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HTC's Lollipop update won't reach every One phone on time
HTC hasn't always had success upgrading One users to the latest version of Android within its promised 90-day window, and history is unfortunately repeating itself with Android 5.0 Lollipop on the way. The phone maker is now warning that "some carrier versions" of the One M8 and M7 won't get Lollipop by the expected February 1st deadline. Reportedly, Google's rush to fix Lollipop (which emerged, shall we say, less than polished) gave HTC little time to both finish its own update and put it through the usual provider testing routine.
Meet Engadget's new buyer's guide picks: The iPhone 6, Moto X and more!
Here at Engadget, we make good on our promises. So when we say we're going to be updating our buyer's guide more frequently, well, gosh darn, we mean it. Roughly two months after we re-launched the guide, we're adding a bunch of new gadgets, including the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, the new Moto X, HTC One M8 for Windows, the Acer C720 Chromebook, the NVIDIA Shield gaming tablet and the Moto 360 smartwatch. Of course, we also had to remove some of our original picks to make room for the new ones: The new, 5.2-inch Moto X takes the place of the old 4.7-inch one, while the Moto 360 overtakes the Samsung Gear Live -- formerly our favorite Android Wear device. We're also getting rid of all the BlackBerrys for now. That's not to say BBM hold-outs should switch operating systems, but until we get to try the new BlackBerry Passport, we're going to refrain from including those older models. Check out our guide right here, and stay tuned for more updates next month -- who knows what we'll be adding then!
HTC's One M8 for Windows is coming to T-Mobile, too
The HTC One M8 and Windows Phone 8.1 are two great tastes that (mostly) taste great together, and you'll soon have a way to pick one up that doesn't require inking a deal with Verizon or AT&T. T-Mobile revealed earlier today that it'll offer the One M8 for Windows too, though like AT&T before it, the Uncarrier isn't quite ready to divulge those juicy pricing and availability details just yet. It may seem like Sprint subscribers may be getting the short end of the stick, but that might not be the case for much longer -- some of the new leakers on the block firmly assert that Marcelo Claure's crew will get their chance down the road too. While y'all wait for those all-important details to drop, check out our full review to see if HTC's newest Windows Phone is actually worth the wait (spoiler alert: very likely yes).
HTC One (M8) for Windows review: Same muscle, different soul
Since Windows Phone's humble beginnings, Microsoft has been the underdog in the wireless industry. Four years later, nothing's changed -- except, perhaps, a few more percentage points of market share. Even then, it's got a long way to go before catching up to Android and iOS. Let's give the company credit for pushing forward, improving its platform and not giving up, though: When I reviewed the last major OS update, I said I could finally use Windows Phone as my daily driver. The one element that Microsoft continued to lack, however, was buy-in from large phone makers. They put more focus on Android products, which meant anyone interested in Windows Phone had a small selection of devices to choose from. For Microsoft, it's time to experiment with a new, simpler approach. The software giant has buddied up with HTC to convert the One M8, its Android flagship, into a Windows Phone. That's all there is to it. There's absolutely no change to the hardware -- and it's a fantastic idea. If it fails, neither company loses much from the deal; since they're using an existing phone, the cost of design and engineering is far lower than it would be on a standalone device. If it's successful, it may inspire other manufacturers to follow suit, resulting in a market with a wide variety of Windows Phones to choose from. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, right?
HTC One M8 for Windows, 'Halo 2: Anniversary' and other stories you might've missed
This week, we got our hands on the HTC One M8 for Windows, anticipated the release of Halo 2: Anniversary, learned about monkey selfie rights, investigated issues with Secret's anonymity and more! Read on for Engadget's news highlights from the last seven days. Oh, and be sure to subscribe to our Flipboard magazine!
AT&T plans to sell the HTC One M8 for Windows soon
Feeling blue that the HTC One M8 for Windows is exclusive to Big Red? Good news: AT&T just confirmed that it'll carry the flagship Windows Phone... eventually. The carrier can't openly discuss details like pricing or availability yet -- likely because it can't sell the phone until the terms of the exclusive contract expire -- but at least we can rest a little more easily knowing that this top-of-the-line Windows Phone will expand its reach to more than just one carrier. Who knows: Since a GSM version will be available, that may open the door for the device to go to other parts of the world as well. While you wait, check out our hands-on coverage of the device here.
Meet the HTC One M8's Windows Phone twin brother
The above picture isn't Photoshopped -- what you're seeing really is the HTC One M8 for Windows (Phone), and it's available today as a Verizon exclusive. Thanks to Microsoft's latest update, it's now possible for manufacturers to slap the third-place smartphone OS onto existing hardware (replacing Android), and HTC is the first mainstream phone maker to take advantage of the opportunity. Spoiler alert: The hardware of the Windows Phone-equipped One M8 is completely identical to that of the Android version launched earlier this year, aside from gratuitous Verizon and Microsoft logos. What makes this new variant so special is on the software side.
