HamdiR HTC One Semi Review, vs HTC One X - extras: Double Flip Cover & Media Link HD

HamdiR HTC One Semi Review, vs HTC One X - extras: Double Flip Cover & Media Link HD - One (M7) General

HamdiR HTC One Semi Review, vs HTC One X - extras: Double Flip Cover & Media Link HD
This is my semi review for the HTC One
Batch Date: HT33W, Made in Taiwan 28th of March
Firmware: 1.28.401.7
Region: EMEA, French unlocked unit
update: HTC just issued a statement about an upcoming update dealing with few camera issues mentioned in the review
HTC One updated with camera enhancement suite and more in Europe (1.29.401.13)
• Noise reduction in slow motion movie capture
• Improved color reproduction and dynamic range (reduced over-exposure in non-HDR images) in certain conditions
• Fix to display correct ISO in EXIF information when ISO settings are manually changed by the user
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This device is still not widely available in my country, given that we still don't have official HTC presence in Lebanon it's up to sub dealers to import HTC devices, some of which are registered with HTC, the device can be purchased for around 1100$ which is a crazy price at the moment, my cousin bought the device along with the media link and double flip cover accessories and i was able to spend some quality time with the device.
Design and Build quality: Pristine and Flawless
The device finish is exquisite, the metal parts are laser cut to perfection and the injected plastic bands are completely flush with the device, both the plastic parts and metallic back plate are "one" piece they are cut and molded together hence a zero gap uni-body shell, the independent frontal metallic speaker covers are perfectly flush as well, unlike some reported early cases of misalignment or gaps, this more recent unit had an almost zero gap speakers covers, you can visually identify its not as microscopic zero gap as the unibody shell but both covers are so rigid and tightly fit there are no gaps, no overhangs, the screen and its metallic protection sides are also perfectly fit and finished
Curiously it has a French warning sticker about speakers' loudness
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The white plastic band had no imperfections to the USB or earphone ports however you can detect some micro imperfections to the interior of the earphone port and the SIM tray hole, i have to say without close inspection this can not be seen from any distance and returning such a device on this account is just being bitter
The volume button looks and feel like a brushed metal but i actually suspect its plastic with metallic finish
Unlike what you would assume from online photos, the device physically looks very different than the iPhone, it looks much slimmer due to the tapered sides, the mixture of black screen glass and metallic sides plus silver metal plates and white plastic inserts gives a very polarizing effect, it actually feels more male than you would imagine, the aluminum parts project a more premium metal feel, in other words the device has a machinery stainless steel feel due to the beveled machined metal parts, combine all this with the slim profile and the resulting look is a very sleek yet bold and edgy
In terms of ergonomics the moment you hold the device you are surprised by how well it slips into the palm of your hand, it holds very well, I commend them for not going with a bigger screen since due to the extra speakers space the device lost a little percentage of it's one hand usability coming from the One X, the screen is very comfortable to use however and i found it still manageable with one hand, the device is just barely bigger than the One X as I was able to fit it in the same tight pouch I use for my One X
I found reports of a slippery finish surprising since the device was really easy to juggle around even when rotating it constantly for the different tests I've done, perhaps it's a different story for sweaty hands or black finish?
Speaking of black finish, I recommend going with the genuinely colored silver version, I can see the One is clearly not itself in any other color
In terms of durability, we have to remember this is not really rugged device, with such pristine metallic finish, it's not hard to imagine how easy it would be ruined with one drop, I am not talking about breaking the device but actually dents to the fit and finish will clearly go less easy than it does on the single piece single colored One X, any sort of protection is highly recommend, I would go with a transparent slim cover or simply a pouch so i can both enjoy the design while protecting the device.
Screen: 4.7" 1080p 468ppi screen Laminated and Bright as the One X
The screen like the One X before it is laminated to the glass, there is no air between the glass and LCD, hence it appears floating on the surface, a laminated screen would not suffer from the old dust under screen concerns
Within the first few moments of use you realize the famed 720p screen on the One X is now outdated, its hard to describe, the difference isn't so obvious but for me I was always able to detect density when reading in low light, not anymore! pixel density eye detection on a phone is now history, the screen is sharp and pristine, a perfect reflection of the sleek device design and build material
I actually found the color accuracy on the One a little better than the One X, yes it's clearly a cooler calibration but in actual use it was obviously whiter than the warm saturated One X screen (again perhaps due to my low light environment), it was also a little less saturated which is a good thing in terms of Apple like accuracy but might disappoint saturation lovers
The full brightness on both devices was surprisingly a match, i couldn't tell any difference between brightness, blacks and view angles as you can see in this photo taken by a Desire SV
One thing was clear however especially in view angles, the One screen had little more glass reflections, this is why it appears to have darker view angles in some photos which is not the real case, I assume it would perform slightly less in outdoor visibility than the One X
A reminder: As reported by Anandtech, OEMs are known to use different panel sources which can differ in calibration, it's also worth noting the HTC One is using a sort of dynamic contrast which might influence white point tests.
Audio Quality: "BoomSound" Stereo speakers and HDR sound recording
This part will not take a long write to describe, the speakers on the HTC One are beyond anything you have experienced on a mobile device, it's not the loudness or actual deep bass but the quality of the output, its crystal clear you simply can not fail to notice how clear and crisp it sounds whenever an audio plays even the tiniest of notifications tons or how clean it remains with the loudest of music, one thing to note however is that Beats audio is enabled by default, when disabled the sound quality is significantly worse, it's good know HTC finally made real use of it's Beats deal, whether its by HW alone or SW as well is not clear (it might still be a counter trick just to emphasis the importance of beats branding)
What's even more impressive is audio recording quality, just phenomenal, I tried two tests:
- First is recording straight from TV, the results were excellent, crisp but not very loud due to the distance from TV
- The second is re-recording the audio captured by the One from this video while playing on my One X! very impressive, it played back almost as crisp as we have it on youtube (I will upload this test once i get the chance)
There was some kind of low a frequency hiss with these video in their playback on the One but not nearly as audible when those same videos played back on the One X, my guess is that this noise was being exaggerated by the BoomSound speakers, I didn't get the chance to try disabling Beats during playback which might resolve this issue
Unfortunately I also had no chance to test earphones performance, this will have to go till my my next time with the device
Video Recording: 1080p at 20MB per second
The default video quality was excellent, it recorded 1080p video at constant 20Mbps, Anandtech noted this is the maximum ability of the s600 SOC, the resulting one minute H264 mp4 file was 150MB, and as reviews has stated optical stability during video recording is impressive as well, I was doing tests in indoor low light and colors were an accurate reflection of the real scene, much better than the redness of the One X during low light, the video runs at locked 30fps which is very impressive considering the One X video lag in low light
Unfortunately the same can not be said about both slow motion and 60fps modes while both modes functioned probably in terms of frame rate the image quality was very bad, HDR however was a mixed bag it actually works, dynamic range and especially colors are much improved but in my low light environment there was some strange flickers, I expect this mode to work better during daylight, the good news encoding in HDR mode is as good as the standard mode, the following screenshots will tell the story:
Standard mode, 30fps(indoor low light), 1920x1080, 20Mbps
HDR mode, 29fps(indoor low light), 1920x1080, 19Mbps
Slow motion mode, 24fps(indoor low light), 768x432, 2.5Mbps
60fps mode, 43fps(indoor low light), 1280x720, 8.5Mbps
Download full size screenshots
Ultrapixel Camera: 4MP 4µm F2.0 wide angle, aka Advanced Night Vision Goggles
As we've observed in the photo thread, the default camera settings had two slight issues: aggressive digital sharpness and lack of contrast due to the brightness loving (2.0µm x 2.0µm) sensor, thankfully both are within our control due to the honestly deep options in the camera UI, sharpness can be reduced by setting it to -1 or -2 for disabled while contrast can be boosted in few ways like setting contrast to +1, exposure to -1, apply auto enhance from gallery > edit > effects (you can also drag the preset to customize it) or third party apps
Again my environment was low light indoor, so i was only able to test it within this context and compare it with the 8MP (1.0µm x 1.0µm) F2.0 One X, in general I still found results to be only missing a little contrast punch and naturally based on my own recommendation I reduced sharpness to -1 on all the shots
Here I found all the tweaked results better than the default settings, low light color capture was a lot better than the redness on the One X, in terms of 1:1 detail the 4MP results were clearly better than the noisy One X results:
There are four One vs two One X samples in this comparison
The One X is weak in it's low light default capture, but it's still F2.0, there is a special mode on the One X allowing for great low light capability and that is HDR + Auto flash, the same mode can be used on the One, it captures three shots along with two quick flashes for combined HDR exposures without tinting the colors, the One HDR capture is dramatically faster than the One X, sometimes you don't even see the "processing" notification, this means HDR results form the One have a tremendously less chance of blurring than the One X, as you can see it's almost night vision:
There are three One vs three One X samples in this comparison
There are four One vs two One X samples in this comparison
There is something very odd about the first standard results, first in this dark white scene the automatic camera settings struggled, I could clearly see it in the view finder as it's struggling to setup, the first shot is the one above (exposure 1/7 ISO 1922) the second capture (not displayed above) was weirder it used exposure 1/30 ISO 235, the results were noise free but curiously low ISO seems to apply more aggressive detail smudging, more about this later
In the following I attempt again to tweak camera settings in order to boost contrast:
It seems contrast +1 and auto enhance can often achieve similar results, sadly it sometime feels too harsh, a middle ground would be more ideal like auto enhance from perfectly clear app, examples here
In conclusion contrast + 0.5 would have been ideal
Comparing 1:1 Detail:
HTC One, ISO-193, 4MP 1:1
HTC One X, ISO-800, 8MP downscaled
iPad 4, ISO-250, 5MP 1:1
HTC One, exposure 1/60 ISO-104, 1:1
HTC One X, exposure 1/20 ISO-125, 1:1
If a good light source is nearby, the camera will choose a very low ISO + extreme shutter speed and those noise free slightly smudgy results will appear again, colors are way off on the One X meanwhile it's a perfect shot from the HTC One
HTC One, exposure 1/60 ISO-104
HTC One X, exposure 1/20 ISO-125
One last time, macro, light source away, resulting in noisy high ISO
HTC One, exposure 1/10 ISO-1027
HTC One X, exposure 1/20 ISO-1000
Download full size HTC One samples
Download full size HTC One X samples
In general I found the camera an amazing performer in low light, especially when it comes to color accuracy, shutter speed and most important power, those settings are empowering but as a side effect it definitely has a learning curve, those expecting point and shoot awe inspiring results might struggle
For the average user much of this photographic power might remain unseen
Last thing to note the camera view finder, shutter, UI and processing speed is absurdly fast, it totally out-dates the already fast One X camera
The front camera is similar to the "full frontal" ultra wide angle camera as the HTC 8x. Shutter speed and viewfinder fps is a lot better than on the 8x, but after reinspecting indoor photos i previously took with my 8x i noticed the quality is indeed reduced on the One.
HTC Zoe:
This is the most fun feature of the HTC camera, lets get to the negatives first, the Zoe trigger is actually just an icon without any label, this alone might keep this feature unseen to many! once you click the icon the shutter button will have a Zoe label over it and it starts caching images, when you click it collects few pre frames and the remaining captures until the red bar runs out.
Once you have a Zoe you can do great things but yet again those abilities are a little hidden, in order to apply sequence shot for example you have to go to edit > enhance,Ii struggled few times to find it since it only appears if it's a Zoe and sometimes I confused its location with edit > effects, either way "sequence shot" and all Zoe abilities like "always smile" are the perfect party camera features, tons of fun if you are using these abilities with a couple of friends or your family
In Zoe capture many options including sharpness controls are actually disabled, I also noticed captured quality can be different than normal capture, for example all my Zoe still shots appear to be the most in lacking contrast
Now for the best Zoe part "highlights" again it's confusing at first since you see those moving zoe thumbnails and a still thumbnail with a play icon, once you press play you realize it's a highlight reel being generated in realtime, I was spending the whole evening with my cousin and wife trying out this phone, when we finally arrived to the highlights part it caught us by surprise, it was video recap of the entire evening with the neat default "vega" theme, it was hilarious seeing all our tests, videos, zoes, expressions and beer photos come together, there couldn't be a more perfect "memory capture" of the evening
A word of warning a highlight is not automatically saved and they will change once you capture more content, so if you see something you like hit menu and save in order to keep it as a video, you can also share it to HTC Zoe website, it's wise to clean up your zoe's once your done, if you don't want to overwhelm your camera folder
Sense 5.0, Blinkfeed and Buttons layout:
The new UI is all about less is more, there is much less UI and a lot more functionality, from the get go I changed the app drawer grid from the default 3 columns and i've a set a normal homescreen as my default, although there were few accounts loaded like Facebook, I was not fuzzed by blinkfeed it was left there to the left and harmless, if those feeds have ugly or low res photos expect the phone to greet you with them, so it does what it does and that is providing feeds but it should not be the default homscreen
As for the rest of the UI its just minimalist, clean and a lot more AOSP in terms of cursor and buttons etc, most importantly its so fast and locked triple buffered 60fps JB smooth, so smooth you really don't care about it anymore, you can be busy multitasking, jumping back and forth and the UI will never break a sweat, it's never in your way, after this my One X feels a little "old fashioned"
Not once did I confuse the HTC logo for a button, I was perfectly adapted to the new home button location and double tapping for multi view, in fact I have enjoyed the change
If I was to be picky, I can say I have noticed some fps drops in folders' animation inside the app drawer, otherwise the OS is scorching fast and liquid smooth
Gaming:
update: check the following 3D games reports
3D Games Performance Report Part II>>
3D Games Performance Report Part I>>
As a recap here is the current HTC One GPU situation:
http://gfxbench.com/device.jsp?benchmark=gfx27&D=HTC+One
in T-Rex offscreen 1080p:
Tegra4 project shield @18fps
554MP4 iPad 4 @16.8fps
Adreno320 s600 HTC One (4.2.2) GPU 450mhz OC @18fps
Adreno320 s600 HTC One (4.1.2) GPU 450mhz OC @17fps
Adreno320 s600 SGS4 (4.2.2) GPU 450mhz stock @17ps
Adreno320 s600 HTC One (4.2.2) GPU 400mhz stock @15fps
Adreno320 s600 HTC One (4.1.2) GPU 400mhz stock @14.8fps
544MP3 Octa SGS4 @12.5fps
Tegra3 HTC One X @4.1fps
in Egypt HD 2.5 offscreen 1080p:
Tegra4 project shield @54.5fps
554MP4 iPad4 @54.4fps
Adreno320 s600 HTC One (4.2.2) GPU 450mhz OC @45fps
544MP3 Octa SGS4 @43fps
Adreno320 s600 HTC One (4.2.2) GPU 400mhz stock @41fps
Adreno320 s600 HTC One (4.1.2) GPU 450mhz OC @40.4fps
Adreno320 s600 SGS4 (4.2.2) GPU 450mhz stock @40fps
Adreno320 s600 HTC One (4.1.2) GPU 400mhz stock @37fps
Tegra3 HTC One X @12.5fps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also the T-Rex results are reflected in the 3D mark tests
The HTC One is currently lacking the latest Adreno 320 drivers with Open GL ES3.0 support, these drivers require Android 4.2.2. Thankfully HTC and Qualcomm demonstrated then promised these drivers in an upcoming update, which is good sign since few other Adreno 320 s600 devices running on 4.2.2 are achieving better GPU performance
Be sure to check my gameplay videos analysis, the HTC One runs Modern Combat 4 smoothly in native 1080p with full effects engaged
Finally with S600 you need to be aware of thermal throttling so check my [GUIDE] How to easily unleash your HTC One gaming powers ★ root>>
Battery and Temperature:
Throughout my time with the device, I had the brightness cranked up to full, I tested the device heavily for four hours, it was connected to wifi but not mobile networks, there was few accounts in Blinkfeed and most of my tests revolved around the camera, impressively in those non stop full brightness four hours the battery only fell from around 90% to 50%, coming for the One X limited screen on time this is a significant leap
The HTC One metal back plate did get warm, but never hot, it was clearly getting warm but quickly dissipating the heat
IR Remote: Who would say no!
I tried this quickly on my Sony bravia and LG LCD TVs, it worked perfectly, there was only one negative is that it requires you to setup the TV mode first by choosing a limited list of countries and your cable provider, needless to say non of this is supported in my country and all i wanted is to access the remote function, once i skipped through the setup, i chose my TV brands, it quickly downloaded the profiles, worked instantly (and yes I did try a practical joke with this)
Conclusion:
I was left speechless, it's not that the HTC One masters one specific element but it is the global quality of this device as a whole that is mouth watering, there is not one area left out or neglected, the entire abilities of this device combined working in harmony to give you a truly unique, sleek and "next level" experience, it continues the work started by the HTC One X and in the same time renders it obsolete, compared to the early life of the One X where many areas were still unfinished, taking a while to reach it's promise (through both hw and sw revisions), the HTC One is a fully refined out of box experience
After HTC's track record of software improvements on it's flagships of 2012 (X/S/XL) from which the One X was remade, I can only imagine where the One will be a year from now
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Accessories: Official Double Flip Cover, pretty but flimsy
I am angry at this cover, first I never expected to like the color combination but as you can see, it is actually pretty neat
The kickstand concept works perfectly as well, sadly so sadly there is one jarring omission and that is a lock mechanism when the cover is closed, you would imagine with all this metal at the front HTC would have used a magnet to snap the cover to the body once it's closed (like the iPad kickstand cover), sadly it's not the case, the flip is left clumsy and loose
In terms of quality, the clipping parts have a matt finish, these are rigid but have a tender finish meaning they slide easily out and can not do damage to the device, meanwhile the bendable parts have a fake leather finish, the texture is good quality but i found the HTC engraving a little cheap as well as the uneven back side
All in all a great concept, great design especially when it's in kickstand position but for a device with the quality of the HTC One, an "official" cover should do better
Accessories: HTC Media Link HD, an excellent tool but not as sleek
Note I wasn't able to confirm which model but the best part is that it is so easy to setup, just plug it to TV and charger, it will instantly appear on screen, all it takes is a swipe gesture and your UI is onscreen (if you disabled the gesture for multitouch reasons you can immediately enable media link from the settings or notifications menu)
The moment you connect to wifi the device will also alert you about Media Link's presence
I tried it on both the One and One X, Videos and photos are easily played back on your TV in 1080p24, the One was clearly faster than the One X which had a laggier UI due to the 3D launcher and had to pre load 1080p films before they play, the One never had to pre load those videos, they played from the moment you press play, you can also keep playing the video while you continue using your UI
In conclusion it's neat tool however there is a main issue and that is performance, the liquid smooth UI is not reflected on screen, its running at lesser frame rate, so eventually I found it hard to enjoy photo viewing for example and preferred to simply stream them through my PS3
You can also play any game through your media link, i tried RipeTide on both the One X and One but both performed badly even if the resolution was reduced in-game, the game was running liquid smooth on both phones but not on the screen there was also evident compression, I guess it has to do with wifi streaming speed
I'm not sure if this version supports the faster wifi on the HTC One but it's not hard to imagine an updated model will be released sooner or later
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you find my work helpful in some of your unanswered questions please hit the thanks button
Don't forget, a lot more info here:
HTC Flagship 2013 - HTC One - Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 600 - Mega Information Thread>>

