'd find them on the last version I really can't wait to spend more time with this phone off of tether and in my pocket to really get to know it well but my sentiment really I read a lot of these tweets and people who are talking about oh I'm disappointed with this phone or I really expected more but if you're HTC you really you took the one of the best phones of last year in the 1 M8 and you fixed and improved everything that was wrong with it and you bumped up the specs boom there's your 1 M9 I can see why people are complaining cuz they wanted a big design refresh and a huge change but HTC can't do that every year so if it ain't broke don't fix it I imagine HTC is pretty happy with this phone and all the changes they've made seem to be for the better so the testing will begin as soon as I get my hands on one and I'm pretty pumped uh so be sure to subscribe if you haven't already to be one of the first to see the full review when it does come out until then thank you for watching this one and I'll talk to you guys in the next one peace\n"