/r/android reviews: HTC line

[u/AutoModerator]

Device reviews are abundant these days. From big name technology websites to lesser known blogs, and to the rising stars on YouTube. You can find hours upon hours of review content on most any well-known device out there.

For those of you who like to hear about devices from actual users, though, it's hard to find a good place with reviews that aren't scattered all over the place. Plus, many reviews are only preliminary, and may not reflect real-world usage over a long time period.

This thread is where you, the /r/android community, can share your experiences with your device. Hopefully users who read this thread can gain some valuable insight into a device they're researching to see if they want to buy it. This week we are focusing on the HTC line of devices. (Note: sort 'Release' by descending to see newest --> oldest devices)

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Rules:

0) Please leave a top comment only if you own an HTC device.

1) What device do/did you own?

2) What were your initial impressions of the device?

3) How did your impressions change over time? If you currently own the device, how do you feel about it now?

4) Feel free to talk about anything else you would like (eg. sensors, software, customizability, strength of the custom ROM scene, etc.). Remember, reviews are personal, so emphasize the things you feel are important! If you love or hate something about your device, let it be known!

[u/wonko600rr]

I've only ever owned HTC smartphones.

Desire - My first smartphone. In its day it was an all around winner. Everything about it was great. It had a great screen, was speedy, had plenty of ram. However, it suffered from a crippling lack of internal storage, and the battery completely died in 18 months.

From there I moved to a One X. For some reason this phone didn't get a lot of love. However, for the two years I had it, I LOVED it. It was nicely put together, fast, had plenty of internal memory, felt great in the hand, and took nice pictures. Its screen was absolutely incredible. On the negative, after 18 months the battery life has drastically decreased. My GF now uses this phone, and it still works well, is still fast, just a little short on juice.

M8 - My current phone, had for 5 months now, and am very happy with it. Screen is good, speakers sound amazing, the metal feels fantastic in the hand, the software is good and no where near as obtrusive as some other skins (looking at you, Touchwiz) The battery life on this phone far exceeded my expectations, I can comfortably get two days with a few calls, texting, facebook and some basic games. As far as negatives, the camera. While it is no where near as bad as many would have you believe, it definitely could be better. The depth sensor, while it does work well, I only apply to a small percentage of my photos. The front facing camera is great.

I expect to hold on to the M8 for quite some time.

Overall I've been quite happy with these devices. Although a few had their problems and quirks, I never really regretted the purchase or wished I chose something else. I loathe iPhones, and find Galaxies to be too heavily skinned for my liking. Sense is becoming lighter and lighter with each version.

[u/EvInChains → u/wonko600rr]

Do you think the M8 is good as an unlocked phone, or are there better options as far as the unlocked phone market goes? I'm thinking of getting one once the M9 comes out and the price of the M8 will presumably drop (don't want to pay $650 for a phone.)

[u/[deleted] → u/wonko600rr]

the battery dying after 18 months on the desire isn't a huge problem though, since you can just swap it out. i had the nexus one, which afaik is the desire in nexus branding and with capacitive buttons and the reason i got rid of it was the power button always kept breaking after a couple months. has that been a problem with the desire too?

the internal storage was laughable, that is true, but apart from that i still love that phone, it's just... lovely.

[u/[deleted] → u/wonko600rr]

[u/wonko600rr → u/[deleted]]

Yes, poor Desire. Andoid and the apps outgrew it so quickly. I still really like the One X, you're right it is still quick, but now my GF takes it off charge at 7am, and its dead by 3pm, even with little use. Real shame

[u/[deleted]]

I have a HTC One M8 GPE. It's the first HTC phone I've owned. My previous phone was a Nexus 4.

Pros

• Great style. Love the metal back and sides.

• Sense 6 is the best Android skin, IMO, after stock. I converted my M8 to a GPE, it was originally just a standard M8.

• Stock Android + M8 specs = great performance.

• Excellent battery life.

• Speakers sound amazing.

Cons

• Phone is too tall. I'd prefer it be wider than taller.

• Power button is on top, I'd prefer it on the side.

Other opinions

• Camera is acceptable. I won't say it's good or bad, but it does what I need it to do. I'm not a professional photographer and don't take pictures often, so the camera works for me as long as it looks acceptable which it does.

