HTC One M8 officially launched: Has Duo Camera, Snapdragon 801, bigger battery

HTC has just pulled the wraps of the 2014 edition of their highly popular One Android smartphone. The new One (M8) is identical to all the leaks we’ve seen thus far and just like the Galaxy S5 and Xperia Z2; the M8 appears to be a mild refresh of HTC’s previous flagship. The HTC One M8 will be rolling out by the end of April in Australia, Taiwan, UK, Germany, France, China and the US. I guess we’ll have to wait a little longer till it gets to our shores.     The One M8 will come with a gunmetal gray hairline finish, which seems to be the only colour option at this time. The size of the display is slight larger at 5-inches and will sport a Full HD resolution, giving you a pixel count of 440ppi. The phone will be powered by the Snapdragon 801 SoC, just like the S5 and the Z2. The phone will continue to have dual-front speakers, the two camera setup that HTC calls ‘Duo Camera’, something called ‘Motion Launch’, Extreme power saving mode and the brand new Sense 6.   The new HTC One M8 gets rid of any polycarbonate or plastic for the sides as the chassis is almost completely metal. The phone also debuts their latest version of Sense which features an enhanced BlinkFeed experience. They’ve now opened it up to developers so Foursquare and Fitbit updates can be pushed through BlinkFeed now.   Battery life was one of the pain points of the M7 or the old HTC One. The M8 is said to have 40 percent better battery life. Whats more, other than the standard power saver mode, ‘Extreme power saver’ mode will shut down all communications except calls, text and emails.   Like LG and Samsung, HTC has added a bunch of gestures to the One M8. You can now double tap the phone to wake it, bring a ringing phone to your ear to answer it, etc. This isn’t exactly ground breaking stuff but its nice that HTC has included all these features.   Coming to the camera, HTC is sticking to their Ultrapixel shooter. Unlike the previous version however, the M8 will feature a whole bunch of manual settings for you to tinker around with. The second camera around the back will be used to capture depth information. Rather than doing this at the software level like Nokia, which basically takes a bunch of stills at different focus points for you to manipulate later, the M8 will do this at the hardware level. Zoe mode also makes a comeback.