Great review hamdir and as detailed as I expected it to be.
Glad to see that you like it and to see the detail on the camera (which is something I don't generally know much about apart from taking standard photos).
Will be adding this to post #2 of the review thread later today

Dude, you are allmost at same level with Brian.
Thank you so much! I'm hoping to get mine in next few weeks (Finland).

review
Good review...thx

Thanks a lot. Awesome review. Only sad thing is how cheap flip case looks. I mean seriously, nillkin and other chinese brands are much cheaper but much better in terms of quality. This should have been better.

Great comparison review, Hamdir. Do you still intend to keep the One X until the launch of One + or your will got weaker with these few hours with the One?

myself11 said:
Great comparison review, Hamdir. Do you still intend to keep the One X until the launch of One + or your will got weaker with these few hours with the One?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm already weaker

Just a note I will soon be uploading full scale photos samples from this review as well as my audio recording test

Great review, i wish the buttons weren't visible when the screen is off

DynamicRam said:
Great review, i wish the buttons weren't visible when the screen is off
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Click to collapse
This is an incredibly minor nitpick. But I agree with you - that would have been nice.

Great work hamdir, a priviledge to read your post. Now I see why you are a reference across many worldwide technology forums when the subject is HTC
(...) the HTC One is a fully refined out of box experience
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is something very dear to me, thankfully you pointed it out.

Thanks guys
I have added fill size video screenshots and photo samples to the review

Wow. That's one hell of a review! :thumbup:
Sent from my EVO using xda premium

updated this part
The front camera is similar to the "full frontal" ultra wide angle camera as the HTC 8x. Shutter speed and viewfinder fps is a lot better than on the 8x, but after reinspecting indoor photos i previously took with my 8x i noticed the quality is indeed reduced on the One.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I'd totally forgot about adding the IR Remote to mine until I read it in here.
Our reviews are a bit too big I think
Sent from my HTC One via XDA Premium

KidCarter93 said:
I'd totally forgot about adding the IR Remote to mine until I read it in here.
Our reviews are a bit too big I think
Sent from my HTC One via XDA Premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
like Brian said there is just so much to cover with this device

hamdir said:
like Brian said there is just so much to cover with this device
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Couldn't agree more. When I originally wrote mine, it was much longer than it is now but knew I had to cut it down a bit otherwise I'd use up the 30,000 character limit.
Sent from my HTC One via XDA Premium

KidCarter93 said:
Couldn't agree more. When I originally wrote mine, it was much longer than it is now but knew I had to cut it down a bit otherwise I'd use up the 30,000 character limit.
Sent from my HTC One via XDA Premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
did you forget to add your review and mine to the second post?

hamdir said:
did you forget to add your review and mine to the second post?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not forgot, I just haven't got around to doing it yet
I'm too lazy at the moment but will defo get it done soon-ish
Sent from my HTC One via XDA Premium

Excellent write-up! You touched on a few things I was wondering about. Thank you and cheers!!

Related

Camera tips!

Hey everyone!
So i've used the Desire HD's camera for a bit, and I find it's got potential. I used to have a HD2...and remember there was a registry edit fix and also settings in the camera app that were published here on XDA to improve picture quality...well i've found out that pictures are a lot clearer and sharper when these settings are applied on the Desire HD:
Go into the Camera app...
Press the menu button on your desire hd...
Turn OFF auto-focus
in the Image adjustments sub-menu, turn sharpness all the way to 2...
Take pictures, and as a good example of comparison take a before and after picture.
In the after pic, tap on what you want in focus. The overall quality of the picture will be a lot clearer! There is also less noise and the object will be in focus, and pepper and grain effect is largely eliminated! Try it out and report back
Elemental_Fire
Update 1 (00:09-10/12/2010):
Thanks to the knowledge and sharing of fellow XDA members, I have determined that what seems to impact/affect images the most is the sharpness settings. Contrary to my settings, you can also go into Image adjustments in the camera app and turn off the sharpness setting fully. This is done by turning the sharpness circle dial all the way to -2. It seems that when set on default, the sharpness algorithm is ineffective at determining the level of sharpness that should be used. As a result, images are reproduced with unwanted image effects such as distinct grainyness, noise and also seemingly out-of-focus/blury pictures! So you can use either -2 for smooth pictures that are good quality, or +2 for sharper pictures that are good quality! At the end of the day, it depends on what you as the photographer prefer Haha i'm making this sound like the Desire HD is a professional camera...it's certainly more than suitable for quick snaps that won't comprise on good memorable photos in 8MP
Update 2 (00:51- 10/12/2010)
Uploaded sample pictures!

will give this a try in the morning!

Is that +2 I take it not -2? I'll check this out in morning
Sent from my Desire HD

Yep, plus 2

yup the pictures are much better!!
i just hated all tht noise and grainyness!
Thanks a lot!!!

I didnt really notice the difference, I think im just horrid at taking photos haha

they do look slightly better i think!

I haven't tried this yet myself but its nice that the hd remembers these settings after a power cycle - I expected all settings to revert to default.

That does not help any here.
I think the compression is just screwed up very badly, or we don't have anything like a 8MP sensor in our phones.
You can see that very easily if you photograph or film some intricate pattern like in snow, frost, test patterns (printed on paper) or such. It just smears and blurs the hell out of these photographs and no settings in the user interface will help against that.
Now, a sensor actually resolving 8 Megapixels, on the other hand, should be capable of resolving to about four 1920x1080 computer screens worth of distinct pixels. Unfortunately when I view the photographs on the screen, in actuality I still those see smears and other artifacts even when I zoom the image to about ~25% of the screen's. So... ~0.5 MP or less resolution in reality? Beh, fail.

Meh, it is an 8mp sensor...I just assume HTC don't implement and make use of the best available lens, sensor size and compression rate....but the camera isn't bad at all..i'll upload some pictures i've taken recently, they're quite defined! Certainly more clearer, sharper and yet containing less noise than my old HD2 gosh colours on that were washed out

sharpness plus 2 will increase the digital treatment which seems to remove more noise and add more sharpness, maybe a little better than the default semi sharpness which a mess
however the camera is indeed 8MP it is ridiculous to state otherwise!! turn off sharpness all the way to -2 and all this digital artifacts will be gone as well as fake sharpness, you will be able to get full 8MP camera quality without HTC mending with them, you can improve photos further by using the auto fix or high contrast from within the gallery
of course noise will be introduced depending on the available light and of course with sharpness -2 it will be a little soft since it receiving zero digital treatment, take it to any photo editing application and you can boost the sharpness properly
really i don't get all the random posts camera quality, i'm getting amazing results even managed to amaze my iphone 4 colleagues, the only part where HTC really failed is the default noise reduction/sharpness algorithm (Sharpness 0) its a real mess thankfully it can be turned off
i should make a detailed thread about the camera and be done with it

after using it a few times, im still sticking to my D700

I`m quite happy with the point and click results but for serious pics i use my ancient Canon EOS 500.

ofcourse it will never beat a DSLR! only the satio and the nokia n8 come close but those sucks in their own ways
its not a perfect camera, but damn better than everyone make it sound, and pretty amazing for a phone, everyone complaining including some reviewers didn't even bother to experiment with the basic settings
the best words i found for this camera are in the Engadget review particluary this line ( Noise-masking blur is distributed very well, in our opinion, works especially well if can content yourself with downsizing the images from the max 8 megapixel size), gsmarena kept complaining about the sharpness and never mentioned it can be turned off
oh and it wipes the floor with the iphone 4 camera
the only two issues in this phone are the lack of ips in the screen and the size for those who can't handle it and no the battery is fine

hamdir said:
ofcourse it will never beat a DSLR! only the satio and the nokia n8 come close but those sucks in their own ways
its not a perfect camera, but damn better than everyone make it sound, and pretty amazing for a phone, everyone complaining including some reviewers didn't even bother to experiment with the basic settings
the best words i found for this camera are in the Engadget review particluary this line ( Noise-masking blur is distributed very well, in our opinion, works especially well if can content yourself with downsizing the images from the max 8 megapixel size), gsmarena kept complaining about the sharpness and never mentioned it can be turned off
oh and it wipes the floor with the iphone 4 camera
the only two issues in this phone are the lack of ips in the screen and the size for those who can't handle it and no the battery is fine
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agreed 100% with your post. Although the lack of ips is no issue imo.

thank you, ips is only an issue when use the phone flat on your desk or sharing with others, its a slight issue when old desire slcd/amoled, iphone 3Gs and ipads have much better view angles
but yea its no biggie, its my first HTC device where i found no need to flash custom stuff

Makes very little difference for me. I have to wonder about anyone that says this is a great camera - what are you comparing it against and have you ever used a Nokia for instance with Carl Zeiss optics?

xspyda said:
Makes very little difference for me. I have to wonder about anyone that says this is a great camera - what are you comparing it against and have you ever used a Nokia for instance with Carl Zeiss optics?
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yes nokia n900 and the DHD is better
i will post my results soon in full resolution

Here is a pic i took of my cat earlier today. Open in new tab to see the full resolution.

hamdir said:
i should make a detailed thread about the camera and be done with it
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Please do!
I for one am interested to finetune my camera app!

