HTC One M9+ or M9 Plus is the flagship device from the HTC which comes with high-end hardware, a great design and under the premium segment of smartphones.

I was trying the HTC One M9+ since last few days and in this post, I am going to share the detailed hands-on review of HTC One M9+ with all Geeky Stuffs readers. This review is divided in multiple sections considering the pros and cons of each of them.

So, have a look on this detailed review of HTC One M9+ and feel free to share your feedback and experience about the device if you are already using it.

HTC One M9+ : Hands-on Review, Specs and Features


Retail Box and Unboxing


HTC One M9+ comes in a nice retail box with a textured top which resembles the HTC’s popular Dot View smartcovers. Inside the retail box you will find the phone along with the USB cable, earphones, charger , SIM card tray ejector tool and few user manuals.

You can watch the HTC One M9+ unboxing video below.



Design


HTC One M9+ sports a premium design and it feels the same while holding in the hand. It is having the same old and popular design of HTC One series of smartphone with some slight changes here and there.

On the front, there is the set of sensor and the UltraPixel camera at the top along with the speakers. The LED notification is given behind the grill of top speaker. At the bottom of the front side, there is again a set of speakers, divided by the fingerprint scanner in the middle.

There is no capacitive keys on the device and navigation keys are given on the screen. There is the HTC branding below the screen which occupies a good amount of real state of the device and reduces its “screen to body” ratio and increase the overall size of the device which is a negative point of its design. One HTC logo on the back should be enough for the branding purpose.

On the rear, we got a 20 MP primary camera coupled with the an extra 2.1 MP camera for some extra imaging features and LED flash. There are microSD card slot, volume rockers and power keys given on the right side of the device and the SIM card slots are on the left. 3.5 mm audio jack and USB port are given at the bottom and at the top, you will find the IR blaster.

HTC ONE M9+ is having the full metal body and the sophisticated brushed design which gives it a premium look. The backpanel is non-removable and curved at the corners to fit perfectly in the hands.

Screen and Display


HTC One M9+ sports a 5.2 inches screen with 1440 x 2560 pixels resolutions which provides you 565 ppi pixel density. Since the navigation keys are provided on screen, it occupies a good amount of the screen and reduces the effective size. The screen-to-body ratio we get on HTC One M9+ is 68.6% which is still good but could be better if the branding was removed given below the screen.



The screen is protected by the Corning Gorilla Glass which performs really nice to save the screen from scratches and minor damages. The Super LCD 3 display is really nice as expected. The viewing angles and sunlight readability is impressive.

Hardware Specs and OS


HTC One M9+ comes with Mediatek MT6795T Helio X10 2.2 GHz octa-core processor along with the PowerVR G6200 GPU and 3GB of RAM. The internal memory is 32 GB which is expandable up to 2 TB using the microSD card. A 32 GB memory card is also provided with the device. You also get the 100 GB of Google Drive cloud storage. The sensors provided in this device are accelerometer, gyro, proximity sensor, magnetic compass and fingerprint scanner and all of them are very responsive. But being a high-end premium device, it still lacks the pedometer, heart rate sensor etc

Fingerprint scanner on HTC One M9+ is fast and responsive. It is designed just to unlock the device and works as "One touch unlock". Unfortunately, there is nothing else you can do by it. It would be great if there were more functions like using the fingerprint sensor to take images in Huawei Ascend Mate 7.



The performance of the hardware and all sensors are pretty good. You can watch our AnTuTu benchmarking test in which HTC One M9+ scored equivalent to the Asus Zenfone 2. Overall performance of the device is nice and you will not feel any kind of lag while using the device heavily, playing high-end games or any issues.

It runs on the Android v5.0.2 Lolipop OS and comes with the HTC Sense UI 7.0 which is feature rich UI. Though the UI is good and user friendly but also very resource hungry and consumes lots of RAM. But still, the performance is not affected by it.

On the connectivity side, we got the 4G LTE connectivity, Bluetooth v4.1 with A2DP and apt-X, NFC and Infrared port. There is just one SIM slot provided in this device. So if you are looking for a dual-SIM smartphone, you can reject the HTC One M9+ at the very first glance.






Camera and Imaging


HTC ONE M9+ sports a 20 MP primary camera which is capable of taking 4K video recording. The images coming out of primary camera are good in quality and detail but lacks the accurate and vivid color processing. Due to this, the images look a but dull and sometimes dark too.

There are lots of option available in the camera settings even the manual controls is provided, just like the popular Lumia Camera though it is not as great as the latter. So, you can manually adjust the brightness, ISO level, shutter speed up to 2 seconds etc. to get the best shot from your HTC ONE M9+.

