So, I picked up a Desire Eye on launch day. I feel like I was one of the few people intrigued by this device when it was announced. Since then, it has received almost zero attention: Few reviews, no posts on XDA, very little buzz on the internet in general. So, if you're even remotely considering this device and want a little info, here's a personal perspective from someone who bought the phone.
Disclaimer: I have owned dozens of flagship phones over the last several years. I'm also quite a fan of Sense UI and HTC in general. I did not buy this phone for the front facing camera. I don't care about selfies, so I'm probably not the target audience. I really just wanted an M8 with a better camera.
Display
The display is probably my one gripe about the device so far. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it looks washed out to me. When I first turned it on in the store, it immediately looked dull. A lot of the HTC wallpapers and themes are a sort of pastel, so it's really hard to tell, but next to my iPhone 6 Plus, and even a Windows M8 in the store, it just doesn't look as vibrant as I'd expect. Compared to my Note 4, it looks positively depressing, but that's to be expected. That said, it does get plenty bright. I just wish I still had my M8 to compare it with because I swear the M8 had more contrast and vibrance.
Camera
My only real beef with the M8 was the camera, mainly the low megapixel count which made cropping nearly impossible. It also had trouble with exposure and focus. I was really hoping that they fixed that with this phone. I know it's not their flagship and is, in fact, marketed as mid range, but it's really just an M8 with a different build and cameras. I have taken quite a few photo samples and compared them online to the Z3 Compact, iPhone 6 Plus, OnePlus One, G3, and Note 4. There is definitely more detail and you can crop in much further than the M8, but it still gets soft when you do. I also noticed the same issues with exposure. If you're not careful about where you tap to focus, you'll get a blown out sky or dark subject. Focus is fast, but not always accurate. It sometimes blurs the subject instead of the background. Definitely not on par with the focusing systems found in the Note 4 and iPhone 6 Plus. Colors are good, if not great. They lean toward the warmer and more vibrant side, which I personally prefer. Overall, it's an upgrade over the M8 and on par with phones like the OnePlus One and G3, at least in my testing.
Build
I know a lot of people are fans of metal, but there are advantages and disadvantages to metal and plastic. The advantages here are water resistance and weight. This is a light phone and it feels good in the hand. Coming from my Note 4, it is significantly lighter and easier to hold. It's also fairly grippy. I don't feel the need for a case. My one complaint about build is the size. This thing is big. It's nearly as big as the iPhone 6 Plus and Note 4, which is kind of sad when you consider the 5.2" screen. Part of this is the 13mp front-facing camera. Part is the speakers, even though the grills are much smaller this time around. They still needed that blank "HTC" strip on the front for components and that adds to the overall size. The camera shutter button is very difficult to press. I only see using this thing under water. If you try to use it for normal pictures, you'll get blur because the phone will move when you try to press it. I find this to be a problem on a lot of phones with dedicated shutter buttons, but it's much more pronounced here.
Battery
My other primary concern with this phone was battery. It's the same internals as the M8 with a bigger screen and a smaller battery. While disappointing, so far it's not as bad as I expected. It seems to be about on par with the M8, though I'm not sure how. Standby time is pretty good (in my limited testing so far) and it doesn't drain horribly fast when the screen is on. Since HTC doesn't show screen on time and I had to install GSAM, I don't have any screen on results yet, but I will be testing that over the next few days.
Performance
This is the reason to get an HTC phone, in my opinion. Sense and stock Android are easily the fastest, best performing versions of Android, in my experience. But Sense brings some nice enhancements to the table that I think are worth it over stock Android. There's no lag or delay anywhere on the phone so far. Everything is fast and fluid. It makes my Note 4 look positively slow. Just the gallery lag on the Note 4 alone is enough to drive someone mad. HTC is doing it right. I'm actually a fan of Blinkfeed, too, though I know other people hate it. Since the introduction of Blinkfeed, I almost always end up putting a widget on my left most homescreen of every other Android phone that gives me a full page of news, though nothing quite compares to HTC's solution. I like their enhancements to the gallery, contacts, etc. Very nice overall experience.
Misc.
1. Minor annoyance, but the stock email client makes you tap to show images on every HTML email. Since I actually use it, it's kind of annoying. I wish they would at least give an option in the settings to "always show".
2. Some of the camera features are really need, like face merge and photo strip. I do miss slow motion video and 4k recording, though.
3. Internal storage is only 16gb. You have a little over 9 free out of the box. This is the only other con to this phone, in my opinion.
4. I'm a pretty big fan of the screen on gestures. I basically never have to use the power button. And now we can launch straight into the camera, too.
5. I received an update yesterday and it auto installed. There's no info anywhere on what it was. The phone just rebooted and installed with no warning.
6. There is a ton of bloatware on this thing (AT&T). Seriously, brace yourselves. It's even more insulting with only 16gb to start with.
7. Bootloader is unlockable at HTC Dev so, there's at least hope that we'll get root soon. The main issue will be S-Off, as usual. But I really only want/need root.
8. The front-facing speakers are every bit as good as you'd expect, despite the water resistant membrane and smaller grills. It's pretty impressive how small and unnoticeable they are.
Wrap Up
Overall, I really like the device. My main concerns are camera quality and battery life, which I will continue to test. I really like the user experience overall, though, and it's one of my favorite phones of the year. I don't think this phone is really getting the attention it deserves. Even the tech bloggers seem to be ignoring it. I hope this helps anyone who's on the fence about this phone and/or looking for more information.
Obligatory Camera Samples
Here are some camera samples. XDA is compressing them, but you get the idea.
Thanks for the review and photos. The camera was better than what I was expecting from the sensor HTC is using, to be honest. The only downside from what I've read in your review is the screen: while I don't like oversatured screens, I also don't appreciate "dark" screens (it hasn't to do with brightness, but with the white tone).
Regarding the speakers, I know you don't have a M8 to compare, but do you notice much of a difference between the devices?
Can you please confirm that it has MHL and it works?
For what it's worth, I held my One M8 side by side with a Desire Eye in store and compared the screens while displaying the same images and websites. They looked pretty much exactly the same to me other than a slight difference in size. Didn't think it looked dull. Of course, the lighting in AT&T was pretty harsh so it wasn't the best environment for comparison. Maybe you just got used to the super punchy over saturated colors of the Note 4?
gtg465x said:
For what it's worth, I held my One M8 side by side with a Desire Eye in store and compared the screens while displaying the same images and websites. They looked pretty much exactly the same to me other than a slight difference in size. Didn't think it looked dull. Of course, the lighting in AT&T was pretty harsh so it wasn't the best environment for comparison. Maybe you just got used to the super punchy over saturated colors of the Note 4?
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That's actually what I was thinking too. Not a bad display by any means.
Thank you for this mini review! Really helpful.
Could you please state in which degree you can use the phone with one hand?
Would it feel closer to the use of a One M8/Galaxy S5/LG G2 or would it compare more to a One Plus One / Iphone 6 Plus (which is for me slightly to big).
The 5.2 inch of the LG G2 is of perfect size, but that phone had way smaller bezzels, so this is in fact something that scares me of the HTC desire EYE.
Waarez said:
Thank you for this mini review! Really helpful.
Could you please state in which degree you can use the phone with one hand?
Would it feel closer to the use of a One M8/Galaxy S5 or would it compare more to a One Plus One / Iphone 6 Plus (which is for me slightly to big).
The 5.2 inch of the LG G2 were perfect.. but this phone had way smaller bezzels, so this is what scares me of the one M8.
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It's definitely closer to the OnePlus One or iphone 6 Plus size wise, but it is MUCH lighter, which does make it easier to handle with one hand. Unless you have gorilla hands, though, you definitely won't be able to reach all four corners of the screen with one hand.
It's tall, rather than wide.
I got the Desire EYE in the mail 2 days ago, it's a really good phone, really fast, takes nice pictures, overall I'm happy about it, the only downside about it is the internal storage, it has like 7 gb out of the 16 dedicated to the OS and stock apps... But other than that, really good phone!
To start off, I will say I am a big HTC fan. I talked about 7 people into buying the One M8 over the S5 this year. I love Sense, Blinkfeed and the snappiness of their devices. I have since sold my One M8 earlier this summer, around May, and have been jumping around to different devices. I strayed from the One M8 mostly due to the camera and the fact that I like to try the latest and greatest devices. I have been using an iPhone 6 since it launched. When I saw the Desire Eye was announced, I got excited. I was really hoping for an M8 Eye, which I think would have been the perfect smartphone for 2014, but this was almost as good. I picked one of these up on Friday at an AT&T store. The guy kind of looked at me funny when I said I wanted one, I don't think he was trained on the device or knew what it was. I didn't open it until Saturday night, but in the store, when playing with it, the first thing I said was, this screen looks washed out. I think it has something to do with the default theme, when I changed it back to one of the same Sense stock themes on the One M8, it didn't look as bad. It is something to do with that pink color they are using. I am torn on the device, it is like 2 steps forward, a couple steps back. I didn't like the first few indoor pictures without flash I took of my 3 month old daughter, so I switched back to the iPhone 6 yesterday because it was her baptism and I didn't want to miss any shots, or risk them coming out badly. One thing that Apple knows is how to make a camera that focuses fast and gives you good pictures. The Boom Sound is also a bit of a disappointment. The bass and clarity seems to be lacking compared to the M8. I played some Vevo music videos on the demo models in store. I am currently thinking about trying to find a second hand M8 Google Play Edition in mint condition (so I have full T-Mobile support for the $30 SIM I have for my play phone line), and keep either it or the Eye and my iPhone 6.
