Apple is going to launch it's all new Iphone-6 along with IOS8.
I phone 6 would be available in 2 screen sizes viz. 4.7in display and the other with a 5.5in display.
IPhone 6 photo leakes:
Apple HongKong has confirmed that the pics leaked are of Iphone 6.
When the original HTC One hit
the mobile scene last year, I was stunned by its sophisticated
all-metal unibody chassis. Not only was it sturdy and comfortable to
grip, but thanks to a smoothly curved back and matte finish, its
polished edges elevated the handset to an unprecedented level of luxury.
Frankly I'd never seen a handset look that good, and I've handled a lot
of mobile phones.
The HTC One M8 is one lovely phone.
Designwise, this certainly sets the bar high for any subsequent
smartphone, let alone an HTC One follow-up. I can confirm, though, that
the new HTC One M8 is one heck of a handsome device -- the sexiest
smartphone I've seen all year, in fact (including the Galaxy S5 and the Sony Xperia Z2). While HTC's latest creation is more conservatively styled than the previous One, it has a look that's just as premium.
For instance the M8's bezel (where the screen and phone edge meet) is
alluringly reflective and convincingly conveys that you're holding a
luxury handset. Even so, the bezel is not polished to the same
eye-catching sheen as the first One was. I also found the back surface
of my M8 review device, though lovingly minted in a classy brushed-metal
motif, smoother than the old HTC One, which had a roughness almost like
a ceramic bowl. Indeed this gray M8's slicker texture doesn't wick away
moisture quite as effectively. The result is a slippery, more friendly
canvas for grease than its predecessor's matte back. This new HTC One has even more metal.
To be clear, the One M8 comes in two additional colors (silver and
gold) that don't sport the brushed-metal pattern (which HTC calls
"hairline"). The fallout is that both the silver and gold versions of
the M8 lack the gray model's slippery feel. And in other ways the M8 is
just as beautiful as its predecessor. It uses a gorgeous all-aluminum
body that flaunts a similar curved backing. The M8 also feels superbly
solid, strong, and well-constructed.
I admit these are minor
issues and nitpicking on my part since the M8 brings important design
improvements to the HTC One franchise. Notably the phone's screen is now
larger -- 5 inches across (as opposed to the HTC One's 4.7-inch
screen). And unlike the first One, HTC says the One M8's chassis is
truly built entirely from metal. By contrast the company explained the
original One's body was 70 percent aluminum, the rest being plastic.
Additionally the M8 sports a pair of powerful stereo speakers that
flank the display. Also branded by HTC as BoomSound, these front-firing
grilles belt out a ton of sound, at least for a mobile phone. Even
better, the M8 is definitely louder and produces sound with way more
presence than last year's model. It's to be expected, since HTC says it
enhanced the M8's BoomSound audio system by cranking up the volume by 25
percent and improved its frequency range. Don't just take my word for
it. Be sure to check out our deep dive into the HTC One M8's upgraded audio prowess.
The One M8 remains thin even with beefed-up specs.
Despite the phone's larger display, the device remains roughly the
same size, thickness, and weight. Tipping the scales at 5.4 ounces
(154.2 grams), the M8 understandably stands a little taller yet is just
slightly heavier than the older One (5.04 ounces/142.9 grams). It's
heavier than the Galaxy S5, too (5.1 ounces/145 grams) even though the
M8 lacks extra hardware such as a heart-rate monitor and fingerprint
scanner.
Display
From
the moment I picked up the HTC One M8, I knew its big 5-inch screen was
high-quality. While it can't produce the same deep blacks and vibrant
colors conjured by the OLED displays you'll find in Samsung Galaxy
handsets such as the Note 3 and GS4, the M8's IPS LCD has a lot going
for it. Specifically these are admirably wide viewing angles, a pleasing
amount of brightness, plus rich colors.
