Last week I purchased the Verizon M8. My contract had been up for a month or so, and I had already decided on the M8 over the GS5 and the G3, but I was waiting for the Moto X and iPhone reveals to make my final choice. This is a bit long, but I wanted to write it all out for the help it may provide others, as well as to provide me a chance to second guess my choice before my return window is up.
My previous phone was the Galaxy S3. It had been a solid performer for two years, but started showing signs that a replacement would be needed. The headphone jack was starting to fail, and the accelerometer would go nuts ever 5 seconds or so, making navigation a frustrating experience. (the map would spin around every few seconds even if the phone was sitting still on a table)
I had decided against the GS5 almost solely due to Touchwiz. While I wasn't thrilled with the build/material quality of the GS5, it wasn't a deal breaker. But over the two years with my Galaxy S3, Touchwiz went in a direction I didn't like. It seemed to get heavier and heavier, constantly adding stuff that I had no intention of using. Even though I use Nova Launcher, Touchwiz was still pushing it's disagreeable design elements on me.
The LG G3 was a strong contender, but I felt the incredible screen resolution, while definitely beautiful to gaze at, was simply a waste of both battery life and CPU power. The 720 resolution of my Galaxy S3 was perfectly adequate for me. If the G3 had a 1080 screen, it probably would've made my choice a lot harder. LG's UI skinning wasn't as obnoxious as Samsung's, but it wasn't great either.
There was a lot to like about the Moto X. Some of the features were lost on me, like voice recognition and IR gestures, but I liked the Active Display from the previous Motorola phones. Mostly stock Android was a definite plus, and the build/material quality looked top notch. The front facing speaker was something I decided would be important to me sometime last year when I realized how silly it was that the screen and the speaker on my GS3 pointed opposite directions. All in all, the Moto X had much of what I wanted, but it had 2 deficiencies for me. The first battery tests showed that it didn't seem to last as long as it's peers, and it was lacking an SD card slot.
The SD card slot isn't important to a lot of people, but it is for me. It's not so much the extra storage space, though that's definitely a bonus. It's the ability to easily remove my pictures/data from the phone, even if the phone is dead. I've never needed to remove pictures/data from a dead phone, but I've also never had a hard drive crash that required a restore from backup, yet I still back up my computer. I don't trust or rely on services like Dropbox or Google Drive. I've always viewed uploading data to "cloud" services as making that data publicly available, since once it's out of my control, it's out of my control.
I was a little sad the Moto X didn't have an SD card slot, especially since the Moto G did. If it did, I would've waited to see the Moto X in person before deciding which phone to purchase.
I then waited for the iPhone to be announced, but it would've taken a lot for me to switch to the Apple ecosystem. I regularly deal with iPhones for work, and I can see their allure, but all things being equal, I prefer Android.
So I bought the HTC One M8. My biggest gripe so far was noticed right away. Coming from the GS3, and the HTC Incredible before that, I had taken for granted the deep blacks their AMOLED screens produced. After a week, I've found that the loss of deep blacks is a suitable trade off for a screen that is much more visible in daylight.
Battery life has been exceptional. Things that normally crushed my GS3 battery are handled with ease on the M8. An example is streaming audio and browsing the web while riding lightrail. Switching towers, struggling for connection, and dropping to 3g always seemed to conspire to take 30% of my GS3's battery after a 45 minute ride. The M8 only gave up 15%. On a heavy use day, my GS3 would go through 130% of battery. (I have a stock spare) I've only had one really heavy use day with the M8 so far, but I plugged in that night with ~25% left. On regular use days, I've had about 50% remaining at the end of the day. I will end up buying a portable battery/charger to throw in my bag for emergencies, but I've been thoroughly impressed so far with the battery.
My use case for a phone camera has changed since I bought the GS3. Then, my phone was my only camera, so I required a decent all around shooter. I had originally purchased a RAZR M, but returned it for a GS3 after a week due to sub-par quality of the pictures the RAZR M produced. I've since purchased a nice mirrorless camera, so camera quality wasn't a major concern when choosing a phone this time. That said, the M8's camera appears to be tailored specifically for what I would use it for now. I'm finding that when I want to take a picture with my phone rather than my camera, it's usually in a low light, indoor, social occasion. I've only done test shots with the M8 so far, but it's low light capability is really quite good. Especially using manual settings. I haven't played much with the Duo camera features, but they seemed of limited use for me. Maybe that will change after I've played a bit.