HTC Flagship 2015 - HTC One M9 - Snapdragon 810 - Information Collective Thread

This is mirror of a similar post from the HTC Flagships - Mega Tech Discussion Thread
As requested, i am posting it here for better visibility, this sticky thread will remain locked but updated regularly with new info, If you feel anything should be added feel free to send me a PM
HTC One M9 Collective Post #HTCOneM9 (press release & spec sheet attached in this post)
Official HTC One M9 Product Page (codename: Hima)
HTC advantage program
The Full Metal Phone:
"The HTC One M9 is fashioned out of two solid pieces of metal, tightly merged together while eliminating any need of including other types of materials" - HTC Designers
HTC One M9: Bring Your World to Life
The newest flagship in the globally acclaimed HTC One family, the HTC One M9 is a classic yet timeless celebration of beauty and elegance that combines high style and performance, enabling you to get the most from your mobile phone.
Chairwoman, Cher Wang, said: "HTC has built its reputation on challenging expectations in the mobile industry. The HTC One M9 accomplishes this once again with stunning elegance and design, combined with smart features that help bring your world to life, connecting you in a deeper way to the things you consider most important. So much more than just a phone, the HTC One M9 is an extension of who you are”.
Celebration of design. Building on a three-year pursuit of excellence, the HTC One M9 melds the best of the award-winning HTC One M7 and HTC One M8 into a stunning, iconic design. Distinct metal edges combine perfectly with graceful curves for a jewelry-grade look.
HTC Sense 7: An extension of you. Highly customizable and intuitively you, with the new HTC Sense 7 experience that comes with Themes that put you at the center of your smartphone experience, act as an always-on travel companion to enrich your mobile life, and an intelligent HTC BlinkFeed that makes it easier to uncover the hidden gems that surround you by using location data to recommend points of interest, news, and information .
Incredible imaging: Helping you create your best memories. With the best camera being the one you carry in your pocket, your smartphone should make it a breeze to take brilliant, creative and fun images.
20MP front camera. The main camera features an incredible 20 megapixels that accentuate every crisp, intricate detail and a sapphire cover lens that protects from scratches. For vivid video that looks like the latest blockbuster, the camera also shoots movies in 4K resolution.
UltraPixel Front-Facing Camera. The ultimate companion of the impulsive snapper, the HTC One M9 addresses low-light shots with a powerful UltraPixel™ front-facing camera. Dynamic auto exposure and UltraPixels that capture 300% more light than standard cameras deliver sharper, more natural and balanced self-portraits in any lighting conditions.
Exhilarating audio: The next generation of HTC BoomSound. The HTC One family’s iconic dual front-facing speakers, now combined with 5.1 channel Dolby® Surround sound simulation, get you even closer to the action, delivering extraordinary, cinema-style surround sound. Uniting HTC BoomSound and Dolby Audio™ creates immersion vibrant audio experience, so you can enjoy movies with rich, clear and powerful sound even without connecting headphones or external speakers.
Accessories
For a standout look, the HTC One M9 will be available with a range of unique and customizable accessories including the second generation HTC Dot View case, which adds more retro personalization thanks to a host of new features and color options. A transparent back keeps your smartphone pristine without hiding it from the world with the case injecting fun into even the most tedious commute by transforming into a mini games arcade. The new HTC Dot View case won’t even get in the way of apps such as Instagram, Snapchat and Badoo with through-the-case notifications alerting you to the latest photos, messages and check-ins.
Availability
The HTC One M9 will be available globally in dual-tone silver and rose gold, single-tone gunmetal grey, single-tone gold and dual-tone gold and pink in from mid-March.
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Specifications
SIZE: 144.6 x 69.7 x 9.61 mm
WEIGHT: 157g
DISPLAY: 5.0 inch, Full HD 1080p
PROCESSOR: Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 810 octa-core CPU, 4 x 2GHz + 4 x 1.5GHz, 64-bit processing
Total storage: 32GB, available capacity varies
RAM: 3GB
Expandable: microSD™ expansion supports additional memory cards up to 128GB
HTC BoomSound™ with Dolby Audio™
Main camera: 20MP with sapphire cover lens. Auto-focus, BSI sensor. f/2.2, 27.8mm lens, 4K video recording
Front camera: HTC UltraPixel™. BSI sensor. f/2.0, 26.8mm lens, 1080p video recording
3.5 mm stereo audio jack
Bluetooth® 4.1 with aptX®
Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 & 5 GHz)
HTC Connect™ for wirelessly streaming media from the phone to compatible multi-room audio systems, TVs, portable speakers and home entertainment systems
DLNA® for wirelessly streaming media from the phone to a compatible TV or computer
HDMI MHL 3.0
CIR
micro-USB 2.0 (5-pin) port
NFC
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Additional information by Jeff Gordon @urbanstata
Jeff Gordon ‏@urbanstrata 4m4 minutes ago
A few useful M9 tidbits: water resistance is rated IPx3. It supports Quick Charge 2.0. The LCD panel circuitry is under the black bar.
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Jeff Gordon ‏@urbanstrata 4m4 minutes ago
PSA: HTC One M9 software isn't finished yet. We're working hard to finalize it, focusing especially on camera optimizations. More soon!
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Jeff Gordon @urbanstrata · 1h 1 hour ago
The HTC One M9 offers electronic image stabilization (EIS), which conserves internal component space vs. OIS. @swap002
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Jeff Gordon @urbanstrata · 1h 1 hour ago
So instead of OIS, we can have things like EIS + a larger battery. @swap002
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Jeff Gordon @urbanstrata · 1h 1 hour ago
The HTC One M9 supports HD video at 30fps, 4K at 30fps, and slow motion at 120fps. @razarahil
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Adam Syrén ‏@adamsyren1 24m24 minutes ago
@urbanstrata is the front part of the casing, meaning the speakers cover part, made out of metal?
‏@urbanstrata
@adamsyren1 Yes, all metal.
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Jesse Erickson ‏@jessejtweets 2h2 hours ago
@urbanstrata I'm looking forward to testing out Boomsound with the Dolby 5.1 surround sound!
‏@urbanstrata
@jessejtweets It's awesome! Works with both headphones and the external speakers.
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Raza Rahil Hussain ‏@razarahil 2h2 hours ago
@urbanstrata one last question, Sense 7 support Lollipop camera api and can we edit RAW image in the phone?
‏@urbanstrata
@razarahil Not on the phone, however there's no technical limitation to this. It captures in RAW. Possible a third-party app could edit RAW.
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Jeff Gordon @urbanstrata · 11s 11 seconds ago
Elegant dual-tone silver & gold finish. More grippable sides & back. Power button moved to the side. Sapphire glass over camera. Beautiful.
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Jeff Gordon @urbanstrata · now 1 minute ago
I think M9 has to be seen in person to fully appreciate its elegance. This phone screams "premium," and that's tough to convey in photos.
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@Feetrree Dual-tone colors are silver & gold or pink & gold. Gunmetal grey and gold are single tone.
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Jeff Gordon @urbanstrata · 8m 8 minutes ago
More HTC One M9 tidbits: the @Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor is MSM8994. RAM is DDR4. MicroUSB version is SD3.0.
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HTC One M9 approximate battery stats (subject to network/phone usage): talk up to 25.4 hrs (21.7 on 3G), standby up to 391 hrs (402 on 3G).
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Jeff Gordon @urbanstrata · 10h 10 hours ago
@zmarof88 @MKBHD You wouldn't want QHD on a 5" display. It's overkill that sacrifices battery life.
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Jeff Gordon @urbanstrata · 13h 13 hours ago
@Talal_Al_Ahmed On-screen buttons allow more flexibility. For example, in Sense 7 you can add/remove/change the order of the buttons.
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Jeff Gordon
‏@urbanstrata
@ikadmy @image_sense I misspoke. The area around the speaker grills is plastic. Everything else is metal. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
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leoside ‏@leoside 4m4 minutes ago
@urbanstrata @Claudibus silver and black strips right there in this video, is this color combo on offer as well?
Jeff Gordon ‏@urbanstrata 2m
@leoside @Claudibus No, that's an early, unfinished unit.
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Jeff Gordon @urbanstrata · Mar 7
@MortySantiago1 Sorry, no Google Play edition currently planned for M9.
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Jeff Gordon ‏@urbanstrata 4h4 hours ago
It's interesting that some OEMs are positioning use of the Snapdragon 810 v2.1 processor as a product differentiator vs. v2.0.
Jeff Gordon ‏@urbanstrata 4h4 hours ago
The truth, according to what Qualcomm tells me, is virtually all OEMs who've announced devices with Snapdragon 810 are currently using v2.1
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Official Illustrations & photos
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
source: http://android-revolution-hd.blogspot.com/2015/03/htc-one-m9-in-all-flavours-gallery.html
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Reviews
http://www.techspot.com/review/980-htc-one-m9/
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-htc-one-m9-review
http://forum.dailymobile.net/forums/android-phones/97648-htc-m9-vs-galaxy-s6-user-review.html
http://forum.dailymobile.net/forums/htc/97629-review-vegetaleb-honest-review-htc-m9.html
http://www.androidpit.com/htc-one-m9-review
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tech/re...w-htc-has-done-it-again-.html#~p9sLa9j1C76goG
http://www.phonedog.com/videos/two-weeks-htc-one-m9-real-life-review
http://gavinsgadgets.com/2015/04/09/htc-one-m9-review-part-1/
http://androidandme.com/2015/06/reviews/review-htc-one-m9/
http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/HTC-One-M9-Review_id3956
http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_one_m9-review-1230.php
http://mobile.pcadvisor.co.uk/revie...one-m9-review-new-smartphone-flagship-2015-uk
http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2015/...capable-handset-thats-just-not-very-exciting/
http://pocketnow.com/2015/03/22/htc-one-m9-review
http://www.androidcentral.com/htc-one-m9-review
http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/22/htc-one-m9-review/
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9102/the-htc-one-m9-review-part-1
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9137/the-htc-one-m9-review-part-2
http://pocketnow.com/2015/03/22/htc-one-m9-vs-htc-one-m8-video
http://www.zdnet.com/article/htc-on...l-tone-design-with-focus-on-personalization/#
http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2015/03/htc-one-m9-review-a-great-phone-that-cant-keep-up
http://www.phonearena.com/
http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_one_m9-review-1230.php
http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/22/8272727/htc-one-m9-review
http://www.pocket-lint.com/review/133290-htc-one-m9-review-distracted-by-refinement
http://www.trustedreviews.com/htc-one-m9-review
http://tweakers.net/reviews/3921/11/htc-one-m9-waar-zijn-de-verbeteringen-conclusie.html
http://www.cnet.com/products/htc-one-m9-review/
http://bgr.com/2015/03/22/htc-one-m9-review/
http://www.slashgear.com/htc-one-m9-review-counting-on-quality-22374718/
http://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-HTC-One-M9-Smartphone.138986.0.html
http://htcsource.com/2015/03/htc-one-m9-review-perfect-iteration/
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Camera collective
- HTC One M9 - software 2.10.401.1, camera samples
- Android Central: How to take better photos with the HTC One M9
- Anandtech: A Quick Look at One M9 RAW Photos
- Photo Taken with M9 XDA thread
- How long it takes to process an M9 RAW photo using Photoshop Express
- Using M9 RAW mode to create HDR like results and recommended camera settings
- Final 1.40.x camera update changelog
- 1.40 point and shoot HDR samples
- HTC One M9 - Distance Image Quality tests - Large 20MP, 1.32.x vs 1.40.x
- HTC One M9 sharpness setting comparison & recommendations - updated camera code, base 1.40.x
- HTC One M9, OTA camera improvements, proper 1:1 comparison
- 1.36.709.3 vs 1.40.709.4 camera improvements
- HTC One M9 - Image Quality tests - Medium 16MP, JPG vs sharpness
- HTC One M9 - Distance Image Quality tests - Large 20MP, RAW vs JPG vs sharpness
- HTC camera app RAW mode review
- HTC adds RAW support to the HTC One M9 camera app
- Custom denoise versus HTC's camera denoise
- HTC One M9 Low Light - Camera Caps: It does great in low light
- Photo samples with recommended M9 Camera tweaks
- HTC One M9 Camera Powers - Part I
- My HTC One M9 Collection on Flickr
- Further assessment of the sharpness algorithm and conclusions
- HTC One M9 / SGS6 / iPhone 6 - 1:1 comparison
- M9 camera album by starbase64
- 1:1 Camera settings comparison by starbase64
- RAW 1:1 samples by starbase64
List of available resolution in the native camera app, 10:7 is the native aspect
downscaled medium and small produce better photos for Auto modes
RAW mode resolution setting is independent
(settings > crop, settings > resolution)
DeadPotato said:
16:9 Big: 5736 x 3024 = 17345664 / 1000 000 = 17.35 MP
16:9 Medium: 4672 x 2624 / 1000 000 = 12.26 MP
16:9 Small: 3808 x 2144 / 1000 000 = 8.16 MP
10:7 Big: 5736 x 3752 / 1000 000 = 20.49 MP
10:7 Medium: 4672 x 3264 / 1000 000 = 15.24 MP
10:7 Small: 3840 x 2688 / 1000 000 = 10.32 MP
1:1 Big: 3752 x 3752 / 1000 000 = 14.08 MP
1:1 Medium: 3264 x 3264 / 1000 000 = 10.65 MP
1:1 Small: 2656 x 2656 / 1000 000 = 7.05 MP
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HTC One M9 early camera samples
- Zdent review photos
- Photos taken with my non-final (hardware + software) HTC One M9 by Jesse
- HTC One M9 vs M8
- HTC Camera Samples
- Anh chup tu HTC One M9
- The verge: pre release hardware
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Useful links
- HTC Confirms the M9 is already using Snapdragon 810 rev 2.1 + proof
- HTC One M9 Dot View 2 Hands-On
- M9 Accessories Hands-On
- high quality photos of the silver/gold M9
- photos of the grey version
- more high quality photos of the silver/gold M9
- close up photos of the grey version
- close up photos of the silver/gold
- my early thoughts on the M9 launch
- my early thoughts on the camera samples
- HTC One M9 camera app resolution cap (downsampling)
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Teardown
- HTC One M9 Teardown by iFixit
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CPU Benchmarks
source: http://www.techspot.com/review/980-htc-one-m9/page5.html
The Snapdragon 810 is undoubtedly a fast SoC. The HTC One M9 is a very speedy device around the OS and in apps, though I wouldn’t say it’s significantly faster than the already-fast Snapdragon 801 we saw in the One M8. Loading apps and multi-tasking feels extremely quick on this device, and there is loads of power for gaming on the 1080p display, so there shouldn’t be any complaints on the performance side.
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Anyway, the One M9’s implementation of the Snapdragon 810 either outperforms or matches the Samsung Exynos 5433 we saw in the Galaxy Note 4. As a refresher, the Exynos 5433 features the very same big.LITTLE octa-core as the Snapdragon 810, but clocked slightly lower on both core clusters. It’s not surprising to see the One M9 outperforming the Exynos Note 4 by a small margin, around 7% on average, which is slightly lower than the average difference in CPU clock speeds (15%).
As the Exynos 5433 outperforms the Snapdragon 805 in CPU-heavy tasks by 7%, it’s not surprising to see the Snapdragon 810 also outperform the Snapdragon 805, in all but Basemark OS II 2.0. The average margin comparing these two Qualcomm SoCs is 12% in favour of the Snapdragon 810. Compared to the One M8, the One M9 is 26% faster in CPU-bound tasks, which is a respectable gain on silicon released only a year ago.
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]
NAND Benchmarks
source: http://www.techspot.com/review/980-htc-one-m9/page6.html
The NAND performance of the HTC One M9 shows a significant increase in speeds compared to last-generation hardware, especially on the sequential and random write front. The performance of the internal storage in the M9 is approaching that of an SSD from a couple of years ago, which is impressive for such compact modules with limited power and bandwidth. Compared to the M8, the M9’s NAND is anywhere from two to six times as fast.
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GPU Benchmarks
source: http://www.techspot.com/review/980-htc-one-m9/page6.html
The Snapdragon 810’s Krait 430 is definitely overkill for playing current Android games at 1080p – the Snapdragon 810 is designed for 1440p displays – but let’s check out how it performs anyway.
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On average, the Adreno 430 clocked in at 8% faster than the Adreno 420 in offscreen benchmarks, which is a modest improvement and not nearly as high as what Qualcomm claims, but enough to put the GPU at the top of the charts.
There’s a much larger difference in GPU power going from the One M8’s Snapdragon 801 to the One M9’s Snapdragon 810. When shader bound, the Adreno 430 clocks in at 67% faster than the Adreno 330 on average, and 50% faster when other bottlenecks are factored in. This is a pretty significant jump, although a large portion of that performance gain can also be seen upgrading to an Adreno 420.
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GPU Thermals
source: http://www.techspot.com/review/980-htc-one-m9/page6.html
Above you can see a range of charts that illustrate how the One M9 throttles throughout repeated GFXBench runs. The M9 sustains maximum GPU performance for five minutes, after which the SoC reaches a temperature of 40C and GPU clock speeds are cut in half. When the SoC approaches 45C, GPU clocks are cut further, leading to sustained performance just over half of the maximum.
These results are far from the worst I've seen (though they're not the best either), and sustained performance matches the peak performance of the Snapdragon 801 in the HTC One M8. It should be noted that the temperature of the outside of the One M9 doesn't reach 45C: during my testing it topped out at 42C as measured by an external thermometer.
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Gaming
- Feedback on the M9 gaming experience and thermals, plus recommendations
GFX benchmarks
- HTC One M9 GFX scores reveals a stable and leading graphics GPU performance
Natively it's Graphics speed exceeds the Nexus 9
Killer in OpenGL ES 3.1
Gamers looking forward the M9+ be very careful about the MTK MT6975 which has a very weak GPU, made even worse by the 2k panel
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HTC One M9 Battery Life (Android 5.0.2, Base 1.32.401.15)
note: Powersaver - CPU disables the A57 quad and lowers the minim speed from 633mhz to 300mhz, Airplane mode during sleep time, Dot View disabled
Full speed, 37% brightness, 4G/Wifi, Half an hour gaming, Auto sync:
Powersaver - CPU, 37% brightness, 4G/Wifi, Half an hour gaming, Auto sync:
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About the HTC One M9+ variant (spec sheet attached)
HTC One M9+ Official product page
Despite the apparent "plus" on the surface, the M9+ has significantly weaker aspects compared to the M9, the dark-side of the MTK SoC is the GPU :
3x weaker GPU yet the same 2840mAH battery running 1.8x increase in LCD pixel density and 0.2" larger at almost half the memory bandwidth
remember this video?
Graphically poor against the M9 , it's even weaker than the iPhone5s, the M9+ is not the best phone for gamers
https://gfxbench.com/compare.jsp?be...pi1=gl&D2=HTC+One+M9+(0PJA10,+6535LVW)&cols=2
https://gfxbench.com/compare.jsp?be...os1=Android&api1=gl&D2=Apple+iPhone+5S&cols=2
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M9+ Availability
We are excited to bring the HTC One M9+ to customers in China, where we have worked closely with mobile operators to create a phone with the right balance of screen size, processor performance, software, and radio network compatibility to meet consumers' needs.
The HTC One M9+ is currently available in China only and will be ranged in other markets, to be confirmed locally at a later date. Please follow your local country pages for availability information.
The One M9+ is not currently planned to be released in North America or Europe, where we believe our flagship, HTC One M9, is the best choice for blazing fast performance, incredible sound, and network compatibility across the broadest range of operators.
For more information on the HTC One M9+, including a full list of accessories, check out the product page: HTC One M9+ (China). (The product page will be live about 2 hours after this post is live; if you don't see it, please wait a little bit longer for our servers to catch up.)
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----------------------------------------