Y2J
Thanks for the review!
The camera doesn't seem bad but for some reason i was expecting it to have a bit more "wow" factor, don't know why and they the shots seem good enough.
You mentioned no-slow motion (i had actually talked about this in the other thread) and the info i read was that it didn't have. However, i was just watching a video review of the desire eye and in the settings i noticed the slow motion icon and the review actually pressed it and it sayed it was slow motion (its an italian video, i actually looked it up to see the translation lol). It was in the camera interface under the " ... " icon and on the modes (it usually says auto) it has the slow motion icon/cartoon - Here is the video @ 11:45
Still no mention of 4k, so that is not from stock but maybe with a mod.
griffin_1 said:
Thanks for the review!
The camera doesn't seem bad but for some reason i was expecting it to have a bit more "wow" factor, don't know why and they the shots seem good enough.
You mentioned no-slow motion (i had actually talked about this in the other thread) and the info i read was that it didn't have. However, i was just watching a video review of the desire eye and in the settings i noticed the slow motion icon and the review actually pressed it and it sayed it was slow motion (its an italian video, i actually looked it up to see the translation lol). It was in the camera interface under the " ... " icon and on the modes (it usually says auto) it has the slow motion icon/cartoon - Here is the video @ 11:45
Still no mention of 4k, so that is not from stock but maybe with a mod.
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Click to collapse
I don't see a slow motion option anywhere in the settings. The only video options are for the resolution (MMS, 1080, etc). One thing they did do right, though, is put the video record button back on the main interface full time next to the camera shutter button. They were crazy to ever take that away.
Quality is okay. It's about on par with the OnePlus One and G3, in my testing. Most of the shots I took were on an overcast day, so not the best testing environment, but overall I think it's acceptable. I think I'd still grab my Note 4 or iPhone 6 Plus if I was going somewhere to take a lot of pictures, but I don't feel like I'm carrying around a bad camera when I have this phone.
griffin_1 said:
Thanks for the review!
The camera doesn't seem bad but for some reason i was expecting it to have a bit more "wow" factor, don't know why and they the shots seem good enough.
You mentioned no-slow motion (i had actually talked about this in the other thread) and the info i read was that it didn't have. However, i was just watching a video review of the desire eye and in the settings i noticed the slow motion icon and the review actually pressed it and it sayed it was slow motion (its an italian video, i actually looked it up to see the translation lol). It was in the camera interface under the " ... " icon and on the modes (it usually says auto) it has the slow motion icon/cartoon - Here is the video @ 11:45
Still no mention of 4k, so that is not from stock but maybe with a mod.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, I was totally wrong about slow motion. I just found the option. It was not where I expected, but I'm stoked to see that it's there!
Great Slow motion on htc is good, at least if its like on the m8. I think only htc and sony in Android lets you record 120fps and then edit what parts to slow down, which is how slow motion should be. Glad to see its there and websites like gsmarena should mention it and update the specs info with that.
battery update?
G1_enthusiast said:
battery update?
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Battery is really good for the capacity. Idle drain with my apps and setting was about 3%/hr. With the screen on, it does seem to lose battery pretty fast, but I was still able to get about 10-13 hours of use with around 3 hours screen time. That's not much worse than most of my other phones do, actually.
I would post screenshots, but I no longer have the phone. As much as I really liked it, I just couldn't live with the camera quality. I was really hoping for better. But if camera isn't your #1 priority, this is a great all around phone. Camera is definitely better than phones like the Moto X. I was just hoping for closer to Note 4/iPhone quality.
How do the camera quality and pictures compare to Samsung S4 or S5?
Thanks.
struff said:
How do the camera quality and pictures compare to Samsung S4 or S5?
Thanks.
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My mom has the S5 And I prefer the Eye´s camera, It´s just... sharper and more clear.
sidle said:
My mom has the S5 And I prefer the Eye´s camera, It´s just... sharper and more clear.
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I'm going to politely however completely disagree. There's no comparison. S5 is one of the best cameras you can get.
Sent from my HTC Desire Eye using Tapatalk
robstunner said:
I'm going to politely however completely disagree. There's no comparison. S5 is one of the best cameras you can get.
Sent from my HTC Desire Eye using Tapatalk
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And yet, I like this one more.
Front HTC Desire Eye:
http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/143110-image/HTC-Desire-EYE.jpg
Front Galaxy S5:
http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/143127-image/Samsung-Galaxy-S5.jpg
Back HTC Desire Eye:
http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/143113-image/HTC-Desire-EYE.jpg
Back Galaxy S5:
http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/143130-image/Samsung-Galaxy-S5.jpg
Let the photo's speak for themselves. The HTC Desire Eye clearly wins this battle, or even HTC in general. The S5 is litteraly crap in low to medium-light area's.
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Firs...-HTC-One-M8-and-the-Samsung-Galaxy-S5_id61506
Fair enough, but in better lighting the s5 proves much better and rarely overexposed the pictures.
Related
I currently have a Galaxy S3 and my contract is up soon, so I'll be looking for a new device. I've had Samsung for the last 2 contract periods and am looking for something different. The HTC One M8 impresses me, but many reviews say the camera is lackluster. I'm not looking for the best camera on the market or anything like that. I am quite happy with the camera on my S3 and would like to know if anyone has had both devices and can tell me if the M8's camera is in the same ballpark. I don't really crop pictures and the most I'd do is print out an 8x10 photo, which the S3 gives perfectly good resolution for. I've seen sample pictures taken with the M8 and they seem perfectly fine to me, but maybe there are issues that I don't see. Anyone have any thoughts?
Thanks for your time.
Just buy it
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
Guys just. A note of caution. This type of question is allowed, but remember to keep responses on topic regarding the cameras only.
Ghost
ajt167 said:
I currently have a Galaxy S3 and my contract is up soon, so I'll be looking for a new device. I've had Samsung for the last 2 contract periods and am looking for something different. The HTC One M8 impresses me, but many reviews say the camera is lackluster. I'm not looking for the best camera on the market or anything like that. I am quite happy with the camera on my S3 and would like to know if anyone has had both devices and can tell me if the M8's camera is in the same ballpark. I don't really crop pictures and the most I'd do is print out an 8x10 photo, which the S3 gives perfectly good resolution for. I've seen sample pictures taken with the M8 and they seem perfectly fine to me, but maybe there are issues that I don't see. Anyone have any thoughts?
Thanks for your time.
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Reviews have also stated that the battery life on the M8 is awful when that's not the case at all. Are there better cameras out there? I'm sure, but the M8's camera does really well in most situations. I don't use the flash on any camera, I tinker mostly with the ISO. The dual sensor provides some nifty editing features later on too. And let's face it, if you were going to do full-time professional photography, no phone's camera can substitute a real camera or DSLR. I think you'll be happy with the results.
Oviously M8
XNine said:
Reviews have also stated that the battery life on the M8 is awful when that's not the case at all. Are there better cameras out there? I'm sure, but the M8's camera does really well in most situations. I don't use the flash on any camera, I tinker mostly with the ISO. The dual sensor provides some nifty editing features later on too. And let's face it, if you were going to do full-time professional photography, no phone's camera can substitute a real camera or DSLR. I think you'll be happy with the results.
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Thanks for the reply. Do you think I'd be able to get decent 8x10 prints of photos I take with it, or is the resolution not quite there?
I'd personally have a look on the thread pictures taken with M8 . . . I have posted some but some amazing photos coming from this phone
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
ILS_SuperNova said:
I'd personally have a look on the thread pictures taken with M8 . . . I have posted some but some amazing photos coming from this phone
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
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It's funny you should say that because I did check out that thread before I posted this thread - I was trying to see if someone else had posted the question. There are a lot of great pictures there. Am I missing something? Hell, have the cameras on these phones become so good in the last 2-3 years that the photos there are considered sub-par? The fanciest thing I do with photos is some basic editing (I tend to just take pictures closer rather than crop) and then print out an 8x10. Will these photos be good enough for that? What do you think the size limit of the photos would be until they started looking poor due to the relatively low resolution?
Sorry I'm all over the place here, just trying to figure out if I'm missing something or the "standards" are way beyond what I consider good.
ajt167 said:
It's funny you should say that because I did check out that thread before I posted this thread - I was trying to see if someone else had posted the question. There are a lot of great pictures there. Am I missing something? Hell, have the cameras on these phones become so good in the last 2-3 years that the photos there are considered sub-par? The fanciest thing I do with photos is some basic editing (I tend to just take pictures closer rather than crop) and then print out an 8x10. Will these photos be good enough for that? What do you think the size limit of the photos would be until they started looking poor due to the relatively low resolution?
Sorry I'm all over the place here, just trying to figure out if I'm missing something or the "standards" are way beyond what I consider good.
