One M9 owners: What are your HTC One M9 first impressions?

[patchs]

One problem I had with my Sprint M7 was dropping the data connection after ending a call or other things. I was hoping the M9 would be different. Nope. It's constantly dropping data connection. Not even sure what roaming settings I should be on. Anyone else having this issue?

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Habiib]

One problem I had with my Sprint M7 was dropping the data connection after ending a call or other things. I was hoping the M9 would be different. Nope. It's constantly dropping data connection. Not even sure what roaming settings I should be on. Anyone else having this issue?

Posted via Android Central App

I'm having the exact same problem with my One Max and worse. It's their network. Also expect your battery life to be nuked due to the signal issues and having to constantly hunt for a good connection and swapping radios.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Gruff35]

One problem I had with my Sprint M7 was dropping the data connection after ending a call or other things. I was hoping the M9 would be different. Nope. It's constantly dropping data connection. Not even sure what roaming settings I should be on. Anyone else having this issue?

Posted via Android Central App

There is a Sprint app that should be automatically loaded on your phone. When you run into problems like that you can use that app to report it. It actually works. Keep reporting them problems if it persists.

 

[petvas72]

Yesterday I was a little bit disappointed, mainly because of the battery life. I had used GPS and that of course kills the battery. I also made the mistake to compare the M9 to the battery life of the iPhone6 Plus, a phablet. This was an unfair comparison.
The M8 has better battery life and that is a regression people don't like to accept that easily (myself included).
The other four points that the media have been talking about are also important and I would like to comment on them.
The camera is not on par with the iPhone, but it's actually much better than the M8, especially in normal daylight. In low light the default settings are bad. The device uses 1600 ISO level and that of course makes everything noisy. If you decide to play with the settings you will be able to take good pictures. Having said that, HTC should provide a better camera experience. I believe they should continue the Ultrapixel route and double the resolution. That would give them a unique advantage.
Of course we don't know why they didn't do that.
HTC needs to understand that the camera experience is important to most people and their flagship device should have a great camera. The current camera is ok, but nothing more than that. If you can live with it and are prepared to customize its settings then you will be able to take great pictures.
The heat: The M9 gets warmer than the M8 but it's not annoying. HTC should try though to further optimize the CPU behaviour. I would say that the whole issue is actually blown out of any proportion.
The Design is great. HTC still has the best design out there but I understand people who complain. People want something new and don't want iterations. I applaude HTC for iterating! If they weren't able to come up with a.different design then they shouldn't change anything just for changes sake. The M9 is actually better built than the M8.
The display: It's at least as good as the one found in the M8 but using cooler colors (which I prefer). I would like to see HTC putting the best display in their flagship device. The display is still very good but HTC should do better.

So where all these leave us? The M9 is an excellent phone like the M8 is, with flaws. It has still great software, much better than Touchwiz. I love Blinkfeed and the way it keeps me always up to date. I still haven't found a better news aggregator and for me this is a major differentiator.
The speakers are better than on the M8. I love them.
So should you upgrade from an M8 to the M9? Probably not, unless you want to have the latest.
If you are coming from a different device and you can live with the camera shortcomings, then the M9 is a great choice. But isn't that what we said last year about the M8?
I am keeping my M9, because I love the design, the speakers, Blinkfeed and the new Sense theming engine. I also want to have the latest device.
The M9 will not sell as well the M8 did as long as HTC doesn't improve its marketing and the M9 camera..
HTC should show to the world what the strengths of the M9 are. People talk about the S6, which blatantly copied Apple (again), and nobody is talking about the One series, who offer a unique design, amazingly beautiful.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[htcrazy]

I've had my M9 for a couple of hours now. I have the M7 also so I was already fairly familiar with Sense. Setup went normal with no error messages or problems. Yes, the phone did get a little warm during all the upgrading of apps, etc. Now on idle beside me, it's quite cool. I see no problem as far as I'm concerned. I was well aware of the camera before ordering. As far as I'm concerned, it's fine for my purposes. The camera lens itself is easy to smudge and I found myself trying to avoid touching it. I'll keep a small piece of cloth handy to wipe the lens. As soon as I turned it on, it did some sort of an update
automatically. The software version is showing as 1.32.502.9. If this is not the latest, please let me know. Update says it's now up to date. I had read every thread and pre review I could find prior to ordering so I was not surprised by anything. I have more setup to do, but now it's off to The Outback for dinner. Unless I stumble upon something no one has experienced yet, I like this phone and plan to keep it.

