HTC goes back to basics with its new flagship, the HTC One M9

As a smartphone maker, HTC made a name for itself in recent years by focusing on everyday phone features, especially the camera. It stopped playing the megapixel game, opting to offer high-quality "ultrapixels" instead of big numbers, and was the only major manufacturer to include a depth sensor, which enabled photographic trickery such as altering focus after a shot was taken.

Well, you can forget about all that in the new HTC One M9.

HTC's new flagship phone ditches ultrapixels in its rear camera for a more traditional 20-megapixel sensor (although the front-facing "selfie" camera does use ultrapixels).

Oh, and that gimmicky depth sensor? Gone, replaced by software that includes some, but not all, of the photo effects the sensor made possible.

It's an odd choice for HTC, which prided itself on its unique, innovative approach to mobile photography, or at least seemed to. But the company says its customers wanted more pixels, so it had to change things up.

I got a chance to try out the HTC One M9 and its revamped cameras, and I doubt many users — at least those who don't zoom and crop many photos — will notice the move to a more traditional sensor.

But the lack of a depth sensor on the phone means the rear camera isn't as versatile as the one on its predecessor, the M8. For instance, it doesn't have the ability to alter the focus of any picture. There's still an option to create the "bokeh" effect with software, but the user must select the effect before taking the shot.

That's a big downgrade, and so is the execution. On the M8, you could refocus the image on any part of the photo, much like the Lytro. On the M9, you simply get an exaggerated blur in the unfocused portion, with no ability to alter it.

Although the M9's camera lacks the whiz-bang features of previous generations, the photos themselves look great. And the camera is fast — as I shot a dozen or so photos of the conference room and people around me, I wasn't challenged with any annoying delays that I sometimes see on other Android phones.

And I shouldn't: The HTC One M9 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor — the chip du jour for flagship smartphones. Animation is smooth and responds instantaneously to touch, and media (like image-rich web pages and videos) loads fast, as long as you have a good connection.

Although HTC has put itself back into the regular megapixel race with the M9, it appears to have taken itself out of the display race: The new phone has a 5-inch full HD (1,920 x 1,080) display, just like the last One. That's really more pixels than you ever need on a smartphone, although it does make the HTC One M9 take a backseat to other flagships like the LG G3 and Samsung Galaxy Note 4.

Design-wise, the HTC One M9 has some departures from the M8: Although it has a similar brushed-aluminum finish, the curve on the back is less pronounced, making it more like the M7 model. The phone's footprint is very similar to the M8's, although the power button has migrated from the top to the right side.

The new One also still keeps the line's signature BoomSound stereo speakers, and they still play nice and loud. For this year's model HTC has added a virtual surround sound feature (via the speakers or headphones) as well as support for 24-bit audio, which I'm sure Neil Young is happy about.

Although HTC has dropped some uniqueness on the hardware, it's doubled down on software: It's one of the last manufacturers to still heavily "skin" Android, and its latest HTC Sense (version 7) incorporates the Material design approach that Google introduced with Android 5.0 "Lollipop."

HTC Sense includes color-coded themes, and with Lollipop, these become user-customizable. In addition to providing several pre-loaded themes, the M9 lets you create your own — from any photo. After I took a picture of a wood-and-metal conference room table, I had the phone create a theme, which ended up heavy on the browns and silvers.

The features go beyond just aesthetics: The HTC One M9 has a smart home screen launcher that will intelligently predict the most useful apps for any given moment. It knows which apps to include by keeping track of which ones you launch in which locations, keeping, say, OneNote at the ready when you're at work, and putting Netflix front and center at home.

HTC wanted to make connecting to other devices as easy as possible via HTC Connect. With just a three-finger swipe upward, you can call up options to connect to any number of devices: Bluetooth, DLNA displays, Wi-Fi speakers — it even has Google Cast support.

The design and performance of the HTC One M9 certainly made me feel like I was holding a flagship smartphone, although

I'm still wistful for the Duo camera of the M8. Much of the "flavor" of HTC's take on Android is still there — including the budding Zoe social network for sharing short personal videos assembled from still pictures and clips — but losing the camera made me realize the majority of HTC's differentiators are gimmicks (people don't buy smartphones for "themes," as pretty as they may be).

Still, perhaps the lost hardware features are simply gimmicks of a different nature. The HTC One M9 is a powerful phone with a solid foundational design. To stand out in today's market, that may be all it needs.

Posted by : Gizmeon