My own tests and observations regarding the HTC One M9 are linked here in the second post:
One M9 versus OnePlus 2 versus Nexus 6P, internal Snapdragon 810 thermal release configuration comparison
HTC One M9 camera - HW Luma Denoise Mod - Base 2.10.401.1, Dramatically increases detail
HTC One M9 screen - calibration values using ElementalX Kernel and EX kernel manager
HTC One M9 camera - switch from HW denoise to SW via build.prop
HTC One M9 - software 2.10.401.1, camera samples
Feedback on the M9 gaming experience and thermals, plus recommendations
HTC One M9 - GameBench Series -Godfire (1.32.401.17)
HTC One M9 - GameBench Series - Mortal Kombat X (1.32.401.17)
HTC One M9 - GameBench Series - Asphalt 8 (1.32.401.17)
1.40 point and shoot HDR samples
HTC One M9 - Distance Image Quality tests - Large 20MP, 1.32.x vs 1.40.x
HTC One M9 sharpness setting comparison & recommendations - updated camera code, base 1.40.x
HTC One M9, OTA camera improvements, proper 1:1 comparison
1.36.709.3 vs 1.40.709.4 camera improvements
How long it takes to process an M9 RAW photo using Photoshop Express
Using M9 RAW mode to create HDR like results and recommended camera settings
HTC One M9 - Image Quality tests - Medium 16MP, JPG vs sharpness
HTC One M9 - Distance Image Quality tests - Large 20MP, RAW vs JPG vs sharpness
HTC camera app RAW mode review
Custom denoise versus HTC's camera denoise
HTC One M9 Low Light - Camera Caps: it does great in low light, just bring it under control
HTC One M9 Camera Powers - Part I
Photo samples with recommended M9 Camera tweaks
Further assessment of the M9 sharpness algorithm and conclusions
HTC One M9 / SGS6 / iPhone 6 - 1:1 comparison
.

HTC One M9 review coming from the One X by aliHTCDHD
Conclusion
Overall I love the phone, It has a beautiful design however, just like a Ferrari or a Rolex because of its beauty and price this isn't something you would want to drop. It is also something that while you have it you will always have fear following you regarding keeping it in a pristine condition. If someone asked me what was the two things that make this phone better then anything else it would be its design and sound quality, nothing matches it! It is a nice phone that lacks silly gimmicks that the S6 has and is made for the classy people who value a good experience. I don't know how reviewers can complain about the design being like this for three years ina row. if HTC decided to keep the design exact year it would still be fine with me. You cant get bored of this design in the same manner you cant get bored of a Porsche, Ferrari or Lamborghini. This is HTC's DNA and I think because they kept the same design, it doesn't say that they are weak, but that they are confident with their brand image. I think if the M10 comes with a better stabilisation, S820 and an increase in UM size we have a phone that is perfect. I hope you have enjoyed reading the review and if you are thinking of getting this or S6, I hope I have made it easier
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HTC One M9 Battery Life (Android 5.0.2, Base 1.32.401.15)
note: Powersaver - CPU disables the A57 quad and lowers the minim speed from 633mhz to 300mhz, Airplane mode during sleep time, Dot View disabled
Full speed, 37% brightness, 4G/Wifi, Half an hour gaming, Auto sync:
Powersaver - CPU, 37% brightness, 4G/Wifi, Half an hour gaming, Auto sync:

HTC One M9 Plus Official product page:
http://www.htc.com/in/smartphones/htc-one-m9-plus/

Digital Foundry: HTC One M9 review
This year's model arguably takes even more modest steps forward, offering a device that, to the layperson, is mostly identical to its predecessor in its aesthetic. There are improvements under the bonnet and this is without a doubt one of the best-made and most luxurious Android handsets on the market - but it's hard to shake the impression that HTC is stumbling back into the rut it tried so valiantly to escape in 2013.
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Someone at HTC is clearly proud of the One's design, as its stylish aluminium-framed look has been retained for a third time - albeit with minor alterations. The back of the device is hewn from a single slab of scratch-resistant metal and boasts a premium feel that is unmatched in the Android arena - and, it must be said, even puts Apple's typically lush handsets to shame. New colour options are on the table this year, with a two-tone gold and silver unit making the phone very nearly resemble an item of jewellery
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All in all though, this is a handsome device with a premium feel, and on some level it's easy to see why HTC doesn't want to consign this particular template to the scrapheap just yet. Few other Android phones come close, at least in terms of aesthetic charm.
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While the two-tone silver and gold seen on this model might not be to everyone's tastes, the overall design and build quality of the HTC One M9 is beyond reproach. This is a gorgeous phone, but then again, so was its forerunner.
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In the face of 2.5K screens used in other flagship phones this year, the choice to avoid bumping the M9's screen resolution is a surprise. In some respects this is a plus point; we're fast approaching a point of diminishing visual turns, and a resolution bump only increases the burden on a processor. The gains would have been slight, unless you plan on pressing your nose up to the glass for a closer inspection.
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performance is impressive as there are no additional pixels to push.
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Refreshingly, the power doesn't come at the expense of overall clarity, either. Google and Motorola have attempted a similar trick with the Nexus 6, but at maximum volume the M9 is a clear front-runner in this area. The sound tech has a positive impact on call quality too, as the uppermost Boomsound speaker above the screen is used during calls and provides excellent results.
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The M9 is blessed with a fearsome arsenal of tech, but it has attracted some negative attention for generating excessive amounts of heat. It's true that when engaged in a particularly taxing activity the phone's casing becomes noticeably warm, but no more so than many of its cutting-edge rivals, and we suspect the reason it's more immediately obvious here is because the aluminium casing is channelling the heat more effectively. During our review we felt we pushed HTC's device to the limit, and it never got uncomfortably hot - something which was claimed in many early hands-on previews by other sites.
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With this much power to hand, HTC has clearly had to put measures in place to shackle this beast. Running at full pelt, the M9's internals would usually drain its 2840mAh in no time at all. To combat this, the phone attempts to strike a balance by giving you just enough power when you need it, but eases off the accelerator once things become too demanding. It's a problem every mobile maker faces, as battery technology simply isn't keeping pace with CPU evolution, and all that can be done is to cram bigger power cells into phones. While the M9 certainly isn't the most ravenous handset we've encountered, its stamina is hardly awe-inspiring. You'll almost certainly have to charge it every day if you intend to make the most of the Snapdragon 810 chipset's potential.
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Thankfully the M9 supports quick charging, meaning those with the right equipment don't need to wait too long between bouts of use. Like Google's Nexus 6, you can fill up the battery entirely in around an hour with this approach, and 15 minutes of charge provides an impressive six hours of use. Sadly, HTC doesn't ship the phone with a compatible high-speed charger in the box. You'll have to pick one up at an additional cost; a bit of a slap in the face, given how expensive the device is in the first place.
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HTC's exclusive software is more useful. Its photo-editing tool Zoe is extracted from the camera application - a good move if you want to totally ignore it, as many will - but the dedicated theme generator is fantastic. Not only does it offer access to many unique themes, but it also allows you to create your own using nothing but a photo. Pick the snap and the software will create a theme that matches it in terms of colour, and the results are, by and large, aesthetically pleasing.
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The UltraPixel dream is over, and in its place we have a more traditional 20.7 megapixel snapper which captures detailed shots, but struggles with exposure on occasion.
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The much-hyped UltraPixel camera sensor, which only offered 4 megapixels but used larger pixels to allow more light into the lens, is gone. In its stead, we have a more traditional 20.7 megapixel snapper, while the rather gimmicky dual camera configuration of the M8 has wisely been abandoned. HTC has essentially blinked in the face of its rivals; the UltraPixel concept was a brave one that made the not-unreasonable assumption that better-lit photos are superior to those with massive amounts of detail. But rather than evolve it, the company chooses to cast it aside and join the tiresome megapixel arms race.
The new camera takes photos that hold up well when zoomed, but it suffers from the usual problems: low-light shooting is tricky, and the phone has a tendency to overexpose images when there's a marked contrast in lighting. Last year's UltraPixel sensor hasn't been totally binned, meanwhile. It's been transplanted to the front of the phone, where it's used to take some of the more impressive selfies yet seen on a smartphone
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Games run very smoothly on the HTC One M9, a consequence of improving the processor while keeping the screen resolution the same as last year. The Boomsound speakers bring audio to life too, making this feel - at times - like a genuine console experience.
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HTC's handset has the added advantage of expandability too; you can slot in a microSD card of up to 128GB in capacity. This will come as excellent news to those who want to use their phone as a multimedia powerhouse, although it should be noted that inserting a card containing a lot of content could impact the overall performance of the phone.
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HTC One M9: the Digital Foundry verdict
HTC's process of iterating its phones isn't a negative thing in itself; sometimes its worth developing a design, especially when it's one that is as appealing as this. The key issue with the M9 is that it doesn't deliver the gains you'd expect when asked to shell out for a new monthly contract or up-front fee. While the internal tech has improved, the battery isn't up to the task of letting its Snapdragon 810 fully stretch its legs, and as a result the HTC One M9 is something of a caged animal, never truly allowed to achieve its full potential.
Strictly in terms of its build quality and design, HTC adds little to the menu this time. The screen is identical to the M8's of last year, and the 20.7 megapixel camera - while capable of detailed shots - is a disappointing side-step from what HTC promised with its UltraPixel technology. Outside of these aspects, there's no unique twist to the M9 to celebrate; no fingerprint scanner, no ambient display, while the dual-camera arrangement that garnered so much attention on the M8 is gone.
As such, the HTC One M9 represents something of a crossroads for its manufacturer. It's not a bad effort by any stretch of the imagination, as the design is easily among the best in the Android sector, while the power is considerable when allowed to show its potential. However, without a massive step forward, it risks being lost amid a sea of more capable and alluring competitors this year. The M9 looks and sounds the part, and should keep tills ringing for the Taiwanese firm throughout 2015, but its next move is a pivotal one - and prospective buyers would do well to investigate other options before committing their cash, such as the massive Nexus 6 and the Samsung Galaxy S6.
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International M9 just received a small OTA update, 90MB, 1.32.401.17

The M9+ GPU got a slight a increase (G6200 2 clusters) but the M9 is still 2 to 3x faster, especially native
offscreen the M9+ is almost as fast as the M8 GPU, onscreen the M8 becomes faster, keep in mind that MTK clocks the GPU very high around 700mhz so against the M8 it will lose as it will throttle faster
3.1 not tested so far, for better perspective check the resutls against the iPhones
https://gfxbench.com/compare.jsp?be...pi1=gl&D2=HTC+One+M9+(0PJA10,+6535LVW)&cols=2
https://gfxbench.com/compare.jsp?be...os1=Android&api1=gl&D2=Apple+iPhone+5S&cols=2