There are few shooting modes available which you can activate or delete and reactivate if you want. Imaging modes like Photo Booth and Split Capture are not much useful and you will use them rarely.



On the front side, we got the 4 MP UltraPixel camera with 2µm pixel size which performs really great. The low light imaging capability of HTC One M9+ front camera is brilliant, thanks to HTC UltraPixel technology. Also the color reproduction is much better and realistic in the front camera images with respect to the primary camera.

The second camera on the back side let you capture images with some extra features and option which you will find while editing the pic.

When it comes to video recording, HTC One M9+ can record the 4K Ultra HD resolution in great quality. You can record maximum 6 minutes of 4K video at a time which is better than the duration provided by other smartphones. The 1080p Full HD video recording is also very good in quality, specially in the low light situation. The front facing camera of HTC One M9+ can also record 1080p Full HD video in good quality with great details.



One big drawback of HTC Camera app is that the Panorama mode doesn’t let you take images vertically which is a very old feature of the Android stock camera app but still missing in HTC Camera app. Also the format of 4K video recorded by HTC One M9+ is not supported by most of the devices and you can’t even upload it on YouTube.

It is a high-end premium device but it still lacks many feature and options which are available in other high-end smartphones of Samsung Galaxy and Microsoft Lumia series. But still for casual photography, HTC One M9+ scores pretty good specially for the front facing camera.

Entertainment and Gaming


When it comes to entertainment, HTC One M9+ is a good performer. Thanks to its BoomSound with Dolby Audio, you will enjoy playing games and watching videos on it for sure.

The music app is pretty basic with not much options and settings in it. But the sound quality is good. It also let you download the Album Art and song lyrics for the songs you are having in your phone. There are two modes given for the speakers – Theater Mode and Music Mode. You can select them according to your choice and type of music you are playing. While you are using the earphones, you will have more options to select depending on the type of earphone you are using.



The video player of HTC One M9+ is pretty good and support most of the formats. But if you are trying to play 4K video recorded from any other smartphone then, chances are high that it will not work. Also while playing the HD videos, the device heats up a bit. There is also Peel Smart Remote app provided which is feature rich and performs lots of useful tasks right from your smartphone.

Gaming performance of HTC One M9+ is really nice. Thanks to high end processors, great screen and speakers, you will enjoy playing the high-end games on this device. The graphics quality is nice and so is the performance of all the sensors which enhance the user experience while games.



The only drawback is that after awhile you will feel that the device is heating up a bit because of the full metal body. Also, the battery drains fast from the HTC One M9+ if you play high-end games on high brightness and volume for awhile.


Battery


HTC One M9+ comes with non-removable 2840 Li-Po mAh battery. The standby performance of the battery is pretty good but once you start using it heavily, you will that the performance is not great. Due to resource hungry processor, great screen quality, big screen size and the HTC Sense which is running in the background and consuming huge amount of RAM as well, the battery performance is not that great.

For general usage, the battery performs pretty good but if you play high-end games, record and play HD videos and keep the brightness at full, the battery drains pretty fast.

But the good thing is that HTC One M9+ comes with lots of battery saving mode which improves the battery performance by cutting the features of your device and turning off hardware. But if you are a heavy user, the battery saving mode on HTC One M9+ will not help you much.


Productivity


When it comes to productivity HTC One M9+ is having its own set of productivity features and app. There is the HTC Sense Home widget which smartly categorized the apps and provide you to use when you are at Work, Home or Outside. You can even improve the experience by providing the GPS location of your home and workplace and then it will automatically switch its status to provide you the most suitable app depending on your current location. It also suggests you new apps to download for that particular app category.





Then there is HTC BlinkFeed which let you get all the latest news, updates from social media accounts etc. on your Home screen in a beautifully designed magazine theme. But keep in mind that it will consume a good amount of RAM on your device and also the Internet data if you allow it to be loaded on the mobile Internet.



There is a Car Mode given which reduces your phone’s function to just the basic ones and activates the voice command to let you use your phone while driving. The good thing is that it is not totally restricted and you can include the apps of your choice in it depending on your needs. Also, there are lots of gesture settings provided to increase your productivity on HTC One M9+

There is Polaris Office 5 provided to play with the documents on your smartphone and you will also get the 100GB of Google Drive cloud storage provided to save all your data.

Conclusion


HTC One M9+ is a great device with beautiful design, extra premium looks and good performance. The camera performance is nice, specially the front camera is brilliant. The device is a premium one from every angle and comes with a nice overall performance as well from productivity to entertainment.

Though the device is a bit expensive and you can find a smartphone with similar features and performance at similar or slightly cheaper price, if you are looking for a great looking device with nice camera quality and good performance then you should go with the HTC One M9+.
 
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