TLDR; please read the title 
I've been researching non-stop for the past 2 weeks on the M8 vs S5, aka the 'showdown of the titans'. From reviews to Youtube impressions to camera comparisons, there's nothing I left out. Personally, I would label the S5 the champion and the M8 the underdog in terms of features.... a camera with a higher megapixel count, water-resistant, and a removable battery tipped the scales on paper towards Samsung's flagship phone. At the end of the day however, I remembered how it felt to hold my M7 for the first time. The smooth finish, the aluminum build and how it was the first time I was impressed by the build quality of a non-Apple phone made me lean back towards HTC.
The deal breaker in my case, besides overall design and 'handfeel' was the fact that the S5 didn't launch 32GB versions of the phone where I stay. In addition, initial stocks of only Black and White are being made available, which I wasn't fond of (was bent on blue and blue only). Hence, I picked up a 32GB (Gunmetal) Developer's Edition HTC One M8
Impressions (after playing with the phone for a day and a half)
Design and Build - I expected the phone to be much thicker + heavier than it actually was! I pulled it out of its casing and was very surprised. I guess images on review sites and even videos give off an impression of the phone being larger than it actually is, for some reason. It felt just as light as the original One, and is lighter than the M7's dual-sim variant (which my friend owns).
Camera - I honestly wasn't a big fan of the M7's camera. Having previously owned an iPhone 4s, I found the images exported to PC after having taken them were generally better looking than the M7's. I went to a Deadmau5 concert recently and the lack of zoom also took a big hit on my ability to take decent shots of the stage. Video recording on the M7 was fantastic; no complaints there. Coming to the M8, i'm overall satisfied with the camera. My expectations are low, and 'accepting' the camera as-is feels like the biggest (and only) price i've had to pay for selecting the M8 over Samsung's Galaxy S5. uFocus and other dual-camera features work as advertised, and are pretty nifty. I look forward to taking more shots in the coming weeks and utilizing these features fully.
Features and Misc - i'm really not liking the on-screen buttons. At ALL. I found them to be intuitive on the M7 and had no issues with them whatsoever (in terms of responsiveness).
I really don't like the screen real-estate they take up; the fact that HTC kept the near half-inch border on the bottom of the phone (right above the grill speakers) irks me. More so, what really got to me is that games and other applications do not hide this bar by default. I scoured the internet for a solution and downloaded a popular Immersive Mode application from the Play Store. This works quite well with one huge flaw: keyboard support in immersive mode isn't available/supported. It really feels like a downgrade and i'm disappointed by the device's design for this reason alone. I hope HTC finds a way to address this or more apps start getting updated to support Immersive Mode (specifically, Facebook, WhatsApp and Chrome).
Conclusion - the thread title says it all. I'm more than satisfied with my purchase but the phone does have its gripes (which may not be issues for others).
Feel free to ask if you have any questions. Cheers

I've been researching non-stop for the past 2 weeks on the M8 vs S5, aka the 'showdown of the titans'. From reviews to Youtube impressions to camera comparisons, there's nothing I left out. Personally, I would label the S5 the champion and the M8 the underdog in terms of features.... a camera with a higher megapixel count, water-resistant, and a removable battery tipped the scales on paper towards Samsung's flagship phone. At the end of the day however, I remembered how it felt to hold my M7 for the first time. The smooth finish, the aluminum build and how it was the first time I was impressed by the build quality of a non-Apple phone made me lean back towards HTC.
The deal breaker in my case, besides overall design and 'handfeel' was the fact that the S5 didn't launch 32GB versions of the phone where I stay. In addition, initial stocks of only Black and White are being made available, which I wasn't fond of (was bent on blue and blue only). Hence, I picked up a 32GB (Gunmetal) Developer's Edition HTC One M8

Impressions (after playing with the phone for a day and a half)
Design and Build - I expected the phone to be much thicker + heavier than it actually was! I pulled it out of its casing and was very surprised. I guess images on review sites and even videos give off an impression of the phone being larger than it actually is, for some reason. It felt just as light as the original One, and is lighter than the M7's dual-sim variant (which my friend owns).
Camera - I honestly wasn't a big fan of the M7's camera. Having previously owned an iPhone 4s, I found the images exported to PC after having taken them were generally better looking than the M7's. I went to a Deadmau5 concert recently and the lack of zoom also took a big hit on my ability to take decent shots of the stage. Video recording on the M7 was fantastic; no complaints there. Coming to the M8, i'm overall satisfied with the camera. My expectations are low, and 'accepting' the camera as-is feels like the biggest (and only) price i've had to pay for selecting the M8 over Samsung's Galaxy S5. uFocus and other dual-camera features work as advertised, and are pretty nifty. I look forward to taking more shots in the coming weeks and utilizing these features fully.
Features and Misc - i'm really not liking the on-screen buttons. At ALL. I found them to be intuitive on the M7 and had no issues with them whatsoever (in terms of responsiveness).
I really don't like the screen real-estate they take up; the fact that HTC kept the near half-inch border on the bottom of the phone (right above the grill speakers) irks me. More so, what really got to me is that games and other applications do not hide this bar by default. I scoured the internet for a solution and downloaded a popular Immersive Mode application from the Play Store. This works quite well with one huge flaw: keyboard support in immersive mode isn't available/supported. It really feels like a downgrade and i'm disappointed by the device's design for this reason alone. I hope HTC finds a way to address this or more apps start getting updated to support Immersive Mode (specifically, Facebook, WhatsApp and Chrome).
Conclusion - the thread title says it all. I'm more than satisfied with my purchase but the phone does have its gripes (which may not be issues for others).
Feel free to ask if you have any questions. Cheers

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