Android Central: How to take better photos with the HTC One M9
The HTC One M9 marks a change in course for the Taiwanese manufacturer, as it relocates its Ultrapixel camera around the front, and settles on a traditional high-megapixel shooter for the main camera. The M9's 20-megapixel shooter has been one of the main points of contention among HTC fans and critics since the phone's arrival. It's not a bad camera, but it does require a little tweaking in order to get the best results.
We'll take a look at some basic tips for getting the most out of your M9's camera after the break.
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M9 owners have also been getting good results by limiting the camera's max ISO (sensitivity) to 200 or 400. An extensive write-up by xda poster Hamdir shows that with proper stabilization, this can make a big difference in low light shots. At lower ISO levels, there's much less visible noise, leading to clearer shots. The trade-off is that you'll need to hold your phone steady in darker conditions, as the phone needs to keep its shutter open for longer.
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There's also been much discussion over image sharpening on the M9, with some forum posters showing that low-light images come out better with the Sharpness slider (under Settings) set to -0.5 or -1. (Or rather, that HTC's camera software tends to slightly over-sharpen images at the default level, leading to an increase in visible artefacts in low-light shots.)
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But on the M9, this doesn't always produce the best results, and we've found it's often better to trust HTC's auto exposure algorithm, even if landscapes appear underexposed in the on-screen preview.
When you view your photos later, you'll often find outdoor shots are much more evenly exposed than they originally appeared. This is partly due to the realities of using a smartphone display in bright daylight — details in darker areas are more difficult to make out.
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Using macro mode for macro shots might seem obvious, but the HTC One M9's macro mode is among the best out there, and if you're using your M9 for close-ups for tiny things, it's worth exploring. (Find the flower icon under the modes menu to activate it.)
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notes about GPU thermal throttling from the Anandtech reviews
The end performance actually ends up being quite similar to the One M8, but performance during the test is much higher than what we saw on the One M8.
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The one major issue here that is visible from the FPS vs time graph is that Samsung continues to struggle with graceful throttling as the GPU attempts to always target maximum performance, which causes a strong rise and fall in frame rate as the GPU goes through periods of high and low clock speeds determined by the thermal governor.
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With that said, there are still problems with Samsung Mobile’s drivers, as we see some pretty poor user experience from thermally throttled situations due to the oscillating behavior of GPU performance.
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Sample RAW output using Freedcam with hardware denoise disabled, later color denoised using Photoshop:
Follow the link and view at 1:1 to get a picture of the pure M9 camera sensor output
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=troop.com.freedcam
starbase64 said:
my freedcam settings
Settings
API: Camera1
Modes
ISO: ISO100
exposure: frame-average
Quality > all disabled
image settings:
size: 5376x3752
format: bayer-mipi-10grbg
capture: DNG
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How to change camera de-noise behaviour
defcomg said:
Okay here how to change denoise modes
add this to build.prop
persist.denoise.process.plates=x
where x is replace with either 0 1 2 3
Y = Luminance Channel
CBCR = Color Channels
0 = CAM_WAVELET_DENOISE_YCBCR_PLANE | Quality Priority Color & Luma
1 = CAM_WAVELET_DENOISE_CBCR_ONLY | Quality Priority Color only
2 = CAM_WAVELET_DENOISE_STREAMLINE_YCBCR | Speed Priority Luna & Color. This is the default profile used BTW
3 = CAM_WAVELET_DENOISE_STREAMLINE_CBCR | Speed Priority Color only.
Source Line 4288
https://android.googlesource.com/pl...5cb642da3123802/QCamera2/HAL3/QCamera3HWI.cpp
This Should apply to all camera apps.
Also here is camera profile with a linear curve might work better for you https://www.dropbox.com/s/cvqn34xfta14qf3/NX503_LIN_Curve.dcp?dl=0
Force EIS OFF
1= enable 0 = disable
camera.eis.enable=0
Force 2x1 JPEG Subsampling default is 2x2
0 to return to default
persist.camera.snap.format=1
more on subsampling
www.impulseadventure.com/photo/chroma-subsampling.html
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defcomg said:
try this one
should disable noise reduction system wide
Code:
persist.camera.qcwnr.enabled=0
Some others
Temporal Noise Reduction this affect video afaik
Supported values
Code:
on,off
Code:
persist.camera.tnr.preview=off
Code:
persist.camera.tnr.video=off
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some recommended application:
starbase64 said:
persist.denoise.process.plates=0
camera.eis.enable=0
persist.camera.snap.format=1
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Freedcam receives an M9 related update:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=troop.com.freedcam
oneplusone and htc one xl have now correct colors in dng
added temporal noise reduction for m9(turn off cds and wavelet denoise bevor activating it, non of the 3 modes can work together, so turn off all 3 bevor activating one)
changed menu style. on group click it opens now on bottom instead of the right side
fixed bug for playmemories api. it works now on all devices without framedata(like qx100)
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Custom denoise versus HTC's wavelet denoise:
Freedcam, quality settings off, denoise off, sharpness 0, saturation +6, ISO100
JPEG100 + Photoshop Denoise + Levels
JPEG100, in this one you can see the original sensor 1:1 precision and noise, reminder the scene was in fairly average light
DNG to JPEG + Photoshop Denoise
you can denoise JPEG100 better than Freedcam's DNG using Photoshop's Open As DNG
HTC Camera App, defaults, sharpness -0.5, ISO200, medium:

HTC camera app update adds RAW support to the HTC One M9:
http://www.androidcentral.com/htc-one-m9-can-now-take-pictures-raw-format
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.htc.camera&hl=en
What's New
- Raw Camera mode, only available on the HTC One M9
- Crop-Me-In mode, only available on the HTC One (M8 EYE) running Android 5.0 Lollipop and the HTC Desire EYE
- Adjustable divider in Split Capture mode
- Add and remove camera modes
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Phones featuring the EYE experience, like the One (M8) or Desire EYE, get unique ways to capture memorable moments. Create wide-angle or 360-degree panoramas, shoot a photo booth-style filmstrip, crop yourself into a landscape or capture with the selfie and main cameras at the same time. If you have the new HTC One M9, you get the EYE experience and even more out of HTC Camera. The Raw Camera mode lets you capture Digital Negative files (.DNG) that you can adjust using professional tools. Check out the Bokeh camera, too, which gives your photos a soft, out-of-focus background and a sharp, in-focus subject. When recording video, try filming with 4K resolution for high-quality results.
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Qualcomm Immersive Audio: superior surround sound on your smartphone—without headphones
Let’s compare Qualcomm Immersive Audio to the traditional getup for a second. Traditional smartphones deliver sound with stereo headphones on a mono speaker. With Immersive Audio, users can listen to high quality music without the headphones and with the help of two front-facing speakers.
Until now it wasn’t technically possible to play stereo audio on mobile speakers. Quality sound relies on acoustic isolation, which stereo speakers haven’t been especially competent at delivering. For a good listening experience, each ear is supposed to hear a different stream of music. But there’s this phenomenon called crosstalk which happens where the right ear hears the same sound as the left ear. Without acoustic isolation, the signal is distorted and loses its full dimension. Immersive Audio is designed to fix this problem.
Crosstalk cancellation technology, added to mobile devices with dual front speakers, processes the audio so that users can listen to any content with the equivalent quality as when they’ve got their headphones plugged in. Canceling out crosstalk addresses the problem of listening fatigue. Qualcomm Technologies takes this technology a step further by selectively drawing out, and then processing, the center of the “sound image” before the crosstalk cancellation technology adds the finishing polish.
This innovative technique produces a center of sound that’s faithfully sharp and immersive, unmatched in other audio platforms. Music and other surround sound content now sounds like it’s flowing from multi-channel headphones with nothing more than the device in your hand.
HTC’s famous BoomSound just went fully immersive by adopting Qualcomm Immersive Audio in the flagship HTC One M9, powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor. The new HTC device also supports the Qualcomm AllPlay smart media platform, which makes streaming music to one or more speakers easier than ever.
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beautiful M9 camera album by @starbase64:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/maik_reifschneider/sets/72157651505923058/

HTC camera app RAW mode review
RAW mode works great on the M9 and it's well thought
when you first switch to RAW camera, it gives you the option to change storage location and do you the good favor of recommending the phone internal storage for faster operation, the RAW camera has some settings of it's own so you will need to change to 10:7 aspect ratio if you want the full 20MP, even if you already had that set in normal camera, now the cool part: the interface is the same as manual mode but it's all set to auto, effectively giving you an automated camera with raw output, you can change the values to get a manual result, once you take a shot it takes a little longer to save it than it does for normal camera and the reason is simple, its saving a huge DNG file and a highly compressed JPEG version of the same image, the best part: you can still see the photo in the HTC Gallery thanks to the JPG companion photo, once you go to DCIM you will find two files of each image, JPG and DNG
here is a processed DNG with manual values, ISO100 and 0.5sec shutter
Below you can compare pure DNG vs Processed vs JPG Preview, also Manual vs Auto, note the darkness of the scene as well:
RAW mode, auto values (it went for ISO320 light was after sunset)
JPG preview file (as you can see it has HTC's Denoise)
DNG converted to JPG, pure (as you can all the Denoise and processing code is disabled)
DNG processed in photoshop (denoised, sharpned and detailed)
RAW mode, manual values (ISO100, Shutter 0.5sec)
JPG preview file
DNG converted to JPG, pure
DNG processed in photoshop
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you can download the two DNG files from here (auto values vs manual)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7nalyaa6q58fmgh/M9-RAW-Samples.rar?dl=0
.

More RAW results:
hamdir said:
I processed the same DNG again in Photoshop, this time in 16bit mode:
This one is interesting, it's a JPG taken with DNG in raw mode, for some reason it looks really nice, in a pub, abysmal low light:
and here it is again DNG processed:
one more DNG, remember very bad lighting:
and here is where it gets interesting, the following photo was taken in Auto mode but sharpness -2 and ISO capped to 200, it collected better 1:1 detail than the RAW image
i processed the JPG heavily in Photoshop and used a detail extractor, similar to the one used by Sony phones:
and this the second attempt with RAW mode, i processed the DNG heavily in photoshop:
I also thought it would be interesting to compare with this M8 super resolution photo which was stacked in Photoacute into 16MP and toned mapped
The above test made conclude once and for all is that I should stick with sharpness -2 for auto mode, as it can preserve greater detail, it's still getting denoised by HTC code but at least we turned off the sharpness code entirely, the less processing the better
next i will try to stack an M9 photo of the same scene using Photoacute and see what can we achieve
.
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RAW attempts by @flex360
flex360 said:
Some RAW shots taken this morning using the updated HTC Camera app (with Raw Support) and denoised with photoshop
IMAG0252 by flexbox360, on Flickr
IMAG0251 by flexbox360, on Flickr
IMAG0250 by flexbox360, on Flickr
IMAG0249 by flexbox360, on Flickr
IMAG0246 by flexbox360, on Flickr
IMAG0257 by flexbox360, on Flickr
IMAG0253 by flexbox360, on Flickr
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My comparison between OnePlus One and Honor 6 Plus