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I'm still pretty amazed how a 4mp camera can produce these images . .I can from a Z1 with a 20mp camera then a note 3 with a 13mp . . .I will be honest some details are lost but that's just the limit of a 4mp camera. .
As for printing I really can't help but maybe some of the guys over on that thread have printed out ?
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Here's my opinion and it's not worth much...
The M8 camera is great for social networks etc. And possibly could do decent 8x10 prints.
The front camera craps on anything out there right now. If selfies are your thing.
Do not dwell on the camera aspect of the M8.
Instead recognize it for its other great features.
Aluminum chassis. Internals. Screen. Speakers. Etc etc.
If you are really concerned about great photos I'd suggest the S5.
My wife has one and I would say it has better detail in SOME situations.
But the Camera software on the M8 is so fun to use.
HTC UltimEight ?
It really depends on what kind of images you want to capture. Do you want to take spur of the moment shots of friends, family and kids in an indoor setting?
Or do you want to take highly detailed landscape photos which you have the ability to crop later.
Its a simple choice yet still very hard, the M8 will do great for indoor/night time shots and reasonably well in outdoor shots assuming you adjust the setting accordingly to prevent highlights from being blown out.
On the other hand, a device like the S5 will take really great outdoor photos with plenty of extra detail but in an indoor/low light situation it will be just average.
I'm in a similar situation to you as im upgrading from an S4 to either the M8 and S5 and the camera is fairly important to me thus all I can really say is is.
Pick your poison, both will do an adequate job in all scenarios but they each have there respective benefits in specific scenarios.
Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk
Jooosty said:
Here's my opinion and it's not worth much...
The M8 camera is great for social networks etc. And possibly could do decent 8x10 prints.
The front camera craps on anything out there right now. If selfies are your thing.
Do not dwell on the camera aspect of the M8.
Instead recognize it for its other great features.
Aluminum chassis. Internals. Screen. Speakers. Etc etc.
If you are really concerned about great photos I'd suggest the S5.
My wife has one and I would say it has better detail in SOME situations.
But the Camera software on the M8 is so fun to use.
HTC UltimEight ?
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Click to collapse
I have owned the S2, S3, S4 and now the M8. Photos are great on the galaxy phones and I have always had better luck with photos than reviews say. For instance, my wife has an iphone 5S and was always grabbing my S4 because she perceived the photos to be better.
so far with my M8 the photos have been "OK"...very inconsistent...some are great and some are "OK". Outdoors the Galaxy blows the M8 away (M8 tends to be a little washed out), indoors I would say it is a toss up (on a day to day basis with auto settings or flash). However, I have taken good outdoor photos with my M8, it just tends to be inconsistent. Also, if there is any type of backlight behind the subject the photo tends to be washed out some. I did not think it was enough for me not to buy a M8. I have a canon SLR for important photos. I think the responsiveness of the day to day operations far outweigh the camera lacking a little quality.
bitwiser said:
I have owned the S2, S3, S4 and now the M8.
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I agree with every point you touched on.
HTC UltimEight ?
The M8 outdoor shots are incredible on full he 1080p, decent tv's when showing off or viewing the pics and they come out great on 8x10 shots because I got some done recently.
You won't be too disappointed unless you are trying to zoom.
The quality of the pics are normal viewing is in my humble opinion better than s3 or s4 and in low light the s3 and s4 even the s5 cannot compete.
Try it, get it online, send it back if it doesn't stand up.
HtcOneJon said:
The M8 outdoor shots are incredible on full he 1080p, decent tv's when showing off or viewing the pics and they come out great on 8x10 shots because I got some done recently.
You won't be too disappointed unless you are trying to zoom.
The quality of the pics are normal viewing is in my humble opinion better than s3 or s4 and in low light the s3 and s4 even the s5 cannot compete.
Try it, get it online, send it back if it doesn't stand up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome, that's what I was looking for - something at least on par with my S3 as far as pics and videos go.
HtcOneJon said:
The M8 outdoor shots are incredible on full he 1080p, decent tv's when showing off or viewing the pics and they come out great on 8x10 shots because I got some done recently.
You won't be too disappointed unless you are trying to zoom.
The quality of the pics are normal viewing is in my humble opinion better than s3 or s4 and in low light the s3 and s4 even the s5 cannot compete.
Try it, get it online, send it back if it doesn't stand up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unless you have used one in real life (which by this comment I can't see how) but my S4 camera is better than my M8, so I can't imagine the S5. The S4 is not that bad in low light. And if you use a flash the pics are very passable. Again better than my M8 in real world usage...not reviewer and photo buff critics..Not to say I don't like my M8, just, to me, this is very overloaded option and a person would be disappointed making a decision on a camera based on this description of the M8. I'm hoping for some firmware fix that will adjust camera quality, especially in sunlight.
bitwiser said:
Unless you have used one in real life (which by this comment I can't see how) but my S4 camera is better than my M8, so I can't imagine the S5. The S4 is not that bad in low light. And if you use a flash the pics are very passable. Again better than my M8 in real world usage...not reviewer and photo buff critics..Not to say I don't like my M8, just, to me, this is very overloaded option and a person would be disappointed making a decision on a camera based on this description of the M8. I'm hoping for some firmware fix that will adjust camera quality, especially in sunlight.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can easily prove his statements wrong, I have comparison images I took last year between the M7 and S4 which showcase the difference in outdoor capability.
Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk
Also to add, the new "Google camera" in Playstore that has had the recent update is a pretty good camera to either bee a companion or replacement. i'm usually taking a zillion photos, well, say 15-25GB a month of photos I noticed in the past with my One X and LG G2 over the past couple of years (2 kids, 2 + 4 year old, I have like 5-10 photos of my childhood, I want the kids to savoir the joys of technology so most of their great moments are recorded, plus day to day stuff. That is what we and they are ultimately going to visually remember their young + older life. Might as well have more than less! Delete is easy, "recover from zero" is a tad harder
But I digress basically I'm just adding, even though I've had limited use of my camera relative since Google Camera latest *big* update happened, it looks the business. This coming from someone who usually has 7 or 8 camera apps installed to get the best picture depending on the situation, experience shows me the best app as needed
Better camera unlocked, Holo Camera, Procapture, LGcamera were my most used camera apps on the old phone(s), now it seems Google Camera might take the best pics for any situation (mostly). Tim e to stop blabbering, 2 hours sleep again in 48 hours and 14 hours the past 7 days makes me post 'the stupid'
---------- Post added at 10:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:40 PM ----------
msavic6 said:
I can easily prove his statements wrong, I have comparison images I took last year between the M7 and S4 which showcase the difference in outdoor capability.
Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk
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Don't forget "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" also holds, while the technicality of various pictures can be seen/known, some people still prefer the technically inferior photo for their own taste. I worked in a tattoo shop for 2 years and saw _a lot_ of pictures, edited/modified/turned upside down while some tattoos we saw on customers or friends of customers, looked "crap" to my hopefully objective eye, they thought they looked awesome (Like badly inked in tattoos with 'stupid' pictures or photo realism that doesn't look like 'real life'.
It's very hard for some people to say a winner/better camera on any particular photo(s) to align with a review they're reading.
We like what we like Be happy with it and try not to impress someone we really care to impress ultimately. It'll make yourself have less 'bad moments' of not being able to impress aforementioned people we really don't care to impress but do. Impress yourself = win ! heh
waz675 said:
Also to add, the new "Google camera" in Playstore that has had the recent update is a pretty good camera to either bee a companion or replacement. i'm usually taking a zillion photos, well, say 15-25GB a month of photos I noticed in the past with my One X and LG G2 over the past couple of years (2 kids, 2 + 4 year old, I have like 5-10 photos of my childhood, I want the kids to savoir the joys of technology so most of their great moments are recorded, plus day to day stuff. That is what we and they are ultimately going to visually remember their young + older life. Might as well have more than less! Delete is easy, "recover from zero" is a tad harder
But I digress basically I'm just adding, even though I've had limited use of my camera relative since Google Camera latest *big* update happened, it looks the business. This coming from someone who usually has 7 or 8 camera apps installed to get the best picture depending on the situation, experience shows me the best app as needed
Better camera unlocked, Holo Camera, Procapture, LGcamera were my most used camera apps on the old phone(s), now it seems Google Camera might take the best pics for any situation (mostly). Tim e to stop blabbering, 2 hours sleep again in 48 hours and 14 hours the past 7 days makes me post 'the stupid'
---------- Post added at 10:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:40 PM ----------
Don't forget "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" also holds, while the technicality of various pictures can be seen/known, some people still prefer the technically inferior photo for their own taste. I worked in a tattoo shop for 2 years and saw _a lot_ of pictures, edited/modified/turned upside down while some tattoos we saw on customers or friends of customers, looked "crap" to my hopefully objective eye, they thought they looked awesome (Like badly inked in tattoos with 'stupid' pictures or photo realism that doesn't look like 'real life'.
It's very hard for some people to say a winner/better camera on any particular photo(s) to align with a review they're reading.
We like what we like Be happy with it and try not to impress someone we really care to impress ultimately. It'll make yourself have less 'bad moments' of not being able to impress aforementioned people we really don't care to impress but do. Impress yourself = win ! heh
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you and the rest of you all for replying and helping me.