[u/EarthCakes]

I own a HTC One X.

First impressions: This phone looks great, the matte feel of the back feels better than the one on the Galaxy S3. The screen looks good, front camera is grainy as hell and it works as a hand warmer (not in a good way)

In the 2 years of using this phone, I have stuck to stock, Sense is nice and speedy. A great experience overall.

I also own the Media Link HD. That did not see much use due to the lack of mkv support, screen mirroring was also not the best.

Other notes: I swapped the phone a few times as part of the screen kept popping out, and the WiFi bug cropped up later in the phone's life. I really hope to return to HTC one day.

[u/pryan12 → u/EarthCakes]

The One X has surprised me as a phone. Mine's running Lollipop and it still works. Battery has gone downhill, and it freezes and crashes sometimes, but it works well enough that I don't feel an urgent need to replace it.

[u/Bomberlt]

• HTC Sensation

• Damn this phone is so big, but so pretty. Damn Android (Gingerbread these time) is so awesome, I could customize this Sense so much.

• Damn thing is build so awesomelly that even after so many drop on various places (ceramic tiles, smooth stone stairs, many times on wooden floor) it working perfectly. Only it's a bit slow and capacitive buttons is not the best thing. Volume buttons are also wonky after year or two use.

• I only bought new phone because I've finally smashed my screen (only digitizer, thou) on some gravel stones when I was farming Ingress portal while walking my dog (never again). Still missing the big soap shape :D

P.S. How do I markdown ordered list? :|

[u/JehovahsMormon → u/Bomberlt]

This phone gets a lot of flak on r/Android and a lot of it is valid. But rarely does anyone mention that this phone is built like a tank. The back cover is a solid metal frame. My 2 year old nephew, who's a jerk, drops my Sensation on all sorts of hard surfaces, he throws it against the dishwasher and has no regard for other peoples property. This phone is toddler proof.

[u/[deleted] → u/Bomberlt]

i'm still on a sensation (XE master race bla bla...) and while it held up quite nicely over the years, the in-hand feel of the nexus one i had before was much better. on the sensation the screen feels softer and you can press it in and mess with the LCD if you push only a little too hard and while the metal back cover is nice, it also bends a bit and occasionally creaks, which is not what i expected from a flagship device.

also the screen quality (contrast, colors, blacks, viewing angles) isn't as good as on the nexus one, the screen is just larger and higher res.

performance also wasn't as good as i expected it to be when i upgraded, but at least i can run the newest android releases without having to repartition the internal storage first.

all in all, if it weren't for the one-series, i probably wouldn't have much trouble saying goodbye to htc for my next upgrade.

[u/[deleted]]

• HTC One M8

• I was scared about the camera

• I love this phone, camera is meh but everything else is perfect(for me).

• Boom sound is amazing, 5.0 screen is perfect. It's a bit tall but I'd always take a taller device with good front facing speakers instead of one that fits a bit better in my hand but has a back speaker.

[u/[deleted]]

Mom has a Desire 816G.

Mind you, the "G" really matters. I thought it only meant the global version, but it means the Mediatek variant. Super disappointed I didn't check that.

The phone is okay for her use, but the minor differences between 816G and original 816 make it a huge no for me. Examples: Incomplete sense UI. It's a mash of Sense and stock UI. Many inconsistent shutters and lags. The UI elements are large and pixelated- I plan on changing the DPI to fix this.

Camera quality is good! But the UI experience is not. Compared to my Moto G, the viewfinder is laggy at less than 30 FPS and the shutter lag is heavily noticeable (2-3 seconds).

Mom quite likes Blinkfeed. Easy access to Facebook.

Outside, the phone looks gorgeous. Speakers are nice too.

TL;DR: For the desire line up, don't go for the XXXG version. Look for Snapdragon variant.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

What? Didn't know that! BTW, are you Brazilian?

[u/__yaourt__]

I've got the One E8, which is the budget version of the M8. This phone is priced at $450 - $500 off-contract where I live (South East Asia), while the M8 is about $600. It has the same specs as the M8, but HTC has replaced the UltraPixel camera with a 13MP normal one, removed the IR blaster, and unfortunately, removed MHL (HDMI output) and USB OTG capability. I don't need those functions though, so it's fine to me.