 

[neo905]

Petvas,

I remember some rumour was that HTC was going to keep the 4 ultrapixel on the back for low light and add another 16 or 20 megapixel camera for day light as a duo camera set up. I think that is the direction they should go. Do you think that is even possible though?

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[lizzyoffside]

This is just a casual review and also my first post so please bear with me.

I ordered the silver/gold M9 from Tmobile so I've been playing with it since Monday night. It was an upgrade for me from an M7 (also Tmobile). I had decided not to upgrade to the M8 when it came out because I wasn't very thrilled with the new, rounder design so when the M9 came out I was very happy to see that they had gone back to a slightly more angular shape. To me it looks like a cross between and M7 and an M8. I read a review where the author mentioned that this phone doesn't photograph well. I agree, it looks so much better in person.

Design Pros:
- The case is now all aluminum as opposed to the M7 which had exposed plasticy ends.
- The contrast between the silver and gold metal is very attractive and the subtle brush marks on the metal add to the luxurious feel of the phone.
- While I didn't like the side power button at first I've gotten used to it and am starting to like it.
- Compared to the M7 it has a big, beautiful display

Design Cons:
- I'm still not loving the speaker bars on either end of the face. I know it's part of the signature look, but I feel like they could have made them a bit more sleek.

As far as the software changes go, I am pretty much blown away. I was running Lollipop on my M7 so I wasn't expecting as huge of a difference as I was presented with. I love being able to customize my phone and HTC has clearly stepped up in this area. The amount of sounds, fonts, colors, etc. they've preloaded on the phone is almost overwhelming on it's own, but then add themes.htc.com to the mix and I don't think I'll ever run out of ways to change up the look of my phone.

Software Pros:
- Customization!

Software Cons:
- Blinkfeed. I had it disabled on my M7 but figured I'd give it a go on the new phone, but decided to disable it again. Great concept but I just don't care for the execution. I'd rather use flipboard, feedly or something similar for news and Google Now fills in the rest of the gaps.
- I really appreciated how easy they made it to move all of my data from the old phone to the new. I'm sure other phones have this too, but I was really impressed with how simple they made it.

As for battery life, I haven't run any tests yet because I'm not using it "normally" yet. It's still an awesome new toy and I can't put it down so I'm draining the battery much faster than I usually would. I can say that even with heavy use it is lasting much longer without needing a charge than my M7 did. In all fairness though, my M7 was two years old.

The camera is another area I can't really speak too. It's not a super important feature to me so I haven't tested it out much.

Bottom line is, I'm extremely happy with my purchase and glad I upgraded.

 

[Adam_ation]

The software version is showing as 1.32.502.9. If this is not the latest, please let me know. Update says it's now up to date.

Really happy you are enjoying your device! My software is at 1.32.401.15 and it says I'm fully updated, it seems your getting updates ahead of me - Adam

 

[NEXUS_HTC_PS]

Don't see a GSAM screen shot anywhere. Do you have any?

Here it is! Now, the power saver mode has been on since 35%.

From my fingers to you on the M8, M9 or the Chromebook!

 

[msm0511]

I really think that lollipop isn't customized for 64bit processors cause across the board people are complaining about battery life on devices with 64bit processors.

Posted via the Android Central App

I made a similar thread in the Lollipop forums recently. I was wondering the same thing!

 

[neo905]

Here it is! Now, the power saver mode has been on since 35%.

From my fingers to you on the M8, M9 or the Chromebook!

I noticed the Peel remote icon. How do you like it. The notification widget is way better than Sense TV but I am not feeling the app. My receiver remote sucks on Peel. I can't turn it off now or change inputs. Plus it makes you log into social feed to save settings which is bad very bad.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[neo905]

Here it is! Now, the power saver mode has been on since 35%.

From my fingers to you on the M8, M9 or the Chromebook!

Your screen on time isn't bad at all. You should be able to get 5 hours easy. Seems like standby isn't very good. How much do you think you would lose overnight if you were at 100%. Who is your carrier?