As I said, I don't need anything that spectacular, just good enough for what I want to do. I'm certainly no expert photographer, so I don't need an amazing camera like the Z2 or the GS5. I don't socially network, so the M8's aim of having a camera suited to share photos on Facebook is of no value to me. My situation would be me playing around with my 2 year-old son, he’s screwing around acting like a goofball, laughing, dancing, and I snap a picture at just the right moment and I want to get a 8x10 made, frame it, and give it to the Mrs. for Mothers’ Day. Currently, my S3 takes good enough photos to be able to do that – resolution and overall picture quality. Would the M8 be able to do that as well as my S3? Granted, I understand that lighting has to be right and he can’t be moving too fast or it’ll be blurry and all that stuff. I don’t want a camera that’s worse than my S3, but I don’t need a camera that can perform rocket surgery either.
Rocket surgery?!?
As has been said, it's horses for courses. If you're constantly taking pictures outdoors of buildings / landscapes, then don't buy the M8 for this purpose, there are better camera phones for it.
I've found the M7 and the M8 to be fantastic at one thing in particular, photographing kids. I have a Lumia 1020 and an M8 and I frequently choose the M8 over the 1020 because of the camera's sheer speed, and Zoe, which is fantastic for kids. (I have a 3y/o and soon to be 5y/o that NEVER stay still!).
Add to this the compilation videos HTC Makes with Zoe, which you can edit and the value proposition from HTC is very strong, IF you have kids!
I haven't tried the S5 yet, but the HTC is fast BECAUSE it "only" shoots 4mp stills, so it's a trade-off.
I get around this trade off by carrying two phones
So after using the G3 for about a week, I picked up an S5 also to compare it to. My G3 will be replacing my HTC One M8.
Performance initially was disappointing, seemed to microstutter everywhere which gives a perception of a laggy device. At first I was very upset but after putting all 3 devices side by side and running and opening apps ect., the G3 is just as quick, if not quicker then the S5 and M8 when opening and switching apps, the key difference here are in the animations.
The S5 and M8 are very consistent with smooth app opening, closing and switching animations. Always seems to run fluid 90-100 percent of the time, the G3 struggles to render them smoothly consistently. The animation stutters, stutters, then closes and vise versa when it opens on many occasions. Drove me insane! In-app performance are pretty much identical between the 3 with scrolling a tiny bit smoother on the S5 and M8.
Screen quality, I would have to give the win to the HTC M8 out of the box, because of the weird over sharpening high contrast setting LG decided to use, text on the G3 looks lower resolution than the HTC as a direct result. Colors on the G3 also looks a little washed out compared to the M8 and S5 out of the box, BUT...you can change the contrast ratio on the G3 in the accessibility menu and make the colors pop to your hearts desire. Very nice.. M8 also has better black levels than G3.
Don't get me started with the S5's screen, I can't believe one report actually gave it the "best display ever tested" title. Looks like garbage compared to the G3 and M8. No matter what setting I chose, adapt display, professional, cinema ect, it was way over saturated to the point where the colors look almost neon like. Everything looks lower resolution also, I blame TouchJizz mostly because once you switch to a different launcher like Nova, the icons look sharper but still not on par with the M8 or G3. The S5's display looks "Okay" once you crank the brightness past 75 percent, anything under that and the screen just looks terrible. Maybe my eyes have gotten accustomed to IPS LCD, I can't see myself going back to AMOLED. If this is the best that AMOLED can offer at the moment.. NO THANKS!
Camera, lets make this simple. The S5 takes the best pictures overall. It also records the best video with options for full 60fps in 1080p. G3 is a close second but the colors just doesn't seem to look as nice as the S5's, clarity and details are similar but the S5 exposes the picture better. HDR is also better on the S5. M8 takes very nice close up and macro shots but sucks big time when you try and take a scenery shot I really haven't tried much night time photography so I can't comment on that.
Battery life, S5 and G3 seems to be neck and neck lasting my entire work day with heavy use, the M8 trails behind and needs to be plugged in for my drive home.
Design and in hand usage. This is very subjective, I find the S5 the most comfortable to hold but it's also the most godawful looking. There's no denying it, the S5 is one ugly phone compared to the other two. Looks and feels terribly cheap, huge bezels giving the phone a very dated look. M8 looks great, build quality is nice but it's also very uncomfortable to use. It's slippery, the edges are sharp and it's just a pain (literally) to hold on to. It just doesn't give you a reassuring feel when using it especially over any hard surface. It also feels a lot heavier. The G3 is the perfect blend between the two, it looks beautiful, perfectly weighted, comfortable to hold, feels solid in the hand and has just enough "grip". Hands down I think it looks the best, just gorgeous.
Audio, as you guessed it the HTC One M8 tops it here, it sounds great with the Boom sound external speakers and with headphones plugged in. Bluetooth audio streaming also sounds very clean with the M8, the G3 matches the M8 in headphone audio output and bluetooth streaming quality but obviously gets smoked when it comes to external speaker quality. G3 still sounds very loud and pretty full for having only one rear firing mono speaker. The S5 is the worst performer here, headphone audio performance is just dismal compared to the other two even after playing with the built-in EQ. Bluetooth audio streaming on the S5 is also weak, audio tracks sound very degraded over bluetooth. Another weird issue I had with the S5 was it didn't play nicely with my Lexus Mark Levinson system, I had to crank the volume to twice the level to get the same output as the M8 and G3. (Yes, the bluetooth output volume was set to max on the S5) The S5's external speaker is also the tinniest, almost painful to listen to at higher volumes. It has piercing highs with no mids or lows. I guess when you make the phone IP67, sacrifices must be made.
Conclusion, as you can see all the phones have their pros and cons but overall I think we all made the right decision with the G3. I've been on a search for the "perfect" phone since I can remember, for me at the moment, the G3 is the closest one yet. I'm sure performance will improve with updates so I am excited for the G3's future. I'm also glad I gave it a second chance, I literally had it all boxed up with the return label slapped on it back to T-Mobile. Looks like it will be sticking with me for a little bit longer.
Woot
Here's my copy and paste from another site reviewing the same three phones. This may be a good thread for people to detail their experience with the three big players.
"Alright so I've had it a few days now and here's what I think of it. Out****ingstanding.
Hardware - The metal looking plastic back is actually pretty nice. I think it actually has some metal in it, it doesn't feel plastic and cheap in the hand like the GS5 does. It doesn't have the heft of the M8 but it's also not as slippery as the M8 either. It's just about right. It's removable so it's easy to throw a spare battery in your car or camera bag or pocket or whatever if you're going to be out all day. That being said, the battery life is surprisingly good given the resolution/size of the display. Which brings me to the display. It's also outstanding. The first G3 I got had a weird yellowish tint to the display, did a little research and it seems there's some inconsistency among the displays from manufacture, I took it back to T-Mobile and they swapped it out without any hassle. It's huge, it's bright, it's incredibly sharp. There really isn't much bad I can say about the display. The buttons on the back took a little getting used to, but after a day you're used to them and it's actually quite natural to use them. The camera is awesome, I think it's bright light capabilities are on par or better than the M8 and definitely better than the S5. Under lower light it's at least on par or slightly better than the S5 and ****s on the M8. The OIS and "frikkin laser" focus is awesome, makes it really easy to pull it out and snap a pic really quick without the fuss the other two give. Wireless charging is available with an appropriate back cover, but more on that later. The single rear speaker is similarly placed to the S5 but it's much louder and your hand doesn't muffle it in regular use. Clarity is much better than the S5 as well. The M8 destroys all comers in this area with it's front facing speakers.
Software - The LG overlay is actually quite nice. I think it's just as good as HTC's Sense and kicks Touchwhiz in the grundel. It's easy enough to disable most stock LG apps if you want to. There's a faint touch of lag to the OS, not as bad as Touchwhiz but just a hair worse than Sense. If you kick the animations down to 0.5x from 1x in developer options it goes away. There's a health app, the people on xda seem to like it a lot but I don't use it.
Daily use - This thing really shines. The size is marginally bigger than the others in one dimension or another, but the shape of the back cover makes it perfectly comfortable to use and it doesn't feel at all as big as it actually is. The M8 feels really skinny next to it and the S5 feels like a giant, rectangular brick. Easy to use one handed, especially with the rear buttons. The OIS of the camera is really quite good and it's probably the first Android phone I've used that I think has a camera comparable to the quality output from the iPhones under all scenarios. Battery life has been great, I can easily get through a whole 12 hour shift at work and have plenty of battery to spare and I use the phone quite heavily and have music playing probably 10 of those 12 hours.
Signal strength - So I originally got the AT&T version before realizing those ****s disabled Qi charging in favor of PMA so I actually have some experience with the d850 (ATT) and d851 (TMo). The modems are the same between the two, the only hardware difference between the two devices I believe is AT&T's hardware removal of Qi. Both phones were on the same rev and they picked up signal the same as the S5 and a little worse than the M8 on AT&T. I have all Qi stuff so I said **** it and switched to TMo and have been quite pleasantly surprised. Their service in my area is great (better than AT&T coverage was) and the calls/sms/mms over WiFi is actually awesome, especially at work as most of the hospital is well insulated from outside communication. I also have unlimited everything for about $40/mo less than I was paying for 4gb at AT&T.