This tattooed HTC One M8 is the company's latest Limited Edition
Of the many phone makers in the world, HTC is one of the best (if not the best) at churning out Limited Edition collector's items that focus on unique design and features. The latest in a long series of such products (most of which are highlighted in the gallery below) is a collaborative effort with Singapore-based design collective Phunk Studios, in which the group made a specially designed HTC One M8 with its own unique packaging. Only 64 of them were created (32 in gold, 32 in silver), and they're being used as a sneak preview of the collective's upcoming Wonderment exhibition. As you might expect, these unique devices won't be for sale, but HTC will be providing Engadget with one of them to give away to a lucky reader. That giveaway will take place in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for it!
HTC lets One M8 users share their camera tricks with the rest of the world
Thanks to its depth-sensing Duo Camera setup, the HTC One (M8) and the new J Butterfly let you take picture post-production way beyond adding a simple sepia filter. There's only so long you can expect friends to huddle round while you play with the advanced editing features, though, but with the new version of HTC's Gallery app, you can let them get creative too. By sharing your Duo Camera photos to the web from the updated app, others can toy with the depth of field and bokeh, add effects and filters to parts of the image, and manipulate picture point-of-view from within a browser window. The Duo Camera is doing the hard work of capturing the scene, after all, so HTC's simply ported the fancy editing features to the web for those without access to their latest and greatest phone to enjoy, which is pretty cool by anyone's standards.
IRL: Taking HTC's One M8 for a test drive
The original HTC One was one of my favorite smartphones from 2013, but it was easy to see why you'd pass it up in favor of an archrival like Samsung's Galaxy S4 -- it just didn't have the battery life, camera quality or expansion to keep up. Fast-forward to 2014 and it's a different story. Most of those headache-inducing flaws have been fixed in the new One; indeed, my colleague Brad Molen suggested it was an all-around better device. But is that enough to avoid a twinge of buyer's remorse, especially with the Galaxy S5 and Sony's Xperia Z2 upping the ante? I spent a few weeks with the new One to find out whether I'd still be pining for features from those other devices.
HTC said the new One would help swing a profit, and it did
Though HTC lost money last quarter, it had just launched its One M8 flagship to great reviews, and promised the new handset would put a halt to the red ink. The (unaudited) numbers are now in and back up that boast. The company scored a NT$2.8 billion profit ($92 million) on NT$65 billion ($2.2 billion) in revenue, nearly matching sales from last year and turning around a streak of losses. That's a far cry from the Samsungs of the world, but still a shot of good news for the beleaguered company. To cash in on the new One's success, HTC recently launched a plastic-bodied version called the One M8 Ace and a cut-down One Mini. Whether those will help it keep up the momentum next quarter remains to be seen -- it often gets the post-flagship blues.
Here's what our readers are saying about the new HTC One
The HTC One (M8) has been a hit with critics: Our own Brad Molen calls it "a great smartphone that does a lot of fantastic things," while Laptop Magazine goes so far as to say it's "the best Android phone on the market." But now that the M8 has hit all four major carriers in the US and has had a chance to stretch its legs out in the wild, how has it fared in long-term, day-to-day usage? To find out, we turn to user reviews, written by erudite Engadget readers like yourself, and they certainly haven't held anything back.
HTC One mini 2 review: A worthy new addition to the premium One clan
HTC created what was undoubtedly one of the best smartphones of last year with the original One. That was later followed up by the One mini, which was surprising in the sense that the handset maker hadn't before attempted a slimmed-down, scaled-back version of any of its flagship devices. HTC's nemesis Samsung established this trend when it launched the Galaxy S III mini, and it inspired many discussions about the ethics of slapping the name of top-tier handsets onto lesser devices. (Sony obviously made an executive decision to avoid the "mini" epithet for its Xperia Z1 Compact, which is actually just a smaller, but equally specced version of the flagship Z1.)
IRL: A few weeks with HTC's One M8 Harman Kardon Edition
When HTC CEO Peter Chou first confirmed the existence of the Harman Kardon edition One M8 at a small press event in New York City, I leaned over to a reporter friend sitting next to me and mouthed a few choice expletives. Wasn't this Sprint event supposed to be about Spotify? And HD Voice? Where the hell was this coming from? After a few weeks of using the thing, I'm still not entirely sure why this needs to exist... but I'm sort of glad it does.