Compared to my last phone, which has a 3.5" 320*480 display, 1GHz CPU and 512 MB of RAM, the E8 is a dream. It runs very fast even with power saver always turned on. The screen is large and bright, the speakers are loud, Sense 6 is snappy, and the phone looks great. Software-wise, it is almost identical to the M8, so there is no need to talk about that.

There are some little things that make the experience less than perfect though:

• The 13MP camera isn't bad, but it's not great either. Pictures are dark and pale, taking photos in HDR improves the quality but increases shooting time.

• HTC forgot to put a file manager on this phone, and because of KitKat's stupid restriction, third-party file managers are usable with the phone's internal storage only. (I should've mentioned I prefer storing photos and music on SD cards. The other day, thanks to a broken cable, I managed to wipe my phone's internal storage, which contains hundreds of photos - and I can't think of a non-root way to recover them.)

• Speaking of speakers (heh), the louder, the better. What about headphones? Not so. Even at the lowest volume, everything is still too loud for me, especially at night - and I'm talking about the stock earbuds. I don't believe my ears are that sensitive - compared to my previous phones (mostly Nokia dumb phones), the volume level is just too high. I wished HTC had chosen a normal equaliser instead of this gimmicky BoomSound thing that only makes music sound worse. I've tried about 10 external equaliser apps, and all of them had problems - either the app stops when I skip songs, or the sound becomes muddy, or both.

• ROM support is limited, and it's worsened by the fact that this phone has too many variants - M8Sw, M8Sd, M8St, M8Sx, M8Sn... I'm happy with Sense but I'd like to get updates after the support period expires. Also, the E8 is still on 4.4.2 and hasn't received the Eye Experience update yet - come on HTC, this is the M8's twin brother!

• Sometimes Sense doesn't make sense to me. For example, you can't lock the screen rotation in landscape mode (this is so iPhone); tapping and holding an object doesn't put you in select mode like most applications, so if you want to move, copy or delete some objects at once you'll have to tap the overflow menu first.

• The grey version has a nice layer of coating on the back of the phone, which comes off quite easily, unfortunately.

All in all, this is a fantastic phone at a good price. Despite the wordy list of problems above, I've been quite content with the E8. I'm patiently waiting for the Lollipop update. :)

[u/Moynia]

HTC One X+ (AT&T Variant)

OS - I have extreme mixed feelings about this phone. It shipped with 4.1 and didnt see an update to 4.2 until Kit Kat was about to release. Sense 4 was absolute ass, it is a far cry from the current Sense 6. It doesnt help that Nvidia dropped support for it about an hour after they released it.

Speakers - The phone itself had great sound quality for headphones, but the rear speakers left much to be desired.

Battery - The battery life, well, it sucked. The Tegra 3 should have never been put in a phone. The Tegra should have been in a tablet, it felt very gimped to fit in the phone, and made massive amounts of heat, even playing lighter games.

Screen - The screen was nice, and the colors were very vibrant, much richer than on my Nexus 5. 720p was sufficient but could not last long with the tiny 2000maH battery.

Storage - 64 Gigs of internal storage was nice, but the phone had no slot for external storage.

Camera - Oh man that thing was terrible. I have flip phones with better cameras.

Overall, I got screwed by AT&T with that phone. If I had the International version, I would have been able to get ROMs past 4.2.2 and maybe change my opinion on the phone.

[u/vocalyouth]

I have owned three HTC smartphones.

1. Thunderbolt - absolute garbage. Far and away the worst phone I've ever owned. Constantly rebooted on it's own, abysmal battery life, sense was heavy at this time. Verizon and HTC constantly passed the blame for why the phone was shit. This was the first domino to fall that eventually lead to me leaving Verizon (the VZW Gnex was next and the last straw was them strongarmming me out of my unlimited data).

2. HTC One M7 - I vowed to never buy an HTC again but the M7 caught my eye and I really liked it and as someone who uses my phone a lot for listening to music and podcasts the boomsound speakers sold me on it. After about a year and a half it got very slow, the battery life got very bad, and the camera was never too hot to begin with. The battery is what really killed me though so before a big vacation I decided to look around for a used M8 which brings me to...

