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HTC M8 User reviews - Thoughts on your device? Battery usage/life? -Issues/comments

Finally picked up my HTC One M8 a few hours ago and right off the bat I am impressed with the premium feel of the phone in my hand and since I'm coming from Samsung phones I opted to get a case this time around and a car charger. Sending messages was easy and getting my old phone numbers on there, email accounts set up, app downloads all easy as pie.

Still very early but I will post a more thorough review of my initial impressions at the end of this weekend once I've had more time to use the phone but so far so good.
 
Welcome to the M8 forums man! Hope you enjoy the device!
(I swear I even love texting on this thing. It's the little things)
 
After spending so much time with this wonderful device I have only found one thing that bothers me, and it's the poor implementation of the LED. it's not bright at all (especially when charging) and has limited color options for notifications. Aside from that my original review stands.
 
2nd day in Germany...Looks like Sprint has a new partner this year (E Plus) GSM seems to drain battery a lot faster, but at the time I had it on automatic mode. FOR tomorrow I am going to switch it to GSM only and see if battery performance improves. Still definitely better that the M7 I took over there last year.
 
Potvin63 said:
Finally picked up my HTC One M8 a few hours ago and right off the bat I am impressed with the premium feel of the phone in my hand and since I'm coming from Samsung phones I opted to get a case this time around and a car charger. Sending messages was easy and getting my old phone numbers on there, email accounts set up, app downloads all easy as pie.

Still very early but I will post a more thorough review of my initial impressions at the end of this weekend once I've had more time to use the phone but so far so good.
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Having had the phone for 6 days now here are some likes and dislikes so far.

Likes: Big beautiful screen, the phone processor really cooks, phone calls sounds crisper and sharper than on my old phone, reception in general is better too, even in my basement, the battery life is 2-3 days as I'm not a heavy data user and when I am it's on WiFi at home and work, and the screen gestures to wake up the phone without the power button are pretty sweet. I also really love the premium feel of the phone and the design coming from a plasticky Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

Dislikes: The power button at the top is awkward and hard to reach, the LED notification light is in a weird spot and is the same color for all notifications, the default keyboard for text messaging is brutal.

Overall the likes far outweigh the dislikes and the more I use the phone the easier it will become to navigate like a pro. This is my first ever HTC phone but I am pleased with my purchase and all of the reading of reviews, both publications and users, led me to the right choice.
 
Potvin63 said:
Having had the phone for 6 days now here are some likes and dislikes so far.

Likes: Big beautiful screen, the phone processor really cooks, phone calls sounds crisper and sharper than on my old phone, reception in general is better too, even in my basement, the battery life is 2-3 days as I'm not a heavy data user and when I am it's on WiFi at home and work, and the screen gestures to wake up the phone without the power button are pretty sweet. I also really love the premium feel of the phone and the design coming from a plasticky Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

Dislikes: The power button at the top is awkward and hard to reach, the LED notification light is in a weird spot and is the same color for all notifications, the default keyboard for text messaging is brutal.

Overall the likes far outweigh the dislikes and the more I use the phone the easier it will become to navigate like a pro. This is my first ever HTC phone but I am pleased with my purchase and all of the reading of reviews, both publications and users, led me to the right choice.
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Nobody uses the power button dude. Why not gesture instead? It's quicker to gesture. Have you tried calibrating your keyboard? If you haven't tried these recommended items I'll have toblow off your review.
 
Tlicious1020 said:
Nobody uses the power button dude. Why not gesture instead? It's quicker to gesture. Have you tried calibrating your keyboard? If you haven't tried these recommended items I'll have toblow off your review.
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After your suggestion I did calibrate the keyboard and it appears to improve things.

I figured nobody uses the power button but it is still part of the phone and while I do gesture to turn it on I hardly think mentioning the power button as a dislike is worthy of blowing off an honest review of the phone.
 
After switching from automatic to GSM/UMTS I noticed a significant improvement in battery life. This is with using Wi-Fi, snapping pics, and taking calls. We were out until almost 3 am

qyby8y3e.jpg
 
SolApathy said:
After switching from automatic to GSM/UMTS I noticed a significant improvement in battery life. This is with using Wi-Fi, snapping pics, and taking calls. We were out until almost 3 am

qyby8y3e.jpg
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Yeah, but depending on your carrier you might want to leave that selected. All that does is prohibit your phone from roaming on another carriers network. If you have AT&T, I guess you can't roam on T-Mobile's network and vice versa. Or Or if you have Sprint, you can't roam on Verizon's network and vice versa.
 
Tlicious1020 said:
Yeah, but depending on your carrier you might want to leave that selected. All that does is prohibit your phone from roaming on another carriers network. If you have AT&T, I guess you can't roam on T-Mobile's network and vice versa. Or Or if you have Sprint, you can't roam on Verizon's network and vice versa.
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I am on Sprint, and this was just in reference to travelling overseas. While in automatic mode it was draining the battery really fast, even though I was only on one network (E-Plus)l Sprint & Verizon are CDMA only, while AT&T is GSM. for most people, restricting it to their carriers network mode will not affect them :) Most oversease markets are GSM, with a few CDMA2000 towers still hanging around in a few countries.
 