With a full HD
resolution (1,920x1,080 pixels), photos, video, and text were also crisp
on the phone's screen even if it has a marginally lower pixel density
than the original One (which had the same number of pixels on a smaller
4.7-inch screen). All this adds up to a display that does justice to any
visual content you choose to enjoy on the M8.
Some words of
warning though; if you choose to view the One M8's screen in the great
outdoors, I suggest you do so without polarized sunglasses. When I did
this with my pair of Ray-Bans, the phone's screen in portrait
orientation was dim to the point of being unreadable. Flipping the One
M8 into landscape position wasn't a problem and the display was just as
bright as usual under these conditions.
Software and interface
Premium design isn't the only ace in the One M8's hand. The handset runs Google's Android 4.4.2 operating system,
the latest iteration from the tech giant. KitKat brings a cleaner, less
cluttered layout, tighter integration with Google search, plus faster
performance (especially on devices with lower specs). Layered on top of
that is HTC's most recent revamp of its Sense UI, version 6 (see next
section). As you'd expect from a smartphone churning such modern mobile
software, the M8 has access to all of Google's bells and whistles.
This includes Gmail, Google plus social networking, the Chrome
browser, and Drive file storage. The phone also taps into the company's
vast universe of media content via Google's Play digital storefront.
That means that books, movie rentals and purchases, games, and the more
than 1 million apps hawked by third-party developers are just a finger
tap away.
The lock screen offers more options.
You'll find the futuristic Google Now personal notification system
onboard, too, either in widget form or launched by swiping upward from
the bottom of the screen. It provides insightful reminders, suggestions,
and directions automatically based on your past search history, time,
and location data. It's the driving force behind the Google Wear
operating system for smartwatches, clothing, and other wearable tech
gear.
Sense reenvisioned
With every new flagship phone
HTC retools its custom Sense interface and the launch of the One M8 is
no different. For this latest rethink of Sense, version 6, the company
says it has cleaned up the look of the Android skin to give it a freshened appearance.
Essentially the overall layout of Sense 6 remains the same. You have
numerous home screens to customize to your heart's content (though now
five instead of the six that were in Sense 5.5) with app shortcuts and
widgets. Likewise, the leftmost screen is occupied by the BlinkFeed news
aggregator; thankfully HTC gives you the option to turn the service off
if you don't want it.
HTC's Sense UI just got a lot more colorful.
One subtle tweak HTC made to Sense are colors coded to major phone
features and their palette of hues coordinated with themes you select
from the M8's settings menu. For instance the phone dialer and messaging
functions may have a blue header while the gallery app is marked with a
purple strip across the top of the screen. Settings have a special
highlight hue as well, say violet.
Bundled with my HTC One M8
unit were three color themes: one was greenish-blue, the second warmer
orange and reds, and the third skewed to electric purples and violets
(my favorite). A fourth theme takes the conservative approach,
consisting mostly of black and white paired with a grayscale wallpaper.
BlinkFeed sees further
A surprising feature HTC unveiled with the previous One last year was
BlinkFeed, a magazine-like news aggregator in the vein of Flipboard.
It's designed to pull in articles from a vetted pool of media outlets
and websites, and then serve everything up fresh via one vertically
scrolling panel.
BlinkFeed is set as the leftmost home screen,
though unlike the first iteration of the feature (later fixed in Sense
5.5), users can disable it if they find no use for the function.
Additionally, BlinkFeed is no longer mapped to phone's home button as it
was on the original One device.
BlinkFeed pulls in news and social media info.
The biggest change to BlinkFeed is that you now have the option to
search for and add custom topics to the service. For example if you want
to keep apprised of the latest developments in nuclear fusion, or
perhaps news around aviation, BlinkFeed will do its best to return
related results. Frankly it's a welcome enhancement that helps BlinkFeed
approach Flipboard's level of customization. It's also worth mentioning
that Samsung's similar My Magazine feature lacks this ability.
HTC has also brought support for notifications from third-party
apps Foursquare and Fitbit into the BlinkFeed fold. This complements
existing alerts and content from social-media platforms such as
Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ that were already within BlinkFeed's
reach.