Advanced nerdy stuff (root) - If you root the phone, which is available for all variants and most with a one click utility, then the thing outshines the other 2 on all fronts. There's a mod for camera quality that kicks the image quality above the other 2 under all lighting conditions and increases the video recording quality to 1080p/60 and increases the bitrate of the 4k recording. There's a tweakbox that lets you customize the LG overlay to your personal taste and with a couple minor tweaks it is fastest experience of the 3. You can tinker with the volume of the speaker and the volume increments which is needed (30 vs stock 15 options). Then of course you can use Titanium Backup to freeze/uninstall all the carrier bloat. Xposed Framework of course brings hundreds of mods for just about anything you'd want to do.
Overall - Out of the box within confinements of not being rooted 9/10
----------- After root 10/10"
I agree with most of what you said, except I think the S5 has a better screen overall. I came from a Note 2, so I am used to the saturated colors. But regardless of your preference of saturated vs natural colors, I think most people would agree that the S5 has better brightness and viewing angles. I also think text on the G3 is oversharpened/overprocessed.
I think LG got the "feel" of the G3 just right. The S5 is a freaking brick and looks like it was beaten with an ugly stick. The M8 is disproportionately tall, and also heavy & slippery.
As far as sound, the G3 falls in between. The S5 speaker is anemic. The M8 blows everything else out of the water. I always listen to music via headphones or my car system. But if you absolutely *must* listen to audio via speakerphone, then the M8 has no equal. I must admit, sharing videos with friends is a much more pleasant experience on the M8. The G3 speaker does a respectable job, but you still have to cup your hand around the back to hear anything (at least at my age).
Despite its flaws (which are very minor), I think the G3 is the phone to beat this year. The Note 4 will no doubt offer some serious competition, but I think the Note line targets a different demographic. People that don't want or need the Note's special features will probably find the G3 to be an almost perfect compromise of size, features and performance.
Sent from my LG-D851 using Tapatalk
Dan37tz said:
Camera, lets make this simple. The S5 takes the best pictures overall.
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Click to collapse
I don't have my G3 yet, but based on images I've seen online, I, ever so slightly, prefer the G3's photos as it seems to get slightly better detail. What I mean is that, at least from what I'm seeing, it looks like the S5 is trying to over-sharpen details in software instead of just using what is available through the sensor. For instance, outlines of leaves in front of the bright sky shows a tiny bit extra outlining to me.
Oddly enough, this shouldn't be the case since the S5 has a slightly larger sensor, more megapixels and a slightly wider aperture @ f/2.2. Perhaps that new isocell sensor isn't all it's cracked up to be or maybe they just haven't fine tuned the software for it. However, with the G3 you also get dual flash, which is a feature that might come in handy for macro shots, and there is that laser focus thingy the G3 has. So, I dunno, I was leaning towards the S5 myself, but after seeing test photos and reading reviews about all the other aspects of the phone itself I went with the G3.
Perhaps completely manual shooting with the S5 would render better results than the G3.
In the end though, I just wanted something that could compete with my old T-mobile 4G Slide. My Google Nexus 4 certainly didn't and I'm glad it's paid off and done with.
Dan37tz said:
Camera, lets make this simple. The S5 takes the best pictures overall.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have to disagree there, I think the G3 pictures are better. I took some pics of my car today and was actually quite impressed with how they came out compared to similar shots at the same place and same time of day and same subject matter. I do agree the HDR shots from the S5 are better, but who uses that anyway
boosting1bar said:
Have to disagree there, I think the G3 pictures are better. I took some pics of my car today and was actually quite impressed with how they came out compared to similar shots at the same place and same time of day and same subject matter. I do agree the HDR shots from the S5 are better, but who uses that anyway
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wonder if it is due to the lens itself?
Perhaps the G3 is using a better lens (Sony?) and it is of better quality than what Samsung is using on the S5. There is actually a list of people with cracked and broken S5 lenses, so I'm guessing the glass they are using isn't very good.
From what I've seen, the M8 appears to take cleaner night shots, at least with macro and no flash, However; I do not know how low the ISO settings will go with it. I think the G3 can do ISO 50, so if the image stabilization is as good as LG claims and the focus laser is really fast it should end up taking pretty good night shots in manual mode.
In the end I think all three are good cameras for a cell phone, I just feel like the G3 has more options for covering different kinds of shooting. Then again, I haven't used any of these phones personally yet.:silly:
I suspect with the XPOSED module Viper4Android, you can tweak the sound on the G3 to be on par with boomsound or even better.
Also, have you taken many pictures in low light? It's my understanding that the g3 has a much better camera for low light than the s5. It's not as good in direct sunlight, but better everywhere else making it a better "overall" camera. I don't have an s5 to compare the G3 to, so I'm just going off what I've read. It would be nice to hear from someone that has both.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
I must not be getting the same bluetooth results as you...
This is the worst I've heard in the past few years, as far as bluetooth media pairing goes..
it sounds like the bit rate of a 320 mp3 goes down to 96 or 128.
I'm quite concerned about this...
I'm pairing up to a VW/Dynaudio setup.
Iphone, GS4, lumia 925...all sound 10x better.
did you do any bluetooth tweaks?
sic0048 said:
I suspect with the XPOSED module Viper4Android, you can tweak the sound on the G3 to be on par with boomsound or even better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The M7/M8 have front facing stereo speakers. The G3 has one small speaker on the back, facing away from the user. Sorry, but no amount of mods will make the G3 external speaker sound like the M7/M8.
Sent from my LG-D851 using Tapatalk
Anyone who decided to return their s7 and go for the HTC 10, is there anything you miss from your s7?
Thanks!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/htc-10/help/planning-to-switch-s7-edge-t3371639
I really want the HTC 10 but their shoddy release so far is making me very impatient. I may be forced into an S7, sadly.
The only thing I miss is the wireless charging.
I have both phones currently.
What I've noticed so far that I miss about the s7: it's narrower. With the leather case on it, it's only 20 thousandths of an inch thicker than the htc10 without a case. The case selection for the s7 is so much better. I'm sure it's more than cases, but that was the issue I encountered the most. The screen auto brightness adjusted faster on the s7. The s7 being waterproof... I actually have this cross my mind every day or two, but I haven't been in a situation yet where it would have mattered.
For the HTC, the radio is better. I'm on Verizon, specifically the CDMA radio has better reception for longer. The speakers are better for sure. I'm getting 30 to 45 minutes better battery life on average. It's nice not theming everything black by necessity. The home button being capacitive is so nice compared to the s7. Fluid Android is fluid.
Both phones are Verizon.
Sent from my HTC6545LVW using XDA-Developers mobile app
Forgot the waterproof thing. Would be nice to have, but in 20 years I've never lost a phone due to water damage so not a huge loss. Screen on the S7 is brighter outdoors.
I miss the multi window on most Samsung's
I miss the battery life my exynos s7 edge provided. However I'm still making it the entire day with my HTC so it's not a big deal
Sent from my HTC 10 using Tapatalk
Thanks for the replies!
Came from a T-Mo S7 Edge to a T-Mo HTC 10.
Right off the bat, the most glaring advantage that I missed from the S7 Edge was the screen. The colors just pop on that gorgeous amoled. In the days since I've bought my HTC 10 I've grown to like the cooler color temp on the LCD but I'd trade it for those oversaturated colors in a heartbeat lol.
Battery life has been a wash for the most part between both devices with the S7 Edge pulling ahead slightly (3600 mah battery so its to be expected).
Performance wise -- Sense blows Touchwiz out of the water. Its gotten better with each iteration of Touchwiz but micro-lag and even sustained lag rear their ugly heads when navigating through Samsung's flavor of Android. The HTC 10 handles everything with ease and never slows down. S7E does as well for the most part, but the lag is unavoidable in some instances. All of this being said, I did find the S7E to run much cooler than my HTC 10.
Finally, if you plan on making any modifications or if you're somebody who is into tinkering with your Android devices, avoid the S7/S7E at all costs. The HTC 10 is the best device for this due to dev friendly community and HTC's willingness to allow you to modify their devices. The HTC 10 has an unlockable bootloader and some day has a very good chance of seeing many competent AOSP roms. AOSP on the S7/S7E is currently a pipe dream. Even custom roms are a no go at this point and Samsung's knox/bootloader security only becomes more of a pain in the ass for devs with each iteration. It really has taken a toll on what used to be a thriving community for the Samsung devices.
All in all, I am extremely satisfied with switching from the S7E to the HTC 10 for what its worth.
I actually went through the S7, HTC 10 and landed on the S7 Edge. Here's my opinion for what it's worth:
I really thought this would be the perfect HTC phone, and I actually really wanted it to be the one since I think the company has had great ideas in the past that have been trampled by poor execution. My first Android phone was the HTC One M7, and aside from the so-so camera, it was one of my favorite phones ever. BoomSound, Sense, and the phone's overall look were something totally new and refreshing. After reading the reviews of the M8's camera, I decided to pass and went back to Apple for a year. When the M9 came out, I jumped on it, and quickly jumped off after I had a few days to learn all about the Snapdragon 810 and its thermal issues. I picked up an LG G4 next, which was serviceable, but nothing special. I always had my eye on HTC though waiting for the 10.