HTC's One M8 Ace squeezes high-end specs into a prettier, cheaper body
HTC's One M8 isn't even two months old yet and it's already sparked a few spin-offs. We're not just talking about the One mini 2, either: a render of the oft-rumored One M8 Ace started making the rounds on Chinese tech blogs earlier today, and we've been able to confirm the image in fact depicts the real deal. Haven't been keeping tabs on the M8's myriad spawn? Well, the Ace (which could bear the Style or Fashion Edition moniker in China) seeks to cram top-tier performance into a more attractive, more affordable package.
Here's how to to get that Harman Kardon sound on your new HTC One
The recent introduction of a special edition One M8 by Sprint, which features some sound-enhancing software from Harman Kardon, had a few owners of HTC's flagship feeling slightly neglected. Thankfully, nursed by the beauty of Android's open ecosystem, the great minds over at XDA Developers have figured out a way to get the Clari-fi sound feature up and running in just about any US model of the new HTC One. Not surprisingly, you'll need to root your M8 in order to make this happen -- as always, do this only if you feel comfortable with a bit of unsupported tinkering.
HTC's flagship phone is getting audio help from Harman Kardon
Well, can't say we saw this one coming -- rather than dig into the complexities of an HD Voice rollout, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse confirmed that the carrier, HTC and the folks at Harman/Kardon have created a special Harman Kardon version of the HTC One M8. Why? Apparently because the way most other smartphones play music leaves much to be desired. No one has waved around one of these things yet, but that's OK. All of the magic happens in software anyway (although it has "champagne" trim and a darker back to let everyone know how much more premium it is). The star of the show is a software feature called Clari-fi -- while it's easy to look at it as the successor to Beats Audio, it sounds a lot more substantial than a glorified audio profile. To hear Harmon Kardon tell it, Clari-fi leans heavily on algorithms that analyze music and aim to restore the complexity of sound lost in the production process. The tweaked M8 can also play 24-bit, 192kHz lossless .FLAC files -- that probably won't mean much unless you're a dyed-in-the-wool audio buff, but it'll sound good enough to make you rethink the CD archive taking up space in the garage. At this point, it's anyone's guess as to how good the end result actually sounds, but you won't have to wait long to find out. The special edition M8 will hit Sprint stores (with a pair of Harman Kardon headphones in the box) for $229 with a contract on May 9.
HTC allows devs to tap into the power of the One's Duo Camera
The HTC One (M8) brought with it a load of new camera features, including its unique Duo Camera setup on its back side. Now, the handset maker is opening up the code that powers the pair in a SDK preview for third-party devs. This means that apps can be designed specifically for the M8's cameras with DualLens and DimensionPlus APIs baked right in. In other words, developers will get their hands on that bokeh-style refocusing and multi-angled shot selection in addition to depth maps from the pair of cameras. Of course, only time will tell how eager app makers are to latch on to HTC's smartphone snapshooting tricks, but at least now they'll have the necessary tools to do so.
The HTC One M8 has a Google Play edition, but how is it different? (hands-on)
HTC's latest flagship device, the One M8, is one of the best Android smartphones now available on the market, but what would happen to it if Google stripped the phone of some of its customizations? That's essentially what the Google Play edition of the new One offers. Plunk down $699 and you'll have access to an unlocked and (mostly) unadulterated version of the M8 with stock Android 4.4 (also known as KitKat). Of course, we've been curious to see what will happen to the features that make the new One unique. HTC told us that the Google Play edition will be able to take advantage of the Duo Camera, for instance, but does it still offer the same functionality? Additionally, can we use the Motion Launch gestures to wake up the phone and access different features? And how about that clever Dot View case that comes in so handy on the Sense version? Look no further for the answers.
HTC's collaboration with Fitbit isn't the end of activity trackers... yet
When HTC developed the new HTC One (M8) it knew it had a dilemma. If it played it safe, and did a general all-round specification bump, it risked underwhelming the public. Conversely, by over-cooking things, and innovating for innovation's sake, it could saddle the phone with software gimmicks and unnecessary hardware additions. It ultimately attempted to land on that thin strip of middle ground. We've already covered the return of the Ultrapixel, that new duo camera, and the latest version of Sense in our review. Potentially, though, it's the low-profile "Smart Sensor hub" that might prove to be the dark horse -- not just for HTC, but for Android, and smartphones as a whole. The new Smart Sensors are what enable the LG-like tap-to-unlock feature, and all those other fancy wake gestures (covered in the review) while the phone is in standby. The cool part being that HTC has given developers access to these sensors for their own projects. Fitbit was the first app to make deliberate use of it, but who will it benefit in the long run?