Create custom news topics for your reading pleasure.
A dash of gesture controls
Not to be outdone by the LG G2 and Motorola Moto X, the HTC One M8
also flaunts its own take on gesture-based handset commands. Similar to
LG's KnockOn feature, you can wake up the M8 simply by tapping its
screen twice with your finger. Provided you haven't applied PIN or
pattern-swipe security (which requires a lock screen), at this point
sliding your finger right launches BlinkFeed, while doing the opposite
whisks you straight to the main home screen.
To fire up the
camera app in a flash, just turn the M8 into a horizontal position, then
hold down either end of the volume rocker (volume-up or -down). The
idea here is to save time by not having to first press the power button
to activate the display, then hunt for the camera icon. Motorola took a
similar approach with its Moto X, which allows users to launch the
camera with two quick twists of the wrist.
Tap the screen twice to turn the phone on.
I certainly applaud HTC for folding these new gesture controls into
Sense since they do increase the overall usability of the M8. I
especially find Motion Launch helpful because it's way more convenient
to tap the M8's screen than to stretch a finger toward the power key on
the top edge of the phone. Using the volume button to fire up the camera
isn't all that much faster than double-tapping the screen then flicking
the camera icon upward. The Moto X's quick camera launch action is
supremely intuitive, however, because you never have to touch the screen
or press a button until you're ready to snap a picture.
Core components
If you expect the HTC One M8 to boast cutting-edge mobile components,
you won't be disappointed. Tucked away inside this metallic beauty are
high-octane parts to match its lovely looks. Powering the phone is a
2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor which frankly just rolled off
of the assembly line. In fact the One M8 is the first of a new crop of
flagship phones for 2014 to feature the Snapdragon 801 which includes
the Galaxy S5 and Sony Xperia Z2. The Galaxy S5 will bring a 2.5GHz processor, but the change will users will hardly notice the difference.
Built by dominant mobile chip maker Qualcomm, the company says the 801
offers 25 percent faster graphics than the Snapdragon 800 that powers
devices like the Note 3 and LG G2. This means speedier gameplay and
swifter Web surfing. The 801 was also designed to not break a sweat when
heavily editing photos after you've taken them.
Buttressing
this is a healthy 2GB supply of RAM and either 16GB or 32GB of internal
storage (it's up to carriers and individual markets which version you'll
be able to buy). As I mentioned before, however, this new One also has
an SD card slot for additional storage space. It's a critical
improvement over last year's One handset and a big bonus to those
(including me) who tend to load their gadgets up with music and movies.
Be advised that the One M8 requires a nano-SIM card, whereas the first
One used larger Micro-SIMs, so a new card (or adapter) might be in
order.
Camera: This sucker is binocular
Undoubtedly the wildest change to the One M8 concerns its camera
and imaging system. As it turns out all the rumors regarding dual-lenses
on HTC's fresh flagship are true. The One M8 does in fact have two
camera lenses on its back, as well as a dual-LED flash array. While the
larger of the M8's eyes supports its main camera and handles traditional
photo duties, the smaller lens (which sits next to it) is meant for an
altogether different purpose.
Indeed its sole task is to tackle
depth perception which allows the M8 to perform very interesting tricks.
Every time you snap a picture the M8 also records optical data from its
second vantage point seen through its depth-sensing lens. As a result,
the One M8 lets you refocus images after you take them. So for instance
you can choose subjects in the foreground to focus on while
simultaneously blurring objects in the background.
In essence
HTC is shooting to replicate the shallow depth of field that skilled
owners of DSLR cameras often use to great aesthetic effect. It's also a
technique the Nokia Lumia
1020 as well as the Lytro camera have strived to create through clever
software processing. HTC calls the feature "UFOCUS" which lives in the
phone's photo editing menus. Also placed here is a feature named
Foregrounder which applies special filters to the background, like
simulated pencil sketch-marks, motion blurring, even animated objects to
indicate the changing seasons. Think snowflakes or blowing cherry
blossoms, and you get the idea. Something HTC calls 3D Dimension Plus
warps pictures to give them a cartoony depth that you can alter by
tilting the phone back and forth.