Once it came out, I made sure to read all the reviews that I could, crossing my fingers that HTC would hit the mark. After I saw that the camera was finally up to snuff, I took the plunge and bought it. $699 is a steep price for a phone, but I managed to catch the $100 discount offer and got it for $599 before tax, which was great. I also got it in 2 days, which was nice considering I heard that some people here on XDA were having ordering problems.
After using the phone for a few days, and comparing it side-by-side to the S7, I started to make a mental list of pros and cons
PROS
- Screen: HTC has always had good screens on their flagships, and the 10 is no different. Bright and vibrant colors with great viewing angles. Obviously they're not as saturated as Samsung's AMOLEDs, but you can set the LCD display to vivid mode to approximate it, or sRGB mode for nice accurate colors
- Sound Quality: While the external speakers aren't as good as the original BoomSound, they're more than capable and produce an interesting sound. The BoomSound equalizer settings also makes your music sound great with headphones. I didn't get to test out HTC's own earbuds though since they didn't come with the US version
- Build Quality: The phone feels as solid as ever, but that's also a con that you'll see below
- Battery Life: I never had any trouble getting through a whole day of texting, web browsing, light gaming and listening to music
- Camera: While it might not be able to quite pass Samsung, it gives them a good fight. Easily the one of the top cameras on the market behind the Galaxy Brothers, and HTCs best camera ever. The selfie cam is great too, and it's actually better than what Samsung has to offer on it's S7 models. My only little gripe with the rear camera is that the laser autofocus can be a little spastic, going in and out of focus when you activate it, but I feel like another software update can take care of that
- Fingerprint Scanner: One of my favorite features. It was really quick to read my fingerprint, and since it's a a capacative sensor instead of a physical button, you don't have to press it down to activate the display and scanner. Just put your finger on it and it works
CONS
- Sense: I loved the previous versions of Sense, but I think HTC toned this one down a little too much. I appreciate the fact that there aren't any duplicate apps like there are on most devices, but I feel like taking out the HTC Gallery and Music apps was a mistake. Visually, this version is a mix of classic Sense and stock Android, which doesn't always combine well. Some of Sense's elements (like the weather clock) are starting to look a little dated compared to the competition too, so the contrast between MM and Sense is a little jarring on some menus. I also don't understand why HTC kept the 4x4 homescreen now that the phone has a 5.2" display. With so much real estate to work with, the gaps between apps are pretty big, and I feel like there should be a setting to go to 5x5 since most other OEMs include that. The Quick Settings menu also can't be modified like it could be in older Sense versions and competitor UIs, and you have to either double pull to extend it, or swipe down with two fingers. If I wanted a Nexus, I'd have bought one
- Build Quality: As I mentioned above, the phone feels really solid, almost to the point of being heavy. It weighs 6 grams more than my old G4, which was mostly plastic, and you can feel it. It's very noticeable when it's in your pocket, and makes a bit of a thud when you put it down on a table. Even adding a thin TPU case to it also increases the weight to the point where I felt uncomfortable handling it one-handed
- Screen-Body Radio: My LG G4 had a 5.5 inch display and was 148.9 mm tall. The HTC 10 has a 5.2" display and is 145.9 mm tall. So the phones are relatively the same size and the 10 has a noticeably smaller screen.
- FM Radio: HTC has included FM radio support from the M7 - M9, and I was really surprised that it didn't continue that trend with the 10. Carriers like T-Mobile & AT&T are requesting that OEMs enable their device's FM chips, and T-Mo just got Samsung to flip the switch on the S7's radio, so I don't understand why HTC didn't just keep doing what they were already doing.
- Headphone Jack: Most phones had their headphone jack at the top up until a few years ago. Putting it at the bottom made it easier to just slip the phone in your pocket without tangling the headphone cord. With the advent of fingerprint scanners, it made even more sense, since you could grab the phone and unlock it before you even got it out into the open. Having the jack back up at the top made me have to think every time I pulled it out and have to flip it back around.
- Notification LED: Back when I had the M7, I was OK with having a tiny notification LED embedded in the speaker grid that only flashed 2 colors, even though other OEMs already had multicolor LEDs that could be programmed using their own software or apps like Lightwave. Three years later, the only thing HTC has changed is that the LED is just below the speaker. It still only blinks amber or green, so there's almost no opportunity to customize
I really wanted to like this phone, and I tried very hard to convince myself that it was good enough, but at the end of the day I was disappointed that HTC spent the last year getting so many things right like the camera and the phone's overall look, and blew it on some other areas that would have been really easy wins. Granted, nothing that I listed above is a horrible flaw, and I know that everyone has their own list of requirements for their ideal device, but I felt like I was making too many compromises with the 10. I know that I could always load up a ROM or download a new launcher, but it would only solve a few of my cons.
Again, these are my personal opinions, and my thought process is that if I'm going to spend that much on a flagship device that I want to keep for 2 years, I need to feel like I'm getting what I paid for. Unfortunately the 10 didn't quite hit that mark. It's not a bad phone by any stretch, and it may be the one for you. I decided to return my S7 and the HTC, and went with the S7 Edge, which rocks a 5.5" screen, 3600 mAh battery, and is only 5 mm taller than the 10. It's also 4 grams lighter and 1.3 mm thinner, and feels a lot better in my hand even with a case. It costs about $70 more the 10 at full retail, but I feel like you get a lot more for your money.
Maybe the water resistance feature, otherwise, I didn't care for anything else. The 10 seems solid, doesn't lag as much as the samsung. I am unlocked and rooted , so it is something I am grateful for after rocking the s7 for only 1 months.
I am getting better battery performance with the HTC 10 compared to what I got with the s7.
Personally nothing is missed I had the s7, now it's my wife's lol
Love this HTC 10
Got the s7e one week to test, before i got my preordered htc 10. Screen(manufacter;sharp) is much better and much more natural than the S7 "comic style" display no matter which calibration i used. Also there are "pentile micro dots" visible while zooming in a white page on the amoled of the s7.
UI: Much smoother, and the stockish design of the ui is perfect for me as i came from a thc m7 gpe. Also less bloatware on the 10.
Cons: thermal throttling seems to be more a problem of the 10 as on the s7e exynos. Hope custom kernel or software update will change the clocking, as it throttles the CPU at 38degrees celsius to 1,36 max clock at the moment.
S7e cam is slightly better in my opinion.
Which fingerprint sensor do you guys think is better?
I had a s7e, I find the fingerprint sensor on the 10 better. I haven't really had too much throttling so far either.
Sent from my HTC 10 using XDA-Developers mobile app
I've heard in quite a few reviews that the HTC 10 sensor is superior to the S7/S7 Edge.
Alot of S7/S7 Edge reviews describe the sensor as hit or miss.
Sammae7 said:
I've heard in quite a few reviews that the HTC 10 sensor is superior to the S7/S7 Edge.
Alot of S7/S7 Edge reviews describe the sensor as hit or miss.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, I see.
Just to be clear, I own neither but have played with both in store and I do extensive research before purchase.
Based on the above, I do much prefer the HTC 10.
xperia x root said:
Got the s7e one week to test, before i got my preordered htc 10. Screen(manufacter;sharp) is much better and much more natural than the S7 "comic style" display no matter which calibration i used. Also there are "pentile micro dots" visible while zooming in a white page on the amoled of the s7.
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You have to be kidding. If you set any Samsung phone to "Basic," it is the most color accurate display on a smartphone, period. There is no "comic-ness" to it. It is a true reproduction of sRGB which actually looks extremely dull and boring, but it's accurate. The 10 is an LCD which is vastly inferior to OLED panels in phones. Worse viewing angles, and subjectively terrible contrast since 1700~:1 is garbage compared to infinite contrast.
I find it hard to believe you can see "micro dots" on a 500+ PPI screen. I can make out the edges of pixels on my 6P due to lack of antialiasing, but I haven't tried to on the S7E. Either way the 6P had to be up in my face, and I had to look hard to see it. But there were certainly no visible dots.
Lifehags said:
Which fingerprint sensor do you guys think is better?
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The 10's fingerprint sensor pad is too small in my opinion, but it is still better than the S7/E. Reason being it's capacitive, and a hair faster. Samsung are idiots for continuing to use a physical home button, and one you have to press to unlock the phone. But the accuracy rate of the S7/E is a lot better than it ever used to be - especially if you program the same finger twice (something I do on every device anyway). It may tell you the finger is already programmed, but just do the initial scan really far back from the pad of your finger, then it will let you scan wherever you want to again.
