HTC One M8: A Buyers Guide

Launched in March 2014 the HTC One M8 is the second generation of HTC One and it has proved popular selling millions since it first went on sale. But with so many smart phones now available on the market it can be hard to differentiate between makes and models. In this guide we review the HTC One M8 and look at why it could be the smart phone you’re looking for; as well as offering advice on getting the best possible deal should you decide to buy one.

What’s New?

Although not that different from its predecessor the HTC One M8 is slightly slimmer and the screen has been increased to five inches. Some other updated features include:

Double rear camera sensors – Instead of the standard single rear camera sensor the HTC One M8 has two, this is to increase the focus speed of the camera and the speed a photo can be taken. HTC also claim the added sensor will help to increase the detail captured in photos.

Gesture controls – The HTC One M8 comes with several gesture shortcuts that are meant to make it more user friendly. Tapping the phones screen will turn it on, while rotating it horizontally and pressing the volume down button will activate camera mode.

New Sense 6 skin – The HTC One M8 features a Sense 6 skin, upgraded from Sense 5 run by earlier HTC models, allowing for a supposedly more organised way of displaying status updates and news stories to HTCs BlinkFeed app.

Battery

With slimmer designs and more processing power, battery life is becoming more of an issue with smart phones. There are more factors than ever that are draining juice from the battery, so to combat this the HTC One M8 comes with an extreme power saving mode that HTC claims can make your final 10% of charge last for more than a day – although this will only work if you shut down all but essential functions.

There are other ways for preserving the battery life of your smart phone, they include:

See what’s draining the battery the most – By going to your phones battery settings you can see a breakdown of which applications are the chief culprits in draining it. Turning off or uninstalling apps you hardly/never use will help you extend the time between charges.

Check the apps running in the background – By again venturing into your settings you’ll be able to see a list of applications that are running. Tapping on each one to see what it’s doing and stop any that are not needed.

Turn down the brightness – It might seem like stating the obvious but you may be surprised at just how much turning down the brightness can improve battery life.

Getting the best deal on your HTC One M8

If you’ve made your mind up and you want to buy an HTC One M8 it can be confusing which offer to choose as there are different networks and retailers all offering a multitude of different deals. The best way of getting the deal you want is to compare as many as you can to see what is on offer at what price. Comparison websites are a good way to do this as you can search using a wide range of options such as how many minutes you want, the amount of data allowance for going online, how much you want to pay each month, how long you want the contract to be etc.

By looking at all the options you will be able to see which combination of network and retailer is offering you the best deal. An important thing to bear in mind when making your decision is the coverage particular networks have in your area. You can either ask a salesperson to check for you in-store or if you go onto any of the major networks websites they should allow you to enter your postcode and see what the coverage is like near you and whether you will be able to pick up 3G or 4G.