Hi All
This supposed to be subjective comparison between OnePlus One and Honor 6 Plus. I will not get into too much of technical details as internet is full or such reviews already. It is written based on my usage style and you will clearly see what is important for me. I am open for debate but just in case of any fanboys from either camp would like to argue with me – let me stress it out – this MY and SUBJECTIVE opinion and you can have yours as well
It will concentrate on main aspects as:
1. Overall build quality;
2. Screen quality;
3. Speaker quality;
4. Overall subjective speed;
5. OS;
6. Battery life;
7. Camera quality;
There will be no summary saying that OPO or H6+ is better as there are different aspects each of us takes into account and I would prefer each of you get its own conclusion.
1. Overall build quality.
Honor 6 Plus
H6+ feels solid, it reminds me very much small brick my iPhone 4 was. In various reviews I read that silver band around edges was metal but I dare to doubt. In my opinion it is plastic imitating metal. But it does a good job. You don’t fear that H6+ will fall apart in your hand. Some of my previous Samsung devices had this fragile feeling (especially this flimsy battery cover bending under fingers). Here we have very solid build mobile.
Still quality is not ideal – in my case the black plastic lip between screen and silver band is not even. Not something you will notice but as I am freaking perfectionist I do (believe me) check construction quality with my nose almost touching the mobile under each angle. Some reviewers complained about large gap on the back of the phone between back glass and black plastic. On my phone this is not an issue and glass seems to be glued perfectly. As you see these are not major drawbacks and I believe that they are totally acceptable on the sub £300 mobile.
OnePlus One
Oh boy I love the feeling of this mobile – this may be a bit of fetishism but I love the black back feel it’s “like sand paper meets velvet” feeling. It has great grip and its silver frame around display adds this elegant look. I have been using OPO for around 8 months and it still looks as new. Really I can’t say a bad word about its construction quality.
Both phones are quite different in terms of design and really which one you prefer it’s down to your preferences.
2. Screen quality;
Both mobiles have the same screen resolution and as far as I understand both are IPS displays with Gorilla Glass on top. Having them side by side I noticed that my OPO has much colder colours (I know that different batches of OPO had different colour temperatures on their screens). Even setting coldest colours on H6+ they were still bit warmer than OPO screen. Personally I don’t mind either as if you don’t have reference next to screen you really will not mind this.
Viewing angles horizontally are very good and almost equal on both mobiles. Horizontal viewing angles seems to vary and on my units - H6+ had better viewing angle from top and OPO from bottom but this has been only visible at angles above around 150 degrees.
3. Speaker quality;
If you use mobile phones speakers for what they have been meant for (ring tonnes and loudspeaker) then both phones are suit for this purpose.
If you are a young sadist who loves to torture passengers on public transport with “bumbumbum” music from tiny mobile phone speakers – then both phones will also suit this purpose – I mean torture.
Let’s be honest these tiny speakers will not play quality music. They can make quite a noise but if you have any respect to your (and other passengers) ears you will use quality headphones.
Still I did check both of the speakers and I must say that in terms of volume H6+ seems to have linear scale and OPO logarithmic. This mean that both phones create similar noise at max volume but at 50% H6+ is much louder.
It terms of sound quality at 50% I much rather prefer H6+ which sound was cleared and less tin like but it ended up with larger distortion at the top of the range which sounds just like tones on both end of the scale have been cut. OPO still had this tin like sound but at the top volume it was reproducing larger spectrum than H6+.
Again personally there are no forces on Earth which can make me to listen music on mobile speaker and call this pleasure. Therefore as long as mobile phone has loud ring tonne which I can hear and I can understand the other side during conversation over the loudspeaker I say it’s OK and suits its purpose and from this perspective both phones pass.
In terms of front speaker I didn’t noticed any significant differences between them as I could hear the other person loud and clear even in noisy environment.
OPO has 3 microphones while H6+ has 2 - still people claimed that they could hear me slightly louder on H6+ than on OPO – this could be due to different noise cancellation algorithm or just due to their subjective judgment.
4. Overall subjective speed (no benchmarks here);
Both phones are working great and I didn’t suffer any shutters of freezes during normal use. Still some games i.e. GTA III plays better on OPO, Riptide GP2 crashes on H6+ when I try to turn shadows on, but other demanding games like Reckless Racing 3, Modern Combat 5 or Deus Ex are working like a charm on max settings therefore it is hard to judge if H6+ really lacks a bit of steam under the hood or it’s just an issue with games optimisation for Kirin processor.
I know that most of you will refer me back to benchmarks and charts stating that this is obvious as SD 801 is better (just a bit but still) than Kirin 925 but honestly how many apps in the play store uses your processors, graphics and memory in 100%? C’mon let’s stop this MPix, MB, MHz race and let’s check real life performance.
I have been using Tegra 4 and Tegra K1 devices and beside these few great exclusive titles like Half-life 2, Portal or recently released Doom 3 (which probable would work on other SoC’s as well) for the most of the time it was a steam in the whistle – there are no apps able to use this power.
5. OS;
Both mobiles runs custom ROMs – Cyanogen in case of OPO and EMUI in case of H6+ I will not concentrate on general descriptions on both of these releases as there are plenty discussion and debates about both of them. I would rather say a few words how they feel in day to day usage.
OnePlus One
As you would expect it is highly customisable and I did enjoy this. It is full of small add-ons and features that you find handy. Still it manages to keep this vanilla feeling of Android OS.
For me it was like using a Linux distro on PC you can do everything you want but you have to know what you want and where to look for the feature in the menu.
It provides best vanilla experience of Android I experienced and all its add-ons we actually useful – for me most frequently used options was equalizer which managed to convince me that I actually hear bass on my in-ear headphones
Honor 6 Plus
This is as much iOS on android as you can get. In a good way. I love power management, memory management system management it’s almost like heaven if you like me like to keep your system as clean as possible – this is first time I didn’t have to install my standard set of third party management apps as all of the settings are built in the ROM.
Lack of app drawer wasn’t any issue for me as I usually ended up with all the shortcuts in the folders on desktops either way. Possibly if you have just few icons on the desktop you may find this change annoying but its 100% subjective.
In terms of user friendliness I must say I do enjoy all those little tips the system is giving you like – “oy! this app is working in the background and is eating battery are you ok with this or you want to close it”? This is very useful if you experienced before “google services” battery issue before. Personally I found myself spending less time looking for functions and access to them seems to be quicker.
H6+ has micro SD slot (up to 128GB) and despite KK limitations it somehow manages to squeeze apps onto micro SD card. Currently my system shows more than 20GB free space (out of 25GB total available for the user out of the box) in the main memory having 14GB apps installed!
I was using 64GB version of OPO so I didn’t experience memory problem there either 
Micro SD also doubles as second sim slot (nano SIM) and from what I understand from menu description is 2G only. You can fully control default actions like from which card phone calls or messages will be initiated by default as well as set independent ringtones for calls and messages – useful feature for some but I didn’t have the need to use it nor spare nano SIM with credit on it to test – therefore I will not be able to comment on this feature.
OPO comes as vanilla as it can really be without any rubbish on it. H6+ has some fermium apps on it BUT most of them are shortcuts not really installed on brand new phone (0B size) and the rest is not embedded into ROM and can be fully uninstalled not hidden!! I would love this solution on my Samsung tablet which not only has mere 16GB of storage but is packed with tonnes of crapware.
6. Battery life;
I am a heavy user – my typical scenario: wake up, unplug mobile, check weather forecast, browse news over my morning coffee while streaming music over LTE, commuting =more web browsing and music streaming over LTE to my BT headset, a lot more of this during work and commuting back, evening more browsing over WiFi. I would estimate that I browse internet 2h – 3h a day over LTE + 2h music streaming over LTE with BT on and another 3h-4h with BT off;
Monthly mobile data usage is between 10GB-16GB.
Using OPO I had to limit myself as battery was around 15% at 5-6PM with H6+ I still have around 40% at the same time. Recent H6+ record 8.00am to 1.00pm next day. Normal users will get more than one day from both phones.
7. Camera quality;
I will not get into technicalities here – as far as I know both OPO and H6+ uses Sony sensors – OPO 13Mpix and H6+ 2x8Mpix.
First if you are looking for high quality camcorder OPO is the phone you should look at. It doesn’t mean that video from H6+ is bad but OPO not only has Full HD video recording but it goes further up to 4k. Still since I have no device to play back 4k videos or memory to store them (and they are huge) it is not a very appealing feature. OPO also can record slow motion video at 120fps on 720p! This is the features I miss mostly on H6+.
Again I am really crappy cameraman and my videos looks like first person view from drunken fly flight so I don’t bother that much about those H6+ limitations (ok I will miss slow motion video a lot ).
Now, the feature most important to me – camera photo quality.
Comparing both cameras on auto mode I have noticed that H6+ has wider tonal range, photos are not overexposed. Shooting photo of the bright sky and the ground contrast differences are much more settle between them on H6+. OPO usually (like most cameras) chooses one or another (sky or ground) to set exposure on. End result is nice sky and black ground or nice grass and white sky.
Now looking at the photos with correct exposure and comparing them site by site 1:1 it seems that grain and noise is visible at similar levels – colours on the other hand are better handled by H6+ as they look more natural and bit more saturated. Photos from OPO are bit colder and have tiny blue hue. Nothing major and most photos look very good on OPO - unless you are shooting landscapes in full Sun. Of course this can be mitigated by using HDR on OPO but still H6+ does the job without using such improvements.
Now where H6+ shines is low light performance – as both OPO and H6+ lacks OIS it may be tricky to get perfectly steady shoot. Using auto mode I took photos with both cameras in the dark room without flash with only bit of light seeping through partially open doors. On photo from OPO you are able to recognise shapes but that’s it – colours are lost and noise level is extremely high. H6+ photo is much better shapes are much sharper, noise is definitely lower and there are even some colours on the photo.
OK this was quite an extreme shot and probably compact camera wouldn’t produce much better (if at all) results.
Therefore I moved to something more subtle – lets simulate “party shoot” – rather dim light indoor in the evening – photos taken free hand without flash – oh boy this where you can see true benefit of dual camera setup – let’s be honest there still is bit of noise on H6+ photos and this is not an DSLR quality but for sure this is the best quality I saw on mobiles I owned (and it was quite a number). Comparing quality between OPO and H6+ you can see much more details on the latter, photo has significant less noise and photos are much sharper.
There is super-night setup on H6+ but really you will need tripod to use it as it set’s lower ISO and increase exposure time.
Good news is that on both mobiles you can gain full access to manual settings via my favourite app Camera FV-5. On H6+ you can change ISO setting and WB within standard camera app but since these functions are hidden on the bottom of settings menu I prefer to use Camera FV-5 as it not only brings these functions on the main screen but additionally allows to manually control exposure time and EV compensation.
It’s worth noted that OPO has ability to save files in RAW format which is missing in H6+
Wide aperture mode – it’s nice function/gadget, something you saw on HTC M8 and also mimiced by few apps on app store (i.e. google camera) – my advice – don’t buy H6+ solely for this feature.
It does work but it has serious limitations and end result is not always perfect. I haven’t tested M8 to confirm but from what I heard this function is working much better on H6+ than on M8 (M8 had to be disaster then ). To get decent results on H6+ make sure that your object is at least 2m from camera and background is fair distance away from main subject of the photo – this way you have the best chances that algorithm will “understand” photo depth correctly. Otherwise you may end up with some errors on the blur edges. Also don’t take photos of the objects with holes in them as blur will be applied outside the objects but not on “see through” parts.
As you see there are some serious limitations and don’t let anybody to tell you that you can leave your DSLR at home – still saying this I have quite a fun with this function. As long as you are aware of these limitations and have in mind “do’s” and “Do not’s” you will have as much fun as I do.
8. Summary
I hope you found this useful and if you considering any of these mobiles hopefully this will help.
Both have its strengths and weaknesses and as always there are no perfect devices the key is to find one perfect for you
Personally I like both mobiles very much – I chose to use H6+ as a main phone because of camera quality, speed and low light performance. From this perspective it serves me very well in deed.
Of course if you have different priorities you may chose differently.
I have planned to do some further comparison between OPO and H6+ cameras in full manual mode but as it will take quite a bit of my time I will do it only if there will be such interest.
Mean time if you have any specific questions please ask I will do my best to answer them.

Overall love

Yes, yes, it's possible to love a phone. Heck, you sleep next to it, don't you? Rate this thread to indicate your love for the Sony Xperia 5 II, all things considered. A higher rating indicates that the Sony Xperia 5 II is an incredible phone that you enjoy tremendously. You love it.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!

I don't love inanimate objects and I don't sleep with my phone next to me. I turn it off when I go to bed. But, by listing what I don't like you can see how much I like.
The Xperia 5 ii is far too slippery and difficult to hold without a case. I haven't found a case that protects the phone but still allows the shutter button to operate smoothly. The fingerprint reader works fine for me but I would prefer one mounted on the back of the phone like the old Pixels.
One surprise I really like is the option to charge up to 80% and then automatically shut off.
What I really miss is more instructions on using the pro app.
Rather than love, I would consider the fun factor. I'm having a lot of fun taking photos with the Sony Xperia 5 ii. Of course, reading the news is depressing but I go take photos and feel better.
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x5ii quick story
having had last flagship for already 4 long months, evaluated available flagships in a big theoretical matrix, and this phone won along with 8Pro which i already have. X1ii is a flop thanks to shocking 60hz screen and rated way worse. Hoping to get the light phone, without notch and with all the classic features i bought it. Returned after 1 day:
21:9 makes display small, eyes suffered straight away, also the brightness isn't great..i can reduce font and display size to minimum on 1+ and still see better than X5ii with increased font
size 6.1" is on par with Galaxy S7/8/9 cubic meter wise, e.g. S10 would have much bigger display
ultra slippery hard to pick hard to hold body.. absolutely unusable without fat ugly case.. maybe maybe X1ii flat frame is better?
unwanted keypresses thanks to buttons spread everywhere and unwanted unlocks thanks to fingerprint acting after touch
almost impossible to swipe from the edge was the major showstopper, also triggering SideSense was super difficult...i've spent hours testing this to no avail and it was the return reason
very bland OS feels vanilla on one side, but also feels cheap and sad..Win app exists but can't backup no more.. so no extras.. no Dex, phone to PC sync or something
very weird selfie pics
no wireless charging was very difficult to abandon
what was cool:
no gray backbleeding like on every Samsung/Oneplus OLED, say what!
cam trigger...special button will not only launch camera but also start shooting.. it also acts like focus because it intercepts half press
Sony variant of Samsung SmartStay is fantastic. keeps phone unlocked while you look at it and this time it works because using sensors.. Never heard of it but it's super cool
SideSense is a good improvement as it brings multiwindow back..but the requirement is to activate is easily and that doesn't happen because of display edges on a flat phone
fingerprint unlock was perfect if it was easier to locate.. maybe black version doesn't help it, or you need a case with contrasting color
massive code support unlike Samsung, counted 4* AptX for example
tiniest status bar ever saw, notchless.. gives extra space
what a lesson.. despite hoping to prove otherwise i learned punchhole isn't that bad, fingerprint under display isn't worse, big display is beneficial despite weight (crying), and curved display is also great. and Oneplus has the best flagship even one year later, easily dwarfing all those Ultras.

doggydog2 said:
x5ii quick story
having had last flagship for already 4 long months, evaluated available flagships in a big theoretical matrix, and this phone won along with 8Pro which i already have. X1ii is a flop thanks to shocking 60hz screen and rated way worse. Hoping to get the light phone, without notch and with all the classic features i bought it. Returned after 1 day:
21:9 makes display small, eyes suffered straight away, also the brightness isn't great..i can reduce font and display size to minimum on 1+ and still see better than X5ii with increased font
size 6.1" is on par with Galaxy S7/8/9 cubic meter wise, e.g. S10 would have much bigger display
ultra slippery hard to pick hard to hold body.. absolutely unusable without fat ugly case.. maybe maybe X1ii flat frame is better?
unwanted keypresses thanks to buttons spread everywhere and unwanted unlocks thanks to fingerprint acting after touch
almost impossible to swipe from the edge was the major showstopper, also triggering SideSense was super difficult...i've spent hours testing this to no avail and it was the return reason
very bland OS feels vanilla on one side, but also feels cheap and sad..Win app exists but can't backup no more.. so no extras.. no Dex, phone to PC sync or something
very weird selfie pics
no wireless charging was very difficult to abandon
what was cool:
no gray backbleeding like on every Samsung/Oneplus OLED, say what!
cam trigger...special button will not only launch camera but also start shooting.. it also acts like focus because it intercepts half press
Sony variant of Samsung SmartStay is fantastic. keeps phone unlocked while you look at it and this time it works because using sensors.. Never heard of it but it's super cool
SideSense is a good improvement as it brings multiwindow back..but the requirement is to activate is easily and that doesn't happen because of display edges on a flat phone
fingerprint unlock was perfect if it was easier to locate.. maybe black version doesn't help it, or you need a case with contrasting color
massive code support unlike Samsung, counted 4* AptX for example
tiniest status bar ever saw, notchless.. gives extra space
what a lesson.. despite hoping to prove otherwise i learned punchhole isn't that bad, fingerprint under display isn't worse, big display is beneficial despite weight (crying), and curved display is also great. and Oneplus has the best flagship even one year later, easily dwarfing all those Ultras.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had similar, rather unfortunate experience with Xperia 5 II. My biggest hope was impressive camera system performance which appeared to be impossible to satisfy with. I gave good 4 weeks run to this phone but unfortunately it didn't deliver what I wanted.
I mean Photo Pro camera app is really cool and hardware specs are more than sufficient to have outstanding photos but in reality the camera experience is rather hit or miss especially in not ideal light conditions. In other words, I didn't see highest quality photos whatever hard I tried. Tinkering with Lightroom (manual photo editing) is rather waste of time when it comes to smartphones camera. Absence of AI is a big omission regardless of opinion of Sony fanboys.
Other things I disliked in this phone where mentioned already are as follows:
- I expected much better battery life from it compared to my Pixel 4. In reality it's just not that great at all,
- accidental buttons triggering in the pocket (I was pissed off with it to be honest),
- missing Wireless charging and 3D Face unlock,
- not good enough selfie camera and still subbar camera performance overall (old Pixel 4 with outdated hardware does better job),
- low screen brightness at sunny day outdoor conditions.
So sorry Sony but please try harder next time when you're about to release $1000 or so phone.

WarVic said:
I had similar, rather unfortunate experience with Xperia 5 II. My biggest hope was impressive camera system performance which appeared to be impossible to satisfy with. I gave good 4 weeks run to this phone but unfortunately it didn't deliver what I wanted.
I mean Photo Pro camera app is really cool and hardware specs are more than sufficient to have outstanding photos but in reality the camera experience is rather hit or miss especially in not ideal light conditions. In other words, I didn't see highest quality photos whatever hard I tried. Tinkering with Lightroom (manual photo editing) is rather waste of time when it comes to smartphones camera. Absence of AI is a big omission regardless of opinion of Sony fanboys.
Other things I disliked in this phone where mentioned already are as follows:
- I expected much better battery life from it compared to my Pixel 4. In reality it's just not that great at all,
- accidental buttons triggering in the pocket (I was pissed off with it to be honest),
- missing Wireless charging and 3D Face unlock,
- not good enough selfie camera and still subbar camera performance overall (old Pixel 4 with outdated hardware does better job),
- low screen brightness at sunny day outdoor conditions.
So sorry Sony but please try harder next time when you're about to release $1000 or so phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am irritated when someone knows their comments are flawed so the insult anyone who comments in advance. The Sony Xperia 5 II is the first Sony phone--or camera--I've ever bought. I had the Huawei P40 pro which is sitting on a shelf.
I recognize that the Huawei is a "computational photography" force and the Xperia is, by choice, not. I also recognize that many, perhaps most people, need and enjoy an automatic camera. Life is better for them when the device has AI and computational photography and their skills and abilities are limited. So, I value both as devices meeting a need.
Now, specifics.
---Battery life. I set my phone with the charging option of stopping charging at 80%. I usually end the day with at least 50% left. I'm very happy with the speed of recharging.
---Accidental triggering in pocket. I really can't comment since I don't carry the phone loose in my pocket. I have my phone in a holster on my belt. This is mostly because I have my wallet, money clip, coins, pocket knife and the dark a small flashlight in my pockets.
---Missing wireless. I'm not someone who misses it.
---Face unlock. I would like face unlock if it worked well but I detest fingerprint readers under the screen. I got used to the side-mounted print reader and don't find it a problem.
---Selfies. I don't do "selfies" enough to matter. I'm older than most trees and never was a narcissist.
----Screen Brightness. I agree. I strong overhead sunlight it's horrible.
I thoroughly enjoy their Pro Photo App but I understand why many prefer computational photography. With self-driving cars and self-cleaning underwear, it's a trend.