3. HTC One M8 - I mostly liked the M7, quirks aside, and when I first got the M8, I really liked it a lot with one caviat - the camera is IMO even worse than the one on the M7. As time has gone on it has started to freeze up on me a lot and is generally unresponsive. My battery life was incredible the first few months I had it but has gotten very poor. I actually think the M7 is a better phone in many ways. I like the soft keys on the "chin", the M8 has a bigger screen but actually displays less on screen at once because of the on screen buttons. I also find the phone to be slightly too big. My contract is up in 2 months and I actually can't wait to get rid of this phone. I will probably give Samsung a whirl if the S6 looks promising or maybe even Motorola again who I never had problems with, if nothing looks interesting I'll go back to the dark side (iPhone) for a while.

[u/Cream5oda]

1.) HTC EVO 4G (sprint Wimax): my 1st droid, loved how big it was, and it was over the top compared to the iPhones. So I give it a solid "Hell Yeah"

2.) HTC EVO 4G LTE: Had A great screen, awesome camera for the time, and was super thin and it had the damn kick stand, so it was better than the 1st HTC one by far, so I give it "Fuck Yeah"

3.)[Current] HTC One M7 : I have yet to put a case on this bad boy, no breakages what so ever except for purple camera. The phone still gets brought up in conversation becasue of how slick and bad ass it still is. So I give it a "Fuck Yeah Chicks Dig it"

Will be purchasing the M9 with a hopeful rating of "Fuck yes, Nirvana in my hand"

[u/chuyblunt]

I've had the Mytouch 3g, Mytouch 4g, HTC Sensation, HTC One M7, and the HTC M8.

1. The Mytouch 3g was revolutionary, especially coming from the old moto razr that was the hype in the early 2000s. I got it second hand at a swapmeet and immediately fell in love with android, albeit it being in the most primitive state. After owning it for a year and experiencing battery and performance issues due to rooting it I moved on.

2. To the Mytouch 4g, again bought second hand, and by far my most favorite HTC device to date. Solid performance, good battery life, great screen and awesome camera for its time, only device I never rooted. Metal body with removable battery, a track pad next to the physical buttons on the bottom, phone was ahead of its time. I miss it to this day.

3. The HTC Sensation came after with a 2 year contract, first phone I bought brand new, and I liked it. Stuck with it for 2 years until Tmobile cancelled all their contracts, I had a love hate relationship with it. I loved the UI, but ended up rooting it through some tough means, and liking the result. I experimented with a lot of different ROMs until I found a decent one with a decent kernel that helped with the battery life and camera. Volume rocker gave out on me after a year, so I had to improvise on that one. Metal body as well and built like a tank, screen received no scratches at all. I ended up giving it to my dad and getting myself a Galaxy S3 when it came out, only to break that one. After I got the

4. HTC One M7, gosh this thing was beautiful, reminding me of the Mytouch 4g way back in the day. HTC really stepped up their game on this one, but I got it when it was brand new, so it had a lot of hardware issues, overheating, purple tint, so I traded it early on to a Galaxy note 2, and kept that for a while, then hopping onto the nexus 4, then hopping onto the lg g2, then a galaxy s5 until finally I get into.

5. My most recent phone and my 3rd favorite, the HTC One M8. HTC did a phenomenal job with this phone, solid build, great speakers, camera was decent as well as the battery but I still experienced overheating which was a gripe to me seeing as I live in a warm climate. Beautiful screen reminding me of the Mytouch 4g which is still my favorite. I wanted to convert it to the GPE edition but I didn't want to fork over to sunshine and having the bootloader unlocked the other roms I tried didn't get internet access through lte so I stayed on stock rooted. only reason I traded it for the Z3 was because I have Tmobile jump and I like trying out new phones, so I'll probably get the M9 around august and if i like it enough i might just keep it for longer than 6 months.

[u/signed7]

HTC One M7.

Pros: Great design, great screen, good default launcher (big plus if you don't use custom launchers), smooth (touchscreen/UI lags rarely happen, unlike the LG G3 i'm using right now), sick front-facing speakers

Cons: Shit camera, purple tint WILL happen (everyone I know that uses it has it eventually) and gets worse over time, battery life isn't that great, screen:bezel ratio is pretty bad

[u/Apslinger]

I've own only 3 smartphones and all of them are HTC so far.