Most of my media consumption on a phone is with headphones attached, but there are times when that isn't the case. The thought of front facing speakers seems like such a no brainer now. My guess is most phones will have them within the next product cycle or two. Even moving the POS speaker from my GS3 to the front would've made a huge difference, but the sound quality of the M8 speakers is very impressive. I would have to guess that these are the best sounding speakers on any phone.
I played a bit with the IR Blaster for controlling my TV/DirecTV, and it actually works pretty well. They put more thought into the app than I would've expected. I figured they would cobble together a simple app so they could check a box on the marketing materials, but they went a lot further. Not only does it flawlessly control my generic brand TV and my DirecTV box, but it pulls in TV listings from the channels I receive and allows me to easily select a program to watch, changing the channel automatically. Realistically, I don't know if I'd want to use my phone to replace my real remote control, but I got more than I expected.
The latest Sense UI isn't bad. Rather than use Nova Launcher and I had been, I tried using Sense for a couple days. It's not bad, but I prefer the customizations available in Nova. The bits that aren't hidden by Nova, like the notification drawer and the settings menu are functional, understated, and much more pleasing to the eye than the Touchwiz bits from my GS3.
The area below the screen with the HTC logo feels to me like they decided to go with onscreen buttons late in the design process, and that the area was originally intended for capacitive buttons like the M7. This seems to be the only real flaw that I can see in the physical design of the phone. Personally, I'm not really a fan of onscreen buttons. Not so much because they waste screen space, but because they disappear in some apps. They reappear when you press where they should be, but this is awkward and can have some unintended consequences. Like in the Gallery app, they disappear, and when you press the corner where the back button should be located to get them to reappear, your finger is perilously close the the Delete image button. I'd rather these navigation buttons be completely off the screen, and seeing the strip below the screen that could so easily have capacitive buttons makes me dream of what could've been. I'm sure I'll get used to on screen buttons, though.
Call quality seems to be pretty good, at least as good as the GS3. Voices sound a little better through the earphone, probably because the fuller range of sound the speakers produce. I'm told I sound clear on the other end, perhaps a little better than before. I get similar signal strength as the GS3, which was never all that bad. The phone drops to 3g in the same places. I've always been a bit jealous of Motorola signal quality, and that probably won't change.
I've purchased and received the Spigen Slim Armor case and Spigen Crystal screen protector. It's kind of a shame to put such a beautiful phone in a case, but at least it's a decent looking case. It doesn't add much bulk, and makes me feel better about putting the phone in situations i know my phone will be in. I'm good about not dropping phones or putting them in my pocket with keys/coins/sand but it's a simple fact with me that it does happen. The case probably means I won't be using the IR Blaster much.
About the only thing I've come across so far that makes me question my decision of purchasing the M8 is the root/ROM situation. The phone had 4.4.3 when it was handed to me, and in my short time researching, I've learned 4.4.3 can't be rooted/unlocked without a $25 program. After 4 years of freedom with rooted/unlocked phones, it feels a little restrictive to not have the capability. I'm not looking for severely modified ROM's, but the WiFi notification gets old REAL quick. Yes, Verizon, I know I'm connected to my home's WiFi. Yes, Verizon, I know there are WiFi networks available that I'm not connecting to on purpose.
One thing that peeved me a bit was when I got my first voicemail. Instead of getting the normal voicemail notification as I was expecting, I got a "Free Text Message" from Verizon notifying me I had a voicemail, and to check Visual Voice Mail to retrieve it. So I did, and in the process, was automatically signed up for the Visual Voice Mail service at $2.99 a month. While it seems like a perfectly acceptable service, and a useful added feature for voicemail, I didn't want it, and was basically forced/duped into signing up for it. I'd sooner pay $2.99/mo to disable the WiFi notification. I've removed the Visual Voice Mail service from my account, and voicemail notifications are now received normally.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with the phone. I haven't run across anything that makes me think I wouldn't be happy with the phone long term. If you've read this far, hopefully some of this helps you.
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