141ptkelly said:
I am irritated when someone knows their comments are flawed so the insult anyone who comments in advance. The Sony Xperia 5 II is the first Sony phone--or camera--I've ever bought. I had the Huawei P40 pro which is sitting on a shelf.
I recognize that the Huawei is a "computational photography" force and the Xperia is, by choice, not. I also recognize that many, perhaps most people, need and enjoy an automatic camera. Life is better for them when the device has AI and computational photography and their skills and abilities are limited. So, I value both as devices meeting a need.
Now, specifics.
---Battery life. I set my phone with the charging option of stopping charging at 80%. I usually end the day with at least 50% left. I'm very happy with the speed of recharging.
---Accidental triggering in pocket. I really can't comment since I don't carry the phone loose in my pocket. I have my phone in a holster on my belt. This is mostly because I have my wallet, money clip, coins, pocket knife and the dark a small flashlight in my pockets.
---Missing wireless. I'm not someone who misses it.
---Face unlock. I would like face unlock if it worked well but I detest fingerprint readers under the screen. I got used to the side-mounted print reader and don't find it a problem.
---Selfies. I don't do "selfies" enough to matter. I'm older than most trees and never was a narcissist.
----Screen Brightness. I agree. I strong overhead sunlight it's horrible.
I thoroughly enjoy their Pro Photo App but I understand why many prefer computational photography. With self-driving cars and self-cleaning underwear, it's a trend.View attachment 5254351
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm irritated with someone who does not understand what computational photography is about. Some people (aka super Pro guys) are thinking that it's just for lazy, ordinary people with lack of photography skills. Surprise! It's not about it at all. No one camera it the world can reproduce exactly what human eye can see (I'm not talking about "Night Vision" photography). This problem as well as limitations of mobile cameras (mainly tiny size of lenses) is addressed by AI and computational photography. Trust me, we see the world in advanced HDR and depth of field of human eye is much better than on any camera.
So summarize what I said above, Xperia 1 II / 5 II photos are weak and not true-to-life at all. I can't remember any flagship smartphone delivering so many unusable photos - misfocused, blurred parts of the image further from the centre, horriblee distortion, chromatic abberation, blown out highlights, ridiculous amount of lens flares (T* marking on the lens glass is a bad joke!) etc. Having great selfie camera is not about narcissism, you know. It's just something that near $1000 modern smartphone must have!
All other Xperia 5 II flaws I mentioned before are valid and quite critical for such expensive device. I won't say a word of complain if Xperia 5 II price was about $350. Perhaps, even this price tag is too high and generous for it. Just because I came back to Pixel 4 which costed me $250. And I'm not a fan of Google phones at all. It just never let me down.

141ptkelly said:
I don't love inanimate objects and I don't sleep with my phone next to me. I turn it off when I go to bed. But, by listing what I don't like you can see how much I like.
The Xperia 5 ii is far too slippery and difficult to hold without a case. I haven't found a case that protects the phone but still allows the shutter button to operate smoothly. The fingerprint reader works fine for me but I would prefer one mounted on the back of the phone like the old Pixels.
One surprise I really like is the option to charge up to 80% and then automatically shut off.
What I really miss is more instructions on using the pro app.
Rather than love, I would consider the fun factor. I'm having a lot of fun taking photos with the Sony Xperia 5 ii. Of course, reading the news is depressing but I go take photos and feel better.
View attachment 5218585
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry buddy, but the photo example you've uploaded is quite bad. I understand you're having fun with Xperia 5 II Camera app as I did though. Perhaps your photo perfectly represents my experience with Xperia 5 II .

I'm also coming from P30 pro and I'm a little bit disappointed with the camera quality of Xperia 5 ii....The only thing that I like about this phone it's the 120hz and its speed, otherwise, it's not a device that it's worth the 1000$ price tag...Lucky me that I got it for 400$ second hand and I didn't spend a fortune on it.. I regret that I sold my P30 pro for this joke of a phone

robi101012981 said:
I'm also coming from P30 pro and I'm a little bit disappointed with the camera quality of Xperia 5 ii....The only thing that I like about this phone it's the 120hz and its speed, otherwise, it's not a device that it's worth the 1000$ price tag...Lucky me that I got it for 400$ second hand and I didn't spend a fortune on it.. I regret that I sold my P30 pro for this joke of a phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I disagree with "this joke of a phone" comment!
There is definitely learning curve for using Pro Camera app but I noticed Normal Camera app improved after A11 update:
Attached are few point and shoot photos near Palouse falls, WA, US from Normal Camera App.

doggydog2 said:
what was cool:
no gray backbleeding like on every Samsung/Oneplus OLED, say what!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please explain. There is no gray "blacklighting" bled on the Note 10+. It's contrast ratio is near perfect as any display out there and the borders are laser sharp... unless I'm missing something.
I really hope Sony gives Samsung some stiff competition and picks up the ball where Samsung is dropping it. Even if you're not a Sony user, good competition helps catalyze competitors to produce better products.
A win-win for the consumer.

Good for you then. Winning in backbleeding lottery feels good. I test backbleeding as it's accentuated at night which is when I use phone, and in dark mode. Xperia 5ii was very good. Note20U, S10 is fairly good. Don't know about Note10. one pluses 6 7 8 were below average. Samsung tablets are the worst, for the record. Horrid.

doggydog2 said:
Good for you then. Winning in backbleeding lottery feels good. I test backbleeding as it's accentuated at night which is when I use phone, and in dark mode. Xperia 5ii was very good. Note20U, S10 is fairly good. Don't know about Note10. one pluses 6 7 8 were below average. Samsung tablets are the worst, for the record. Horrid.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OLEDs* are incapable of IPS backlighting bled because there is no backlight.
The OLED pixels need power to illuminate otherwise they are black.
Apparently this is a firmware or driver glitch.
It's possible that that if not properly back shielded the OLED pixels could reflect light from behind the pixels. Have to know more about the display's physical construction to comment on that. If it were to occur it be a design or manufacturing defect rather than a typical OLED display characteristic.
My display when tested with Screen Test with black, full brightness is completely black. In fact there are no flaws visible whatever color or intensity across the whole screen including the curved portions. It's drop dead gorgeous.
The high refresh rate OLED displays of all Android makes are having various issues usually at very low light levels but not always.
Tinting is a common problem.
I'm actually glad now to be at a measily 60hz with none of these issues.
*AMOLEDs in most cases now.

PPGX5II said:
I disagree with "this joke of a phone" comment!
There is definitely learning curve for using Pro Camera app but I noticed Normal Camera app improved after A11 update:
Attached are few point and shoot photos near Palouse falls, WA, US from Normal Camera App.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Photos are good, no doudts, but I see nothing that can't be achieved by 3 times cheaper or much older phone. Trust me, old dinky dirt cheap Pixel 2 can do the same or even better. I can give you dozens of really bad quality shots from Xperia 5 II I've got. Never had such experience with any other flagship phone, especially in bad light conditions. Finally, I've just reviewed my photos from older Xperia 5 and found that ... it was better which is unbelievable. Certainly Xperia 5 II is a waste, missing opportunity for Sony. I really hope that they will learn on own mistakes, look at what other companies do and finally come up with some great thing. Not sure that it will be Xperia 1 III / 5 III. Not enough time for Sony and a quality bar is too damn high - latest Samsung, Xiaomi, Vivo, iPhone, OnePlus are hard to beat indeed.

WarVic said:
Photos are good, no doudts, but I see nothing that can't be achieved by 3 times cheaper or much older phone. Trust me, old dinky dirt cheap Pixel 2 can do the same or even better. I can give you dozens of really bad quality shots from Xperia 5 II I've got. Never had such experience with any other flagship phone, especially in bad light conditions. Finally, I've just reviewed my photos from older Xperia 5 and found that ... it was better which is unbelievable. Certainly Xperia 5 II is a waste, missing opportunity for Sony. I really hope that they will learn on own mistakes, look at what other companies do and finally come up with some great thing. Not sure that it will be Xperia 1 III / 5 III. Not enough time for Sony and a quality bar is too damn high - latest Samsung, Xiaomi, Vivo, iPhone, OnePlus are hard to beat indeed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would like to switch to oppo find x2 pro, but i m not sure its a good option...

robi101012981 said:
I would like to switch to oppo find x2 pro, but i m not sure its a good option...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't switch to older devices unless you had a very good experience with them before or they're dirt cheap. Oppo Find X3 Pro came into play. That one would be interesting to play with or at least to entertain the kids with microscopic camera.

WarVic said:
Don't switch to older devices unless you had a very good experience with them before or they're dirt cheap. Oppo Find X3 Pro came into play. That one would be interesting to play with or at least to entertain the kids with microscopic camera.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think it's a little bit too expensive for what s offering...I've bought this Xperia 5 II for only 400$, so I think it was a good deal... About that device, I'll exchange it with my 5 II, so no cost will be involved, so idk what to say...

WarVic said:
Photos are good, no doudts, but I see nothing that can't be achieved by 3 times cheaper or much older phone. Trust me, old dinky dirt cheap Pixel 2 can do the same or even better. I can give you dozens of really bad quality shots from Xperia 5 II I've got. Never had such experience with any other flagship phone, especially in bad light conditions. Finally, I've just reviewed my photos from older Xperia 5 and found that ... it was better which is unbelievable. Certainly Xperia 5 II is a waste, missing opportunity for Sony. I really hope that they will learn on own mistakes, look at what other companies do and finally come up with some great thing. Not sure that it will be Xperia 1 III / 5 III. Not enough time for Sony and a quality bar is too damn high - latest Samsung, Xiaomi, Vivo, iPhone, OnePlus are hard to beat indeed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's interesting more Japanese companies aren't in the fray.
Conservative digital optical giant Canon maybe thinking of making a grab. Canon spends a huge percentage of their profit on research to help advance their product lines. They have offer excellent tech support as well; a good egg.
Redirect Notice
www.google.com

WarVic said:
Photos are good, no doudts, but I see nothing that can't be achieved by 3 times cheaper or much older phone. Trust me, old dinky dirt cheap Pixel 2 can do the same or even better. I can give you dozens of really bad quality shots from Xperia 5 II I've got. Never had such experience with any other flagship phone, especially in bad light conditions. Finally, I've just reviewed my photos from older Xperia 5 and found that ... it was better which is unbelievable. Certainly Xperia 5 II is a waste, missing opportunity for Sony. I really hope that they will learn on own mistakes, look at what other companies do and finally come up with some great thing. Not sure that it will be Xperia 1 III / 5 III. Not enough time for Sony and a quality bar is too damn high - latest Samsung, Xiaomi, Vivo, iPhone, OnePlus are hard to beat indeed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, Computational Photography is where Sony lacks in Normal Camera App and $950 price tag (now at $850 and I bough for around $1050 including tax) is bit high (I would say around $800 at launch would be killer) but there are some feature which you will not find in other Flagships like Animal Eye focus and 4K 120fps video etc (Just to mention few there are other features too). Also Photo Pro gives you that extra control you need in certain situations. I was in dilemma whether to go for Xperia 5 II or Pixel 4a 5G but eventually I went for 5II and I don't regret it at all (my wife has 4a 5G) and if you look at hardware (except front facing camera, lack of 5G and extra google assistant button for some ppl) everything is just perfect.
Those brands you mentioned mostly use Sony sensor and quality which you mentioned is due to Computational Photography and not because of actual hardware. I would prefer good hardware than not so good hardware with some software magic to make it look good.

blackhawk said:
OLEDs* are incapable of IPS backlighting bled because there is no backlight.
The OLED pixels need power to illuminate otherwise they are black.
Apparently this is a firmware or driver glitch.
It's possible that that if not properly back shielded the OLED pixels could reflect light from behind the pixels. Have to know more about the display's physical construction to comment on that. If it were to occur it be a design or manufacturing defect rather than a typical OLED display characteristic.
My display when tested with Screen Test with black, full brightness is completely black. In fact there are no flaws visible whatever color or intensity across the whole screen including the curved portions. It's drop dead gorgeous.
The high refresh rate OLED displays of all Android makes are having various issues usually at very low light levels but not always.
Tinting is a common problem.
I'm actually glad now to be at a measily 60hz with none of these issues.
*AMOLEDs in most cases now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i wouldn't be happy on 60Hz - it hurts eyes as they constantly refocus during scrolling. But the backbleeding happens on 60Hz OLEDs equally. It's just different than IPS, not caused by obvious backlight, but by voltages and near impossibility to tune it well. OLED backbleeding (some can refer to it as lack of uniformity, glowing, banding) looks very similar as on IPS but it's less uniform. Looks like huge ghosts in various shapes on your screen or bands.
So I didn't mean pure black levels (unrealistic in most media content), i talk about low RGB levels / low brightness. That's where massive backbleeding comes to OLEDs. I rated some also here. Look at the pictures in this thread, hope you ate your breakfast already Since noone really keeps the screen turned on with RGB (0,0,0) for most pixels, the ultimate blacks are good only for one scenario: AOD. But make a microscopic step higher from (0,0,0) and you immediatelly lose this benefit of OLED.
We use IPS panels for work for hundreds of people, surprise. Now that the market races for top brightness, at the cost of eye health, glad that the high frequencies came at least. But still, this OLED technology should not exist in 2021. It's flickering, agressive to eyes, excessive blue, nauseating to some. My cheap 7year old IPS tablet is still pleasure to look at compared to nowadays OLED junk. Can't watch horrors on my state of the art OLED TV thanks to this. Bigger panel - more backbleeding. You can't pay enough to get rid of it. The death of *OLED is inevitable, let's celebrate a new technology soon!! We will laugh at OLED in future like we do at CRT, that's for sure.

doggydog2 said:
i wouldn't be happy on 60Hz - it hurts eyes as they constantly refocus during scrolling. But the backbleeding happens on 60Hz OLEDs equally. It's just different than IPS, not caused by obvious backlight, but by voltages and near impossibility to tune it well. OLED backbleeding (some can refer to it as lack of uniformity, glowing, banding) looks very similar as on IPS but it's less uniform. Looks like huge ghosts in various shapes on your screen or bands.
So I didn't mean pure black levels (unrealistic in most media content), i talk about low RGB levels / low brightness. That's where massive backbleeding comes to OLEDs. I rated some also here. Look at the pictures in this thread, hope you ate your breakfast already Since noone really keeps the screen turned on with RGB (0,0,0) for most pixels, the ultimate blacks are good only for one scenario: AOD. But make a microscopic step higher from (0,0,0) and you immediatelly lose this benefit of OLED.
We use IPS panels for work for hundreds of people, surprise. Now that the market races for top brightness, at the cost of eye health, glad that the high frequencies came at least. But still, this OLED technology should not exist in 2021. It's flickering, agressive to eyes, excessive blue, nauseating to some. My cheap 7year old IPS tablet is still pleasure to look at compared to nowadays OLED junk. Can't watch horrors on my state of the art OLED TV thanks to this. Bigger panel - more backbleeding. You can't pay enough to get rid of it. The death of *OLED is inevitable, let's celebrate a new technology soon!! We will laugh at OLED in future like we do at CRT, that's for sure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's banding or at least what I call it.
Never seen that on my 10+
May be firmware or a defect in the active matrix drivers.
Either way it's completely unacceptable!
I like high end CRTs, their silky transition smoothness is hard (impossible?) to replicate.