HTC Desire(2010-2012, reddit phoneeee) Upgraded from the tank like nokia n90 and wanted to get a N900 but then saw this thing.

Initial Impressions Wow screen is huge and crisp clear. It has a 1ghz cpu( at that time it was a thing). The size was nice and it was light enough for me to easily take it out and put it back in. Android is quite interesting. Over time It has gotten slower over time but it's still reasonably ok for me. Original battery capacity now is maybe around 70% left but i bought an extended battery case for it and it has around 7 hours sot wifi + normal brightness. Because of it, it is now my official reddit phone. I still love it with all my heart :)

HTC One X 32gb White (2012-2014, mp3 and manga reader now) Got used to HTC Sense and I admit I was a bit afraid to try other brands :/

Initial Impression OMG quadcore baby and that 720p screen is amazing. It's also surprisingly light for it's huge screen size and still quite compact. Build quality is superb and I like the feel of the material over S3 and Iphone5( my other two options). Camera is ok ok and battery life is alright I guess.

Over time Still love to just hold it and marvel and how awesome it's screen is. Build quality is top notch to me because I dropped this sucker countless on time mostly from waist height to marble and a few times while running on tarmac. I seriously cannot find any noticeable scratches on the polycarbonate body( unless you really want to find it and zoom in then you will see some). Screen has a few minor scratches( I am still a bit sad about it) but nevertheless still nice to see. Battery life is the worst but still manageable. My HoX is now my manga reader( mangarock ftw) and also music player via aux for my car. Sense is amazing and fluid as ever tho.

HTC Desire Eye Coral Blue (2014-now, Daily driver) Wanted the M8 but it was just too slippery and it's design was not my type( love M7's design). Almost wanted to pull the trigger on the E8 but then saw the Eye, same price but the Eye offered a bit bigger screen and IPX7 rating and an betterfront camera( I have only used it less 10 times o.o )

Initial Impressions This thing is gorgeous( I might have weird taste in phones). I love the cyclops eye camera placement and Sense still wows me but still no likey blink feed. Build quality is solid and I like the feel of it in my hand. Reminds me of the HoX and for it's size, it's also to my surprise, quite thin. Full HD is nice but to honest I would have been fine with HD. The Desire Eye has ridiculously high max brightness. Even at power saving and minimum brightness it stills hurts my eye to use it in dark places. Battery life is more than adequate for my moderate usage. Speakers are the bomb and on par with the my friend's M8. Camera is nice but in low light places, it lags? not sure if right term I'm don't quite care about camera when purchasing phones hehe.

Over time After two months with it, I'm still pleased with my purchase of this and so far the only complain I have is that I can't take pictures as well as other current phones in low light places and that I wish it came in a pure white colour :(

Currently every few days I still clean and wipe all 3 of my HTC phones, using them almost everyday for each of the task I mentioned above. I might be too emotionally attached to my phones....

[u/middiefrosh]

1. HTC One M8

2. My main choices were between this and the S5, and my original selling point was that it had 32GB of SD space and the S5 had 16GB. Didn't want to bother with having that limit of space. Other than that, the screen was just as big as the S5, it was running a similar CPU, and the reviews indicated it was good. It was fast and responsive (especially compared to my Galaxy S1!) and I knew based on specs that I would be able to customize it easily without worrying about CPU bottlenecks.

3. Still own it, and I'm still a huge fan. Its still a powerhouse, and can handle most any CPU/GPU task one would expect a top-end phone to handle. I have a thin, hard case which accentuates the already solid aluminum build. Its still my perfect size; big enough and quality enough screen to justify watching Netflix on it, not big enough to make me strain (I know I'd probably get used to a bigger one, but I'm certainly content).

I've also got into launchers and icon packs, and have made the aesthetic something I really like. They are easy to install, and they work wonderfully with the M8.

I immediately got annoyed by Blinkfeed, and got rid of it.

4) The phone is capable of doing more than I ask of it. I don't go into the ROM scene, but as far as I am aware, there are a number of people who do (especially at r/htcone)

[u/[deleted]]

HTC One M8 for Verizon Wireless

My initial impressions of the device were overwhelmingly positive. I fell in love the second it was leaked, and had to buy it the week of launch. The build quality is absolutely incredible and the speakers were unlike any other phone speakers.

