HTC One M9 The HTC One
M9 feels smaller than the M8, but not by much at all. It measures 144.6 x 69.7
x 9.61mm and weighs 157g, so it's only a minor difference between the two
devices - 2mm shaved off the height, 1mm from the width, and 0.2mm
added in thickness.The
HTC One M9 inherits its predecessor's stunning metal design and strong
speakers, and has a bright, sharp display. It runs the latest version of
Android, and the new Sense 7 software is simple, responsive and highly
customisable. It's one of the few flagship phones to still feature expandable
storage, and it offers a unique one-year replacement program in the US
Qualcomm Snapdragon 810
octa-core; 3GB RAM
Qualcomm’s
800-series processors dominated 2014 flagships, and with good reason. The Galaxy S5, HTC
One M8 and Sony Xperia
Z3 all packed a serious wallop and made mincemeat of intense 3D games and
processor-hungry HD video conversion.
The 64-bit
octa-core Snapdragon 810 the One M9 totes is Qualcomm’s latest and greatest and
provides twice the number of cores of the M8's 801. Twice the power, then? It
doesn’t quite work that way, I’m afraid.
The Snapdragon 810 uses ARM’s big.LITTLE
architecture. This let’s a low-powered 1.55GHz quad-core processor be paired
with another, more powerful, 1.96GHz quad-core processor on the same chipset.
The benefits of this aren’t just about increasing power – last-gen quad-core
processors are already powerful – it’s about energy efficiency.
Most
of the common tasks your smartphone does – make calls, send texts, collect
sensor data, listen to music and browse the web – don’t need much power. Using
a mighty processor for these is overkill, and uses more of the battery than it
should. That’s where the LITTLE quad-core comes into play. It takes care of all
those smaller, daily, tasks in a more energy efficient way, thereby conserving
power. It also means that HTC no longer needs the co-processor that handled all
the sensor data on the M9’s predecessor.
The processor is restricted in Power Saver mode.
This means that the HTC One M9 performs differently depending on how much juice
you’re willing to sacrifice.
Let’s leave the benefits to the HTC One M9’s
battery life to one side for a moment and focus on its performance. As you can
expect the Snapdragon 810 and 3GB RAM helps the One M9 fly through common tasks
like flicking through menus, opening apps and browsing the web, regardless of
which quad is being used.
Battery life
Battery life on the HTC One M9 should be
brilliant in comparison to what's been before. The Snapdragon 801 chipset
finally made an HTC phone decent at lasting throughout a day last year, and
with a larger power pack and an improvement from Qualcomm things should be
awesome.
Sadly, they're not. I'm not saying that it's a problem and this
phone won't last long enough to tap out a couple of tweets, but the performance
hasn't been moved on much from last year.
The issue is that the phone heats up really easily doing the most
mundane of tasks. Anything that takes a little bit of wireless connection is a
quick way to watch it drop, be it mobile data or listening to music over
headphones.
Where most phones these days won't have much of an issue losing no
more than 10% on my morning commute, even with a bit of video action, the One
M9 has dropped as much as 17% through Bluetooth music streaming and emails,
which is odd as this doesn't usually munch too much power.
The good news is Google's new Android 5.0 gives you a good way of
checking the problems, letting you shut down (or get rid of) the apps which are
misbehaving. However,
in this case it's 'Google Services' which is the issue, elements fundamental to
the running of the phone, which means there's not a lot to be done about it.
I usually see this in the first few days of reviewing, but the
issue has pervaded. Hardcore testing - be it standby, heavy apps, web browsing
and YouTube videos, for instance - has proven the HTC to be a poorer choice
than the rest of the competition, with poorer background battery management.
This means you can't lean on the One M9 too heavily for playing
games or watching videos, which is irritating if you want to have a little bit
of battery left at the end of the day.
Gaming is really heavy on the battery, with a quick 15 minute game
sometimes sucking 10% juice - although the issue is often that mobile games
these days are constantly communicating with servers for online play or in app
purchases, which hurts the battery.
Running TechRadar's standard battery test on the One M9, where we
looped a 90 min full HD video at maximum brightness showed that the new HTC
phone was one of the worst performers of recent times, with 31% of the battery
disappearing.
If you consider that the LG G Flex 2, another big phone on the
market with the Snapdragon 810 chipset, only lost 13% in the same test, then
you'll see that there's something going on with the software here.
I also ran the same test on the newly-Lollipopped HTC One M8 and
HTC One M7, and they managed 24% and 30% respectively - and the phone from 2013
had barely enough battery to make it through the day too. This shows that for
some reason HTC has managed to go backwards in battery life, even with the
larger capacity and theoretically more efficient processor.
I'm confident battery life will improve, but it's actually a small
step back from the One M8, which can be had for nearly half the price of the
new version, and that's just not good enough. The
other big thing here is QuickCharge 2.0 – although this offers a pretty amazing
60% charge in just 30 mins, the charger in the box isn't QuickCharge enabled to
get the maximum speeds on offer.