A Detailed Review | OPPO Find X5 | OPPO Ambassador

INTRODUCTION
Hello all. As you might know, I received the OPPO Find X5 last week and did an unboxing and first impressions post which you can find here.
Ever since I've received the Find X5 my sim card has been in it and I've been using it as my daily phone.
It's been a couple of days and I think I've fairly used this device to give my thoughts and share with you all my detailed review on the device.
The subjects that I will be reviewing in detail are,
• Design
• Camera
• Software & Performance
• Battery & Charging
I will try my best to share an unbiased and detailed review of the device and in the end, will share a verdict. If you have any questions or doubts about the device, feel free to ask.
Now let's take a closer look and find whether the Find X5 lives up to its expectations.
DESIGN
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Starting my review with the design, this is probably the most interesting-looking phone design I've seen in a while.
I just love what OPPO has done with the colour and finish on the Find X5, especially the one in white with the black camera bump which gives it a very distinctive look.
The back of the device is glass, feels very smooth to the touch, and is very elegant & premium while holding. Since it's a matte finish, fingerprints and smudges are non-existent.
At the back, you find "OPPO | Hasselblad" branding, and since the device is an EU model you also get all the regulatory information.
I also really like the seamless slope design they've done around the camera bump.
The frame is aluminum however, if I had to nitpick, I would've loved it if the frame was black instead of shiny silver which attracts some fingerprints. Again that's only visible when you look for it at a certain angle.
It weighs 196 grams and does have a heft to it but the weight is well balanced. It isn't top-heavy, never felt that the device might accidentally fall from my hand.
At 6.55 inches in screen size, it is still decently large, but because it is quite narrow, the phone felt a little easier to use.
The button placements are done well and are placed at a reachable position.
Volume buttons to the left, power button to the right which has OPPO's signature green colour embedded inside. Buttons are very clicky and have good feedback.
Up top there's a microphone and below lies the Type-C port for charging and data transfer, a loudspeaker, another microphone, and a sim slot.
There's an IP54 rating for protection against dust. However, the sim tray does have a rubber ring. So the seals are present and should save it from occasional water splashes.
The sim slot does take in two sim cards. No SD card expansion, however, OPPO does offer the phone in a 256GB storage configuration, which should be more than enough storage for most.
The X-axis linear motor for the haptics is also quite good. The feedback is strong and during my test, I've never missed any calls or notifications.
The bezels surrounding the display are thin except for the bottom chin which is ever so slightly thicker compared to the top bezel.
The phone does come with a pre-applied screen protector which should last for a couple of months. Also, there's Gorilla Glass Victus used for display protection.
Moving to the display, it's a very good quality curved AMOLED display with a resolution of 2400×1080. The refresh rate is 120Hz with a touch sampling rate of 240Hz due to which scrolling felt quite smooth and never felt any lag during touch input. However, I wish the display panel was LTPO instead of regular 120Hz which can only drop down to 60Hz when the display is idle.
There's an in-display fingerprint sensor that is placed in a position where your thumb might naturally rest. Unlocking was pretty quick.
The display is 10-bit which means it can produce up to 1 billion colours. The default colour mode is set to Vivid however you can select other available colour modes that are Natural & Pro Mode to tune it as per your preference.
vivid, natural & pro-mode for display calibration.
The display gets bright enough with 500 nits of default peak brightness which can go up to 800 nits and boosts up to 1,000 nits while watching HDR content. Visibility is great under direct sunlight.
There's an earpiece up top which also doubles as a secondary speaker. The speakers are loud enough and I did not find any distortion at high volumes.
I'm impressed with the device, OPPO has done a great job with the overall design and build quality of the Find X5.

CAMERA
I was really curious to test out the cameras on the Find X5 since this is the first device to have OPPO's self-developed chip, the MariSilicon X for better image processing, and their partnership with Hasselblad for natural colour calibration.
MariSilicon X is built on 6nm process technology that helps capture 20bit Ultra HDR, 4K night video, real-time 20bit RAW processing, and many more.
The primary lens on the Find X5 is a 50MP shooter with a Sony IMX766 sensor. The aperture is f/1.8 and it does have Optical Image Stabilisation.
Interestingly, the ultra-wide angle lens is also the same 50MP Sony IMX766 camera. The aperture though is f/2.2 with a field of view of 110°
The third lens is a 13MP telephoto camera with an aperture of f/2.4 that has a 2x optical zoom.
The camera app is quite straightforward to use. You get the Hasselblad coloured orange shutter button and the modes can be arranged by pressing the edit button which can be found in the more section. OPPO has also incorporated Hasselblad’s iconic leaf shutter sound.
user interface of the camera app.
I did my camera testing under different conditions such as outdoors, indoors, and under low light, and here's what I have to say about the camera on the Find X5.
In case you don't want to read the whole review part and just want to check out the samples then click here.
Outdoor shots with the main camera are very good. Colour reproduction is quite natural looking and pictures have a good amount of contrast. The Find X5 handles dynamic range better most of the time and the pictures are well detailed.
pictures shot from the main camera.
The white balance is correct, never encountered any weird colour shifting.
Also, due to the sensor being large, the pictures have a natural depth to them even without using the portrait mode.
Pictures from the ultra-wide angle camera are also quite good. Being a 50MP camera and having the same IMX766 sensor as the main lens, the details, white balance, and contrast levels of shots were quite consistent and similar to the main lens.
pictures shot from the ultra-wide angle camera.
There are very minimal chromatic aberrations around the edges.
The phone can also shoot close-up macro shots. The camera switches itself to macro mode whenever you take the phone up close to the subject.
pictures shot with Macro mode.
The 2X telephoto camera is also quite close when it comes to white balance consistency. The details are good but not as good when compared with the main & ultra-wide. Also, I did wish that the telephoto camera had more zoom capabilities, maybe a 3X.
pictures shot from the Telephoto camera.
White Balance was mostly consistent between all the three lenses in the outdoor shots.
lens comparison - outdoor conditions.
Under indoor conditions, pictures from the main camera are bright and detailed with very less noise. Shots from the ultra-wide camera are also very good with very less noise and good detail levels. Pictures from the telephoto camera also did a good job and details are quite close compared to pictures from the other two lenses. The white balance between all the three lenses was quite similar.
lens comparison - indoor conditions.
The same goes with the low-light shots. The main camera takes good shots with plenty of light and very low noise levels. Pictures from the ultra-wide camera are also very impressive. It is as bright as the pictures from the main camera & the detail levels are similar. Pictures from the Telephoto camera are again good but compared to pictures from the other two lenses they are a bit soft and less detailed.
lens comparison - low-light conditions.Now I noticed that during low light conditions, the Telephoto Camera uses the Main Lens which is cropped to 2X instead of the actual Telephoto Lens.
Using the main camera during low light conditions is better since the aperture and resolution of the main camera is better than the aperture and resolution of the Telephoto Lens.
Here's a side-by-side comparison of pictures shot on Telephoto & Main Camera with 2X zoom. Zooming in you can see the keyboard is quite detailed in comparison with the picture shot on Telephoto.
The colours are also off on the picture shot from the Telephoto camera.
There's Pro Mode that lets you have full control over ISO, Shutter speed, White Balance, Focus, and Exposure Values.
You can use all three lenses in Pro mode and all three lenses support shooting in "RAW" format. However, I do not like the position of switching the lens which is at the top instead of keeping it at the bottom. The bottom instead has a 1x and a 2x zoom which is a crop from the main lens. I would've preferred the actual lens switching option at that place.
There's a new "RAW Plus" mode that captures more details & a better dynamic range than the standard RAW mode. I loved the RAW Plus mode. Having dynamic range already on a RAW picture means that the shadows and highlights are already worked upon meaning editing these pictures in Lightroom took minimal effort.
Here are some pictures shot in RAW format & edited with Lightroom.
pictures shot with Pro mode.One thing I do not like about the Pro Mode is that it does not remember your last used shooting format. The shooting format resets back to JPG after some time. This was very annoying as I have missed shooting in a RAW format a couple of times. Even if I did remember, it was still annoying to enable RAW format every time.
The front camera is a 32 Megapixel with an aperture of f/2.4. Now I'm not a selfie person but the pictures coming out from the front camera are good.
The Portrait mode worked great with animals and humans in daylight and also at nighttime. Edge detection was pretty good and skin tones were accurate.
There's a Long Exposure mode that you can use to capture motion shots not just at night but even during the daytime. Quite useful for those who do not know using Pro mode to shoot such motion shots.
OPPO has also introduced XPAN mode co-developed with Hasselblad which shoots panoramic images in two profiles, color mode, and a unique B&W mode.
shot with XPAN mode.
All the cameras can shoot up to 4K with 1080p & 720p as options at 30fps or 60fps. However, you cannot change the lenses while recording which is a bummer.
Video samples with max settings can be found here.
There's a dedicated Film mode that lets you shoot in a cinematic ratio and has options to manually set shutter speed, ISO, white balance, manual focus, and exposure values.
film mode feature.
The mode also supports shooting in LOG format. This is great for those Pro videographers who want to later color-grade the footage. The Film mode supports all three lenses.
Here's a sample footage shot on Film mode and color-graded.
Overall OPPO has done a great job with the camera on the Find X5 and I can definitely recommend someone looking for a phone with a very good Primary & Ultra-wide angle camera with a decent zoom range.
There are some software annoyances & limitations like the Pro mode switching back to JPG format & also not allowing to switch lenses while recording. These are software-related issues so I hope OPPO fixes them soon by pushing an update.

SOFTWARE & PERFORMANCE
OPPO has come a very long way when it comes to it's software. Over the years, OPPO has refined ColorOS with each version, making the user experience better.
Starting with the Android version, the Find X5 comes with Android 12 out of the box with OPPO's ColorOS 12.1 skin on top. ColorOS over the years has changed quite a lot. OPPO's objective with ColorOS 12 is to refine and simplify the whole UI making it cleaner and easier to use. All of its system apps have been updated to cleaner UI and are easier to use with one hand by placing important menus at the bottom.
There's a good amount of customisation option for the launcher that people will appreciate. From the option to change the icon shapes & sizes, grid layout, to the option to change transition while switching pages & more.
customisation for icon, grid layout & page transition.
OPPO also has introduced its own wallpaper-based theming similar to Google's theming which extracts colours from the wallpaper and applies them across the system and apps.
Unfortunately, OPPO's theming is only limited to the system settings, notification panel, and its own apps, Google apps do not adapt to the theme.
Edit: The device received an update with March security patch. The update now supports theming for Google apps. Good to see OPPO making the user experience better.
There are also tonnes of customisation options for Always-On Display where one can add custom patterns, text & images including system-provided clock & image options. Customisation also includes Font & display, Fingerprint animation, Edge lighting & more.
portrait silhouette feature.
There's a new Portrait silhouette feature that basically draws an outline around the face and lets you set it as the background of the always-on display.
ColorOS 12.1 also includes all of the Android 12 features such as quick settings toggle to turn off Camera & Mic access to all the apps, option to give an approximate location instead of a precise location, privacy dashboard for checking what permissions were being used by the apps.
OPPO has also worked on animations on ColorOS 12 which they call "Quantum Animation Engine 3.0" adding more lifelike & seamless transitions.
There's an Icon pull-down gesture that can be used by swiping up alongside the edge of the display to bring down the icons close to your thumb and select an app to launch.
icon pull-down gesture, flexible windows & smart sidebar.
Another feature I really liked is Flexible window which has the ability to turn any app into a floating window for quick multitasking. Smart Sidebar was another handy feature to quickly access functions and apps.
OPPO has done a great job in implementing haptics with the ColorOS. You can feel subtle vibrations across the system while dragging your finger or reaching the end of the page after scrolling. O-HAPTICS under settings lets you turn off system haptics, adjust the haptic intensity, and select a haptic style that has two options, Crisp and Gentle.
Talking about pre-installed apps, the phone did have a good amount of bloatware like Amazon, Facebook, and more. However, most of these can be easily uninstalled.
Another issue I want to address is that the folders do not adapt to the selected icon shape. This makes the home screen look a bit inconsistent.
folder shape does not change to a circle.
Performance was also quite solid even though it has the last year's chipset, Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. I did wish it had the latest 8 Gen 1 processor, though adding last year's Snapdragon 888 to cut costs without sacrificing performance makes sense after all Snapdragon 888 SOC is quite a capable chipset and can handle everything you throw at it.
During my usage, it performed exceptionally well. I did not face any stutters or major slowdowns. 8GB of RAM was sufficient for multitasking and keeping the apps running in the background. If 8GB of RAM isn't sufficient then one can expand the RAM through the RAM expansion feature which utilizes the phone's storage space.
With a 120Hz refresh rate and 240Hz touch sampling rate the phone felt quite smooth to use and apps and games opened very quickly.
I don't really play games on my phone but I did install some games like BGMI & Asphalt 8 to test out its peak performance and it ran those games quite well with high graphic settings. The phone did get a little warm after running the games for about an hour but did not get abnormally hot.
Software experience has been mostly positive with the Find X5. Even though not having the latest 8 Gen 1 processor, the performance of the phone was pretty solid.

BATTERY & CHARGING
The battery size on Find X5 is a pretty respectable 4,800 mAh split between two cells allowing it to charge at a very high speed.
In terms of charging the Find X5, the device supports 80 Watt SUPERVOOC wired charging which charges the device instantly. The device also supports AirVOOC wireless charging at 30 Watts & Reverse Wireless Charging at 10 Watts.
Unfortunately, I couldn't test AirVOOC wireless charging as I did not have the wireless charger with me. However, Reverse Wireless Charging worked quite well with my OnePlus Buds Pro.
I did test the wired charging speed and the phone charged to 50% in about 15 mins & 100% in just about 40 minutes which is quite impressive. The device did not heat abnormally while charging the device at such high speeds.
I also briefly tested the battery life and in my moderate usage, I was getting somewhere around 7-8 hours of screen on time. Under heavy use expect the screen on time to be around 5 to 6 hours.
battery life with heavy and moderate usage.
My usage generally includes apps like YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, Twitter, and Reddit, taking a lot of pictures, and editing pictures in Lightroom.
There's Power saving mode which is nothing but Battery Saver mode. You can enable it manually or set it to enable automatically based on specified battery levels from 5% to 75%.
Power saving mode also includes options to control screen brightness, screen time-out, background sync, and screen refresh rate.
There's also a High performance mode under battery settings which increases device performance. I did not feel any need to enable it since the performance was quite good even without this mode being enabled. Other features include standby optimisation and optimised night time charging for preserving battery health.
Overall I would say OPPO has done a great job in terms of Battery and Charging department.

VERDICT
The Find X5 is a solid flagship with a little compromise.
Even though having last year's Snapdragon 888, performance will be more than adequate for the majority of users. The software did impress me more than I expected it to be. There are some minor software issues that can be easily fixed via a software update. The display & build quality is great, the charging speed is more than adequate, and battery life is also great. The overall camera performance is great, except for the decent zoom range.
And that's all I have to say about the OPPO Find X5. If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I'd be glad to answer them.
I'd like to thank the @OPPO Ambassador Team again for giving me the opportunity to review OPPO Find X5!
Looking forward to what OPPO brings to the table next year with the Find X6!

Database Users

welcome