My impressions have actually gotten better over time. Unlocking the boot loader on this phone was a piece of cake (I did it before Verizon made it more difficult) and the ROM support has been fantastic. I'm currently running DigitalHigh's Lollipop GPE. I love the phone, and I don't plan on getting rid of it soon.

If you take a lot of pictures and care about the quality, run the fuck away from the HTC One M8. I love this phone, but the rear camera is crap. Fortunately, I rarely take pictures with the rear camera.

[u/UsernameNumber6]

When the HTC One first came out, I was amazed. I had an iPod touch and a Motorola Atrix at the time, and the One was the first android phone that was "cool." The one thing I absolutely loved about it, was how good it looked. This is the time when everything Android was synonymous with shitty build quality and questionable design. As TheVerge, Cnet, Gizmodo, and other tech sites began to review the One, I thought more and more about how it would be my next phone. The iPhone 5S comes out and my upgrade is right around the corner, and I become skeptical. Stick with what the people see good, there is a reason the iPhone sells so well. But this isn;t about the iPhone, this is about the HTC.

So I get the phone, unpackage it, and pop my SIM card in. I boot up the phone, do the normal setup, and am introduced to Sense. I love it. The phone is so fast. Its so cool. The camera is good enough, and the screen is crystal clear. I loved it. Over time though, I became tired of Sense, and for AT&T's slowness to implement Android 4.4, I switched to CM11 Nightlies. The phone was brand new again. A root and a new, lightweight OS breathed new life into my phone. But the one thing that I admire the most about HTC is, they made me miss their stuff. I wanted to go back.

I rooted S-On, so finding a factory RUU was out of the question. I missed BoomSound, they custom flavor of Sense, and when Sense 6 came, I was hungry for some HTC goodness back into my phone. So I installed ViperOne ROM and I was happy again. Then the same thing with Android 5.0 happened and I am back to CyanogenMod with CM12 Nightlies. The point I'm trying to make is that the initial reasons I was reluctant to pursue Android, were build quality, and design. The HTC One is the best phone I've had. It is honestly the reason I am getting the M9 when it comes out. It is the reason that HTC is my favorite device manufacturer out there. Not OPO, not Motorola, but HTC.

[u/FauxBoDo]

I went from the HTC G1, the first commercially available Android smartphone to the Moto Droid to an iPhone 3GS to the Moto Photon Q to the HTC One M7, and now the HTC One M8 Harmon Kardon Edition.

HTC will always be the first and last word in smartphones for me for four critical reasons:

1. Build quality - I have yet to find a handset that feels more solid or better constructed. I know that Samsung has some strong points, but I just can't justify buying a plastic-backed phone for $500+, regardless of chipset or pixel density.

2. ROMs - I love the work HTC has done with Sense. In the inevitable Samsung comparison, HTC wins here for me. It's a sleek, dark, high-performance interface, and I couldn't be happier with this.

3. Customer support - I'm a member of HTC Elevate, but even before joining, HTC has always been super responsive to any needs I've had. Their community managers do so much to engage the community and take care of user needs. They have US-based tech support as well, which is not critical, but nice to have.

4. Sound quality - after testing a number of phones, I find that the front-facing speakers on the M7 and M8 just bump. Great clarity, decent "bass" for cell phone speakers, generally excellent and noteworthy.

Now, cons:

1. Camera - as some have mentioned, the cameras can be a little lacking in terms of raw MP count, and I don't 100% buy into the UltraPixel setup. That said, the cameras do excel in low-light, and they've been generally getting better.

2. Processor - it seems HTC hasn't always focused on core count or clockspeed. That said, I've been super happy with performance in general, so, it doesn't affect me too much, besides my nerd envy. :)

3. Battery - with the unibody design comes the challenge of natural battery degradation over time. My M7 started out with passable battery performance, and then dipped to way below acceptable standards by the time I upgraded. I'm scared that I already see my M8 starting to VERY slowly lose battery capacity. There are battery hygiene steps that can be taken to address this, though.

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I really want to try out the new Nexus tablet, I've heard awesome things, and I know it's HTC-made.