For a long time new phones have been good. This is the first phone that I feel is new and different. Better. Significantly superior to anything before.

I've had smartphones since the palm 600. the build quality the processor the battery are all outstanding the voice recognition sound quality beyond compare. I'm really happy about this one.

I am a heavy user. I can douse any battery I have had in less than a day. This one goes further, and has never run out. I do have chargers everywhere, and I top off often. This one is a lot better. Everything works on this, and it won't crash when heavily taxed.

No data over wireless when on the phone when no WiFi is a pain.

Reception, blue tooth is excellent. Quality of the design continues to impress. It feels good to hold. I drop all my phones before, but I've never dropped it. I think it's because I like to hang on more.No case.
 
Definitely love this phone on the international side. It has far outpaced the performance of my M7 when it comes to battery life. I have also been taking a lot of pictures throughout the day and letting my future nephew play on the phone while we are taking long drives. I have yet to run out of battery after giving the phone a heavy workout for the day. In fact I don't think I've dropped below 25% yet
 
So this is probably one of my favorite things about the M8. The sound + the picture is just amazing. I know in my first impressions blog I had posted about my mother in law commenting that it is like a mini movie theatre. Well, the more I use it, and watch movies on it, the more and more I agree with the statement.

The Boomsound with dual speaker on the front make for amazing sound, in addition to the sound, you get an amazing 5.0" Full HD 1080P experience.

When watching one of my favorite movies compared to even my TV, the sound quality and picture clarity was simply amazing. The details that I could hear in the sound was just crisp and clean. I could hear everything from the glass cracking under their feet, the dirt being shifted while running, the click of the clip from a gun being reloaded.... I can go on. Also watching the movie, I had better picture quality than my TV, it was so clean I thought I was there.

So the best thing for me on the HTC One M8 is the experience of the movies and music!
 
I agree, it is the best I've seen in a phone. Still, not sure why, but I still prefer watching a movie on my tv. 5" phone in my hand will appear similar in size to a 60" tv sitting 10 or 15 feet away, but I still prefer the bigger (in absolute terms), farther away tv to the phone in my hand. Maybe someone knows why. But I digress, yes the phone is amazing.
 
Came from a OneX. ATT.

Love: speed, smoothness, great screen, excellent battery life (crazy good), improved bluetooth and voice recognition functions, feel in the hand. Phone sound is terrific - much improved. Speaker sound is best I've heard from a cellphone.

Neutral: Power button is fine for me - right where it was on the One X! I have to say that even though the phone is bigger than the One X, I find it easier to use one-handed; guess it's proportions rather than size which affect that.

Cons: minor software glitches, it really is a bit big (doesn't sit easily in a back pocket), wish Blinkfeed and Google Now had off/on toggles right on the panels instead of having to completely remove them from screens. The only real con is the camera - I'm a photogapher, and was hopeful for the low-light capability, but it just isn't crisp enough. It's not awful (for a phone camera), and some photos with the M8's camera are quite nice, but it's not consistently "great'; it definitely isn't an alternative to a dedicated point and shoot. That said, the software/ufocus etc is a neat concept, and fun to play with.
 
So far with the HTC One M8 I have to say that the phone just feels great in my hand. Not too big, not too small. The metal body gives my hand a good grip. I have heard some say that the metal body makes it slip more for them, but with me its the opposite. I love the grip that it gives me. Maybe its my hands? But the fact of the matter is, that this phone just feels awesome. I'm not a huge fan of having a phone that feels like plastic, or that just feels cheap. When I hold the One M8 the only thing I feel is quality. You know how some restaurants say that you can taste the quality? kind of the same thing with the M8 but you can truly feel the quality. I don't feel like i'm gonna break it, or crack it. Its solid, well shaped, and just plain comfortable in my hands.

The other cool thing, in my opinion is that when someone actually has the HTC One M8 to their ear and you see it, it just looks cool. You see the shine of the metal body and just think "Now that's a cool phone". I have even decided to not get a case because of the fact that I like the look and the feel of it so much!

This is just my little take on the design, feel, and comfort of the HTC One M8.
 
I feel the same way and my phone does not feel slippery, BUT, I am a little clumsy so it went in a Spigen case and a glass tr. Still looks classy but still protected.
 
Definitely good battery life. Went a 2 day trip and forgot my wall charger. Had a car charger but wasn't in my car for more than 20 minutes per day. In 48 hours, 40 minutes of charging and kind of moderate usage, I was around 50% battery.
 
I figured I would update my review. I was working on a ladder and had my phone on a shelf. Dropped a hammer on my phone which had a supcase soft clear case. I thought the worst (will get pics later) It made a dent in the phone lol and bent the casing and the screen... Yes the screen, but it didn't break it. So I now have the first curved M8. I am really impressed the screen has not broken.
 
Holy smokes Sol, you're lucky.

Now are you going to follow the crazy fix for the iFruit by putting it in the oven to flatten it back out? :p
 
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