Have my exynos s7 edge on sale while I got this one to use. The HTC 10 is a great phone but in my opinion, not better than the s7 edge. What I miss mainly is the screen. I love LCD but the AMOLED display on the s7 edge is quite Good. Don't like the over saturation but got used to it. It's a darn good display. Sadly my HTC 10 display has a pink tint to it and the bottom of the phone has a strong pink tint to it (likely not a sharp panel from the few comments I've seen here and there). So far, battery life has not been great. My s7 was one of those that went long on battery. I can Un plug at 7 am and plug back in at midnight with 7 hours screen on time. With the same usage on my HTC, I'd be charging only @ 6pm with less screen on time. Also the camera is descent but doesn't focus like the s7 edge does @ night and ui wise, I've spent the phone micro stutter much more than my edge but not to the annoying degree. That's about it. What I live about this phone...the damn DAC. Holy crap it's good. Even listening to spotify feels like I'm listening to something almost magical lol.
Small things. GPS takes a while to lock and wifi module isn't as good as the exynos. I have 175mbps connection. I get the full thing in my room with both phones. In my restroom, 20 feet away from my room, my HTC only pulls 50mbps while the galaxy pulls 125mbps. Also, I got wifi in my car while parked in the street in front of my house. With the HTC, wifi disconnects in the exact same spot.
Sent from my HTC 10 using Tapatalk
Anyone done this ?
Been offered a swap for my 6p,
I'm relatively happy with the 6p apart from the crappy battery and most Devs moving onto the pixel.
How good is the camera in comparison and video?
nope performance is not faster than 6P.
camera cant beat 6p.
keaheng said:
nope performance is not faster than 6P.
camera cant beat 6p.
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Lol
If you are used to Nexus devices better switch to Pixel.
Tbh Ive used a lot of phones and the pictures and videos Ive made with them in the last years are all good.
If you want outstanding picture or video quality you have to use a DSLR or Video Camera.
But I would send that ugly brick called 6p to hell and use anything but it.
I'm gonna copy my experience I wrote this morning from another thread:
- Design and Build Quality:
The design is better on the HTC 10. It feels great in your hands, and it's a really solid little tank, seeming to be way more robust than the 6P. The 6P was well built, but I wouldn't say it was top notch (gaps between display glass and frame, camera visor, etc.) - Whereas I would consider the HTC 10 to be one of the best built phones I ever held in my hands. Really. Worth to note are the fantastic buttons and their Layout, which wasn't great on the 6P. Also, the size is simply perfect for my hands. I don't miss the size of the 6P, the HTC feels especially better in one hand and never feels too small to me. By the way:
<- This is straight Nokia 3310 quality and it definitely feels like that.
- Display:
Where I was the most sceptical about was the Display. I sweared to me to never buy a phone without an AMOLED display again, since the black levels on my last iPhone 6 and f.e. one of my older HTC M7 were straight horrible. Light grey, to be precise. And I just can't stand that. I gotta say, that I'm still insanely surprised about the HTC 10s display. You would almost think that it has actually an AMOLED display since the colors pop and shine. It's not as unnatural as the 6Ps display, I would say it's overall more appealing than the AMOLED one (what I didn't expect at all). Also the black levels: in darker rooms, they seem to be dark grey, which is fantastic. You won't notice the not-black-to-black-bezel until you really focus on it.
- Sound Quality:
The 6P was (especially with some EX tweaking) way, way louder while the HTC 10 is clearer and sounds more 'full' and also warmer, especially in near field, f.e. while laying in bed and watching videos our listening to music. But when you want to fill a bigger room or want to 'party' outside, you definitely need some Bluetooth speakers - it was possible with the 6Ps volume, tho.
- Camera:
The app is without a doubt so much better than the Google camera. The auto point and shoot mode isnt nearly as good as the 6Ps (I miss the Auto HDR mode in darker situations that made photos so much noiseless), but with at least some easy tweaking (EV), you get some great quality photos that CAN come out way better and more interesting than out of the 6Ps camera. Not to mention the fantastic manual mode... Oh boy! OIS on both cameras is a great thing, and the selfie camera also is a great to have thing, since it is really, really good.
- Battery life:
Yes, the battery life... I was surprised, but I can also assure you that it was and is - out of the box - so much better than the Nexus 6Ps. I still can't find out why, but the 6P gave me like ~3h SOT at max, even with some Kernel tweaking. With the HTC 10, I get like 4-5h at least, and I never had problems to get through 2 busy days. I am sure that their is some more potential, when you notice some people in the Battery Life Thread having more than 7h SOT. That was the biggest Wow factor and surprise to me.
- OS:
Hell, I don't miss stock Android. Not. A. Little. I would go even further and say that HTC did the best interpretation of Android with their Sense UI so far. It feels like stock Android in every way, but the feature set is so much better, you honestly need to experience it. Camera app, Display settings, Sound tweaking, Display gestures, Night light, some great HTC Widgets and Apps (which you won't even notice if you don't use them), etc. etc. It's just really well thought and implemented, and I gotta salute HTC for doing such a great job of adding features while maintaining the stock Android feeling. Did I mention the performance is also incredible and better (yes, better) than the 6Ps? It just feels more fluid and quick when you actually use it. In every situation. The 6P sadly had some let downs, not bad, but they occured sometimes. Maybe due to the SD810.
If you want to know anything else, just tell me.
All in all, it was definitely worth it. At least to me. I owned 3 Nexus devices so far: Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 5 and Nexus 6P. I don't regret it a single day. Considering the price of about 400€ for a HTC 10 and the disaster the Pixel actually is (Price, Design - Seriously, it looks like a fat plastic phone for 9 years olds), I can just recommend the same for you. If you want to mod, you can mod easily, but once again, I didn't even root the 10 and it still is an amazing phone, since it's truely feature rich. It has no true weaknesses, unlike the Nexus 6P. It feels way better and more safe in your hand, unlike the 6P. It's way more solid and simply a beauty.
You can't go wrong with it. But it really depends on what you actually want to do with and expect from your phone.
Oh, and switching over to the 10 is fine. Sense UI looks and feels like Android, even more, it feels like what (Stock) Android should really be. The tweaks and features HTC implemented are great. And again: if you want it like stock Android, you can have it like stock Android - just don't use the (hidden) HTC stuff. This might be the only thing you will regret tho. :d
Figured we probably needed a place to put everyone's first impressions.
I'll start with first, this thing is small and light! Coming from a V20 and a Nexus 6 before that, this thing is tiny. Last time I felt like I had a phone this size was the Galaxy Nexus. (Yeah, I know. That one was probably actually smaller than this but still, this thing feels that small in hand to me. I've been using nothing but phablets since that phone.) It feels closer in size to my work iPhone 6s than my V20. That's going to take some getting used to. It's in a case now but still feels small.
Still trying to get used to some app behaviors that seemed to have changed. For instance, Weather Channel app is having all kinds of issues. Shows as a sensitive notification on the lock screen vs my V20 where it isn't, because it isn't. The widget doesn't display information without being cut off. I still need to go log into all my apps and get them set up.
Camera. Haven't really taken any shots with it yet but I did dig through it. First, I'm not happy that it always opens in auto mode. The V20 would open in whatever mode you last had it in. I prefer manual mode and liked that I could just open it, make a quick adjustment to the settings and shoot. Now I have to dive into a menu to get to manual then make adjustments and shoot. It'll slow things down quite a bit. I am happy that Graphy can be shut off. Also, noise reduction can be shut off in manual. It was actually disabled by default. Going to do a lot of test shooting today.
Hoping to hit up the museum I used to work in and always test every camera I own there. Also hitting up an outdoor night event here as well as the jazz club. It's going to get one helluva workout today! Going to take my V20 and Nikon V3 along too. Not sure how much I'll use the V3 outside of the outdoor event. Not going to bother taking my DSLR. (I'm actually in the process of downsizing my photography to smaller cameras. DSLRs have gotten way too clean and clinical for my tastes.)
Nice! I can’t wait to see the pics it takes.
I played with this at Verizon yesterday, and I'm still on the fence. The front facing camera was HORRIBLE. I held my G5 next to it and took a selfie, and the G5 was so much better. The rear camera did seem to take awesome shots, but still slow to take and delay in swiping between front and back cameras, something I really thought they'd have a better handle on by now since I had the same issues in the G4 and G5. I loved it otherwise, I think it's a gorgeous phone, I like the looks a lot more than the Galaxy phones.
I went in wanting the phone, but two separate Verizon reps were adamant in saying I should stay away from LG, that they have nothing but problems, they only sold maybe 2 G6's, they have class action lawsuits against them, and they tell customers to go take a hike when asking for a new phone after having multiple of them die in a row from a known defect. Theyd rather keep sending you defective phones repeatedly under warranty. So idk. I'm reeeally torn between this and the S8+ which has very similar specs and is cheaper at this point, but I don't like having only one rear camera.
Initial results at the museum are looking pretty good. I'm impressed so far for the most part. As for selfie camera issues, I was disappointed at first until I figured out those stupid settings at the bottom of the screen. After you turn off the skin toning and lightning, the images are much better. Then they work well with post processing.
Have you had a chance to play w Bluetooth, GPS, Wifi/Data connection? My G4 had bad bluetooth disconnections and busted gps in the G5. Just curious how the different antennae have been working for you. Good battery life?
ryanpm40 said:
Have you had a chance to play w Bluetooth, GPS, Wifi/Data connection? My G4 had bad bluetooth disconnections and busted gps in the G5. Just curious how the different antennae have been working for you. Good battery life?