This is just ludicrous – I thought by this point
that they'd be standard as the tech began appearing in phones last year. It's
really frustrating that you'll need to spend so much more given this is an
already expensive phone.
But, The M9's camera quality and battery life
don't measure up to its competitors. For better or worse, the phone feels like
a rerun of last year's HTC One.
THE
BOTTOM LINE The updated HTC One
M9 packs speed and software improvements into a handset that remains lustworthy
in middle age, but it doesn't exceed the competition where it counts.
Key Features: 20-megapixel rear camera ; 4-megapixel Ultrapixel
front-facing camera; 5-inch 1080p LCD screen; BoomSound speakers with Dolby
Surround; Qualcomm Snapdragon 810, 3GB RAM; 32GB onboard storage with microSD
slot; HTC Sense 7 on Android 5.0 Lollipop
Manufacturer: HTC VS
Apple iPhone 6s The
iPhone 6s keeps the same design as the iPhone 6, but packs better cameras, a
snappier processor and 3D Touch, a smart new way to get things done in fewer
steps. Beyond that, the combination of iOS 9 and some well-built hardware help
makes the 6s one of the best iPhones ever made... even if we wish it had some
of the 6s Plus' niceties. Improved speed everywhere (new processor, faster
wireless, quicker Touch ID sensor); a sturdier body; better front and rear
cameras; a bold new 3D Touch pressure-sensitive display that could end up being
a really useful tool in apps down the road, and which already offers new iOS
shortcuts.
Performance
Providing the power behind the scenes on the iPhone 6 is a 1.39GHz
dual-core A8 processor with 64-bit architecture and 1GB of RAM.
The iPhone 6 seemed to be the slicker of the two new iHandsets
when it comes to chugging away under the finger, although when looking at the
Geekbench 3 scores, we can see it's almost identical to the iPhone 6 Plus
(average score of 2905 vs 2911 for the 6 Plus).
This puts it below 2015's
crop of smartphones like the Samsung
Galaxy S6 andHTC One
M9, but right with the Samsung Galaxy S5 and below the One M8 and
One E8 - although HTC has admitted to slightly gaming those results with a
special 'high power mode'.
In short, despite the dual-core processor, Apple
seems to have eked out enough power to make the iPhone 6 a strong enough
contender day to day. Battery Life
“Battery
life could be a problem,” was my first thought when I started my iPhone 6S
review, and with good reason. Wonderful though 3D Touch and the Taptic Engine
are, Apple had to reduce the battery capacity from 1,810mAh to 1,715mAh to fit
them in. It made the 6S slightly thicker and heavier, too, though not enough
that anyone should care.
The iPhone 6 didn't have a stellar
reputation for battery life, and while some of those complaints are overblown,
they’re not without foundation. Certainly, the ‘Plus’ variant is the phone to
go for if you suffer range “range anxiety”.
Through my week using the the iPhone
6S, I consistently managed 15 to 17 hours per day. Switching off Bluetooth and
disabling the Facebook app’s background refresh made a big difference, though I
always left Wi-Fi on.
For whatever reason, the Facebook app
uses more background time than other app. Before the change Facebook was
responsible for close to 25% of the phone’s battery drain, despite being on
screen for just 20 minutes or so. iOS 9’s improved battery monitoring was a
godsend here.
Navigation puts a big strain on the battery, though, particularly in
built-up areas. One 15-minute walk with directions drained 7% from the battery.
Streaming video over Wi-Fi burns through around 12% of battery per hour,
depending on the quality and how bright your screen is.
The new Low Power won’t extend your life indefinitely, but
it’s useful and effective enough. iOS prompts you to turn it on when your
battery hits 20% and it turns off all background activity, while also
throttling down the CPU and GPU.
The iPhone is already frugal when
idle, but Low Power extends that further still – I once got five hours of very
light use after passing 20%, which is handy if you’re staying out late. And you
can turn Low Power on earlier if you know you have a long day ahead – the
iPhone 6S runs fine when it’s on. Ultimately, while some management is needed from time to time, I never
felt like I would run out before I got home, and it would only concern me if I
was on a “night out” and got home late. In those cases, a few simple
precautions will avert problems. Power users who stream video all day, use navigation lots
or play games often should look at the 6S Plus, but the 6S’s battery life is
fine for the majority of people.
But,Same battery life as the iPhone 6.
The 6S Plus model remains the only way to get optical image stabilization for
photos and video, plus better battery life. You'll need to pay extra to vault
past the too-small storage of the entry-level 16GB version.
THE BOTTOM LINE The
newest iPhones are top-to-bottom better phones with lots of enhancements;
iPhone 6 owners don't need the upgrade, but everyone else should seriously
consider it.
Key
Features: 4.7-inch,
326ppi LCD; 7.1mm thick; 143g; 1.8GHz Dual-Core; 2GB RAM; 16/64/128GB storage ;
12-megapixel iSight camera; 5-megapixel Facetime HD camera
Manufacturer: Apple
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