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[msm0511]

Yesterday I was a little bit disappointed, mainly because of the battery life. I had used GPS and that of course kills the battery. I also made the mistake to compare the M9 to the battery life of the iPhone6 Plus, a phablet. This was an unfair comparison.
The M8 has better battery life and that is a regression people don't like to accept that easily (myself included).
The other four points that the media have been talking about are also important and I would like to comment on them.
The camera is not on par with the iPhone, but it's actually much better than the M8, especially in normal daylight. In low light the default settings are bad. The device uses 1600 ISO level and that of course makes everything noisy. If you decide to play with the settings you will be able to take good pictures. Having said that, HTC should provide a better camera experience. I believe they should continue the Ultrapixel route and double the resolution. That would give them a unique advantage.
Of course we don't know why they didn't do that.
HTC needs to understand that the camera experience is important to most people and their flagship device should have a great camera. The current camera is ok, but nothing more than that. If you can live with it and are prepared to customize its settings then you will be able to take great pictures.
The heat: The M9 gets warmer than the M8 but it's not annoying. HTC should try though to further optimize the CPU behaviour. I would say that the whole issue is actually blown out of any proportion.
The Design is great. HTC still has the best design out there but I understand people who complain. People want something new and don't want iterations. I applaude HTC for iterating! If they weren't able to come up with a.different design then they shouldn't change anything just for changes sake. The M9 is actually better built than the M8.
The display: It's at least as good as the one found in the M8 but using cooler colors (which I prefer). I would like to see HTC putting the best display in their flagship device. The display is still very good but HTC should do better.

So where all these leave us? The M9 is an excellent phone like the M8 is, with flaws. It has still great software, much better than Touchwiz. I love Blinkfeed and the way it keeps me always up to date. I still haven't found a better news aggregator and for me this is a major differentiator.
The speakers are better than on the M8. I love them.
So should you upgrade from an M8 to the M9? Probably not, unless you want to have the latest.
If you are coming from a different device and you can live with the camera shortcomings, then the M9 is a great choice. But isn't that what we said last year about the M8?
I am keeping my M9, because I love the design, the speakers, Blinkfeed and the new Sense theming engine. I also want to have the latest device.
The M9 will not sell as well the M8 did as long as HTC doesn't improve its marketing and the M9 camera..
HTC should show to the world what the strengths of the M9 are. People talk about the S6, which blatantly copied Apple (again), and nobody is talking about the One series, who offer a unique design, amazingly beautiful.

Posted via the Android Central App

I don't really know anything about photography, but I'd like to take better low-light shots. I know all situations are different, but do you have any go to settings for low-light shots?

 

[petvas72]

I don't really know anything about photography, but I'd like to take better low-light shots. I know all situations are different, but do you have any go to settings for low-light shots?

No, I don't. I am not an expert in photography and I just try to experiment with various settings, depending on conditions.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[petvas72]

Petvas,

I remember some rumour was that HTC was going to keep the 4 ultrapixel on the back for low light and add another 16 or 20 megapixel camera for day light as a duo camera set up. I think that is the direction they should go. Do you think that is even possible though?

Posted via the Android Central App

I don't know. I hope HTC hires some top camera guys and makes creating a top camera the number one priority.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[petvas72]

Really happy you are enjoying your device! My software is at 1.32.401.15 and it says I'm fully updated, it seems your getting updates ahead of me - Adam

Here in Germany with an unbranded device I have the same version too.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[NEXUS_HTC_PS]

I noticed the Peel remote icon. How do you like it. The notification widget is way better than Sense TV but I am not feeling the app. My receiver remote sucks on Peel. I can't turn it off now or change inputs. Plus it makes you log into social feed to save settings which is bad very bad.

Posted via the Android Central App

I really like it. I don't know what I'd do without the ir anymore. That peel app is way better imo. It controls my home theater system, Samsung smart TV and my cable box. Loving it.

From my fingers to you on the M8, M9 or the Chromebook!

 

[NEXUS_HTC_PS]

Your screen on time isn't bad at all. You should be able to get 5 hours easy. Seems like standby isn't very good. How much do you think you would lose overnight if you were at 100%. Who is your carrier?

Posted via the Android Central App

I'll try that out tonight. AT&T.

From my fingers to you on the M8, M9 or the Chromebook!

 

[NEXUS_HTC_PS]

This is from my M8 running custom rom and custom kernel.

From my fingers to you on the M8, M9 or the Chromebook!

 

[neo905]

I really like it. I don't know what I'd do without the ir anymore. That peel app is way better imo. It controls my home theater system, Samsung smart TV and my cable box. Loving it.

From my fingers to you on the M8, M9 or the Chromebook!

You don't have a receiver? That seems to be the biggest issue.

Posted via the Android Central App