MWC 2015: HTC One M9, Grip hands-on

Sense 7

As already mentioned the HTC One M9 comes with Android 5.0 out of the box. We have already gotten a taste of the Lollipop experience on the HTC One (M8) and the improvements were plentiful. HTC builds upon the experience even further by shipping the new flagship with a whole new version of their popular Sense UI.

A lot of improvements with the same premium feeling

The new Sense version 7 has a lot going for it. HTC has incorporated a lot of material design in the new platform, but has kept true to its roots. Using the One M9 still undisputable gives off a distinctive HTC vibe, but now with a lot more freedom and options, hidden under the hood.

There is a lot of emphasis on personalization and customization in the new Sense. HTC's Blinkfeed is now more-powerful and clever than ever and has front role seats on the phone. The clever assistant can now add location-specific and timely content right on your lockscreen. Your news is right there waiting for you once you look at the phone in the morning, and so is your schedule. Throughout the day Blinkfeed tries to be as helpful as possible and can even bring up restaurant suggestion through Yelp just when you need them.

But the lockscreen in far from the only thing that has gotten smarter on the One M9. The launcher can now adapt to your needs and location, dynamically bringing up and rearranging information and shortcuts throughout the day.

Of course, HTC has included a manual editing option for those not particularly keen on their phone rearranging itself. App recommendation are also a new feature, which should help new Android adopters quickly discover just the right set of apps to suit their needs.

Sense 7 is now more customizable than ever. Practically everything in the GUI can be recolored and redesigned to make for a more personal experience. A clever new feature is the ability to edit the contents of the navigation bar. If you fancy having some other feature besides the default menu, back and apps buttons constantly available at the bottom of your display it can be added with a few clicks.

Everything can be freely rearranged as well. This navigation bar customization unlocks a lot of new possibilities, but does sadly have its limitations, most notable that only a total of four shortcuts can be placed on the bar, although there is clearly a space for a fifth one.

The One M9 also features an incredibly powerful theming engine. Themes have a lot more control over the look and feel of the GUI. Almost everything is customizable with various fine-tuning options, all the way down to the background of app shortcuts. But perhaps the coolest new customization feature is the ability to turn every image into a theme almost instantly.

HTC has developed a clever new interface that quickly analyzes the color pallet of a given image and generates an array of themes to match its general style. The function produces surprisingly pleasant results, even with far from idea source photos and anything you don't like can easily by fine-tuned thanks to the powerful styling interface.

Powerful theming engine

Multimedia is now more social than ever on the One M9. HTC Connect has become even better and can now connect to a wide range of compatible smart TVs and external speakers, through a simple three-finger swipe gesture. The platform also offers Qualcomm AllPlay compatibility and lets you really mix things up thanks to multi-user playlists and extensive device support.

Benchmarks

The HTC One M9 is powered by a 64-bit octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chipset. The GPU on board is the Adreno 430 and the setup is complimented by 3GB of RAM. This particular hardware combination puts the One M9 is the ranks of the very select few, currently running on Qualcomm's top of the line silicon. This could very well prove to be a solid recipe for success, but we can only judge that based on real-life performance and benchmarks. Luckily we were able to run a few preliminary tests, which we will show you in a little bit.

First up, we have the raw CPU performance test with GeekBench 3, so things should be pretty straight-forward in this department. Naturally, we expected to see the HTC One M9 at the top of this list, along with the LG G Flex 2, due to the identical hardware, but the HTC does seem to perform better.

While testing the LG Flex2, we did notice that under load the phone tends to heat up quite noticeably. We were definitely happy to see that HTC One M9 had no problems in this department and squeezed even more juice of the more than capable Snapdragon 810 putting the debate over the thermal performance of Qualcomm's latest silicone to rest.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• HTC One M9
  3873
• LG G Flex2
  3604
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  3394
• Meizu MX4 Pro
  3386
• Motorola Nexus 6
  3285
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  3120
• HTC One (M8) Lollipop
  2923

We find much the same situation in AnTuTu 5. The HTC tops that one with ease as well and with a significant lead at that. This test is a tad broader than GeekBench, so we are seeing a lot of rearrangement in the rest of the chart with pure Android Nexus 6 taking second place and the Note 4 as close second, both running the Snapdragon 805.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• HTC One M9
  57422
• Motorola Nexus 6
  49803
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  49273
• Meizu MX4 Pro
  48489
• LG G Flex2
  47680
• HTC One (M8) Lollipop
  45530
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  45348

Advancing further to the Basemark OS II, we see an unexpected twist with the LG taking the first place. CPU performance can't be the culprit as we clearly see the HTC scored better in both single and multi-core performance, so perhaps it is an optimization issue. Bear in mind that the phone we are using for this preview is still a pre-release unit and is sure to undergo at least a few software improvements before reaching consumers.

Interestingly enough, the One (M8) when updated to Lollipop scored a higher multi-core score than its successor, but the difference is quite small and again we stress that testing conditions were not ideal and things might turn out a lot differently once we have the device is our office for extensive testing.

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• LG G Flex2
  1726
• HTC One M9
  1457
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  1267
• Motorola Nexus 6
  1267
• HTC One (M8) Lollipop
  1186
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  1160
• Meizu MX4 Pro
  863

Basemark OS 2.0 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  6165
• HTC One M9
  5665
• Motorola Nexus 6
  5624
• LG G Flex2
  5597
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  5557
• HTC One (M8) Lollipop
  5235
• Meizu MX4 Pro
  3118

Basemark OS 2.0 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• HTC One (M8) Lollipop
  21140
• Motorola Nexus 6
  21026
• HTC One M9
  20014
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  19237
• LG G Flex2
  18856
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  18386
• Meizu MX4 Pro
  12080

GPU scores are pretty straight-forward with the Snapdragon 810. The Adreno 430 breezes through the benchmark and consistently tops the LG's performance by one frame in both onscreen and off-screen performance. Let's not forget however, that both manufacturers utilize FullHD screens for their devices. We are yet to see a Snapdragon 810 device with a higher resolution display.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• HTC One M9
  23
• LG G Flex2
  22
• Motorola Nexus 6
  18.6
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  18
• Meizu MX4 Pro
  13
• HTC One (M8) Lollipop
  12
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  12

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• HTC One M9
  24
• LG G Flex2
  22
• HTC One (M8) Lollipop
  13
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  12
• Motorola Nexus 6
  11.9
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  11
• Meizu MX4 Pro
  7.8

Browser performance on the HTC One M9 could also use a bit of tuning. While Kraken is a clear-cut story, the phone comes in surprisingly low in BrowseMark. Once again, the software in the device is in a very early stage, so stay tuned for an update in the full review.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• HTC One M9
  4578
• LG G Flex2
  4621
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  5181
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  5968
• Motorola Nexus 6
  6088
• HTC One (M8) Lollipop
  7023
• Meizu MX4 Pro
  10193

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  2232
• LG G Flex2
  2086
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  2066
• HTC One M9
  1927
• HTC One (M8) Lollipop
  1460
• Motorola Nexus 6
  1447