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Haven't played with GPS yet. I can't really speak to how well or not how well it works. I used wifi during set-up. It worked but my wifi is slower than my network connection and I regretted using it. Not a knock on the wifi of this phone, it's just that my carrier network is that much faster than my home wifi. Only BT I've done so far is to connect it to my car. That went much better and smoother than my V20. It took me many attempts over an hour and a half to get my V20 and car paired. The V30 paired the first time. The next test will be to see if I have to restart my phone after a few days to keep the connection from going wonky. (Which is a ritual with my V20 that occurred at least once a week.)
I got mine this past Friday. It is slippery to hold, you will def need a case to keep it from sliding out of your hand. I'm still not sure why designers can make insanely powerful devices but can't figure out that you actually need to hold on to it to use it. I'll probably get a DBrand skin or equiv when they are available. It is super light. Kinda feels flimsy it is so lightweight even though it is not. My last phone was a Nexus 6P, before that an HTC M9, before that an HTC M7. All three of those feel like tanks by comparison. I'm not sure yet if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
Camera is nice but uses a lot of noise reduction. It has endless options that will take some time getting used to. I'm not sure yet if it is as good as HTC's U11 which as an incredible camera IMO (my GF has a U11). Looks better than my Nexus 6p for sure though. Much faster too. I love the wide angle lens!
Audio from Headphone jack is insane. I'm using the BEATS headphones from my old HTC One, I can only imagine how good it would sound with high end headphones. Phone speaker is ehhh. Nowheres near as good as HTC or Google phones with front facing speakers. Or HTC U11 which seems to have crazy sound magically radiate into space.
As for speed, its as fast as any other 2017 phone I have tried, the hardware is all the same. The screen is amazing. I mean AMAZING! I can't really see a difference between 1080 and 1440 quality or speed wise. I thought at first there was but now think it is more of a placebo effect. I have been keeping it maxed mostly for the bragging rights of it being higher rez than Apple's silly Superduper mega retina display, what ever that means.
It is to early for me to tell if battery life makes a difference with resolution. I have read it is supposed to eat more power with the higher rez. It isn't as near bezelless as I thought it would be. It seems to be a marketing trend for company renders to show super edge to edge displays until you actually get it and there are good sized bezels. Not that I mind, it is just something I noticed. The screens are not any larger, the phone is just shrinking around it making the device seem small and the screen seem smaller than it is. My Nexus 6p dwarfs the V30 in the hand and the display just feels larger on the Nexus even though it is not. Kind of another odd placebo effect.
Speaking of battery, it seems to last well over a day of playing hard with it but is still to early to tell since I keep plugging it in to transfer files. After the newness wears off I think I will be able to get 2 days out of it.
The power button, or lack there of is great I think. Instead of a dedicated button, it is just the fingerprint scanner. You can click it, hold it to open restart options etc. Works great and is non intrusive by comparison to a dedicated button that I usually hit by accident all the time.
The UI is not terrible. It is fast and responsive. For the record I am a fanboy of Sense and Stock. LG's UI has a lot more options for customization over Stock but some things seem like they just changed from stock to say they did. Especially in the Settings menu where they feel extra pages of settings tabs is preferable than a simple list. The worst part is LG's apps that are mostly broken or limited.
Contacts doesn't work right and crashes sometimes when I try and edit a contact. You can not fully disable it. I'm using Google Contacts when it will let me.
Calendar is ok, about the same as Google Calendar. Again you can not fully disable it for some reason.
Camera app is good so far, or at least I like it.
Messaging app sux. It freezes sometimes and when it works you can't insert gifs. Again you can't disable it. I'm using Google's Messenger.
Keyboard is limited, I just use the Google Keyboard.
Gallery is simple and works for on device pix but doesn't allow cloud access. Since most of my pix are on GoogleDrive I just use Google Photos. And again you can't disable it.
Smart Cleaning is a cleaner app. The phone is so fast I can't see any difference after using it.
LG Health I haven't tried yet.
LG Smart World is just some LG app browsing thing. Haven't really played with it other than browsing themes.
So far I love the phone. Out of 2017 phones I have used the HTC U11 and Essential Phone I like the V30 best of those 3. My biggest complaint is I just wish you could at least disable the LG bloatware apps so they can't start up. Maybe there is a special way to do it aside from rooting the device and going that route.
Hope this helps anyone considering the V30
CHH2 said:
Figured we probably needed a place to put everyone's first impressions.
I'll start with first, this thing is small and light! Coming from a V20 and a Nexus 6 before that, this thing is tiny. Last time I felt like I had a phone this size was the Galaxy Nexus. (Yeah, I know. That one was probably actually smaller than this but still, this thing feels that small in hand to me. I've been using nothing but phablets since that phone.) It feels closer in size to my work iPhone 6s than my V20. That's going to take some getting used to. It's in a case now but still feels small.
Still trying to get used to some app behaviors that seemed to have changed. For instance, Weather Channel app is having all kinds of issues. Shows as a sensitive notification on the lock screen vs my V20 where it isn't, because it isn't. The widget doesn't display information without being cut off. I still need to go log into all my apps and get them set up.
Camera. Haven't really taken any shots with it yet but I did dig through it. First, I'm not happy that it always opens in auto mode. The V20 would open in whatever mode you last had it in. I prefer manual mode and liked that I could just open it, make a quick adjustment to the settings and shoot. Now I have to dive into a menu to get to manual then make adjustments and shoot. It'll slow things down quite a bit. I am happy that Graphy can be shut off. Also, noise reduction can be shut off in manual. It was actually disabled by default. Going to do a lot of test shooting today.
Hoping to hit up the museum I used to work in and always test every camera I own there. Also hitting up an outdoor night event here as well as the jazz club. It's going to get one helluva workout today! Going to take my V20 and Nikon V3 along too. Not sure how much I'll use the V3 outside of the outdoor event. Not going to bother taking my DSLR. (I'm actually in the process of downsizing my photography to smaller cameras. DSLRs have gotten way too clean and clinical for my tastes.)
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Deztroyah said:
My biggest complaint is I just wish you could at least disable the LG bloatware apps so they can't start up. Maybe there is a special way to do it aside from rooting the device and going that route.
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Yep. This method works on G6, so it should work on V30 also, be careful on what you disable, you could potentially brick the device.
BTW any display problems? And what variant did you buy?
Thanks! As for the variant, I have the AT&T 64gig one. There are a few AT&T apps, all can be disabled. I actually use a few of them. And no display problems that I have seen. I think the display is one of the best parts of the device.
Deztroyah said:
I got mine this past Friday...
Hope this helps anyone considering the V30
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Awesome overview :good: Although I already ordered v30 (black, 64gb) from South Korea, it was still nice to read, especially regarding the screen/size. I am not a fan of 18:9 in general since native support is still behind (cropped,zoomed videos), but I like what LG does - basically putting 18:9 screen in a more like 16:9 frame.. this makes it look much better than sausage-style s8/s8+/note8.
Here’s my V30+ first impressions. Will do a deep dive on the camera and audio soon.
https://gavinsgadgets.com/2018/01/0...adphone-jack-with-quad-dac-wireless-charging/
gavinfabl said:
Here’s my V30+ first impressions. Will do a deep dive on the camera and audio soon.
https://gavinsgadgets.com/2018/01/0...adphone-jack-with-quad-dac-wireless-charging/
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Interesting review. Where did you get your B&O branded V30+ in UK? I thought they only had the V30? Did you get it from Italy or elsewhere?
I watched your full YouTube review and I agree people are selling the camera on this phone short. Interesting that all your friends chose the LG V30+ pictures over the Pixel 2 XL pictures. That's one reason I'm not really going to mess with the Pixel camera port.
ChazzMatt said:
Interesting review. Where did you get your B&O branded V30+ in UK? I thought they only had the V30? Did you get it from Italy or elsewhere?
I watched your full YouTube review and I agree people are selling the camera on this phone short. Interesting that all your friends chose the LG V30+ pictures over the Pixel 2 XL pictures. That's one reason I'm not really going to mess with the Pixel camera port.
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Thanks. You’re right. UK only gets standard V30. Wondamobile supplied the V30+. The Pixel 2 will take better pics , but like everything it depends on the scene. I was out this morning with my Canon & V30+ and will get a post up next week with the results.
Ok. Audio review now done on the LG V30 covering speaker, Bluetooth, wired and type c. Over a dozen headphones used too.
https://gavinsgadgets.com/2018/01/1...-wired-over-12-different-headphones-compared/
I'm on my second Sprint lg v30 plus. Had to exchange the first one due to digitizer issues. On one side of the screen. It only responded to taps. My luck I guess.. Overall I like the device. It's light, fast and has a nice design. The camera sucks tho compared to my s8+ especially in low light. Not a bad camera but no where near the pixel 2 or Samsung phones. Was going to get the note 8 but I doubt that will ever get twrp. Hopefully this device gets root and twrp
Ok full review is finished now. Includes a camera showcase and 32 reasons why it's the best phone in the world, with the 32nd reason the best one.
https://gavinsgadgets.com/2018/01/28/lg-v30-review-camera-showcase-this-is-the-best-phone-in-2018/