The old HTC One Zoe engine is here, too. That means the phone's
gallery app groups images and video by events and date plus mashes them
up into highlight reels with canned themes and music automatically. it's
an ability I like to have but sometimes it makes it tricky to sort
through my photos and video. This is especially true if I can't recall
when exactly I shot them.
Aside the M8's unconventional camera
abilities, you also get a bucket-load of shooting modes such as night,
HDR, sweep panorama, plus manual camera settings for just about
everything -- except image resolution. Perhaps the reason HTC limits
control over photo size is because the phone's 4-Ultrapixel sensor
(really 4MP) is low-res compared with competing handsets such as the
GS4, Note 3, and G2 (all of which pack sharper 13MP systems).
Performance
I was prepared for the HTC One M8 to pack a
processing punch, but I admit I wasn't expecting it to hit as hard as it
did. The smartphone incinerated the Quadrant benchmark, scoring a
jaw-dropping 24,593 -- the highest result I've yet seen anywhere. This
includes the Note 3, LG G2, and of course old HTC One.
The One M8's 878.5 MFLOPs showing on the Linpack test (multithread) was also stratospherically high.
Everyday use mirrored my artificial tests; the One M8 hummed through
its various function effortlessly. The phone also launched, closed, and
flipped between apps and menus almost before my eyes registered the
change. In a phrase, the HTC One M8 handles like greased lightning.
Call quality
I tested the HTC One M8 on Airtel GSM network in Mumbai, and my
test calls exhibited call quality in line with what I've experienced
with other handsets. People described by voice as clear and easy to
understand. They also didn't notice any distractions such as background
hiss, static, or clipping. Still, callers said they could definitely
tell that I spoke to them from a cellular phone due to the slight
compression cellular audio tends to possess.
On my end, voices
came through the earpiece with plenty of volume and richness. Oddly
enough, despite the M8's powerful stereo speakers calls conducted via
the speakerphone were not extremely loud.
Data speeds
Connected to Airtel 3G network in Mumbai, the HTC One M8
turned in some swift data speeds but was inconsistent. I clocked
average download throughput at a decent 7.3Mbps but at times reached as
high as 16.2Mbps. I was able to push data up to the cloud no faster than
5.1Mbps and through hovered around 2 to 3Mbps.
Battery life
Equipped with a 2,600mAh battery, the HTC One M8 isn't as well-endowed
in the juice department as the big Galaxy Note 3 (3,200mAh), even the Galaxy S5 (2,800mAh).
That said, the M8's battery is a tad larger in capacity compared with
the previous One (2,300mAh). The phone managed to chug along for 9 hours
and 52 minutes on the official CNET Labs video battery drain benchmark.
it's a satisfying result which outlasts what the first HTC One
delivered on the same test (9 hours, 37 minutes).
Anecdotally I
was able to make it through a full day of testing (unplugging at 8AM)
with the phone pleading for a recharge by 10PM. HTC has said it plans to
enable in the future a special "extreme power mode" for the One M8 to
extend its run time. My test device, sadly, lacked the feature.
Conclusion
Last spring HTC had high hopes for its then-best effort yet, the
original HTC One. Sadly the Samsung Galaxy S4, which offered a killer
screen, impressive camera, and all the software features the company
could squeeze into one handset, stole its thunder. And even more to the
point, Samsung was better at getting the GS4 to more carriers faster and
it had a bigger marketing budget to spend.
We see a similar
drama in the inevitable clash between the Galaxy S5 and the One M8. I'd
argue that HTC is better equipped to do battle this time around. Not
only is the One M8 a powerful performer with quad-core processing that's
neck-and-neck with Samsung's greatest, its all-aluminum design is the
clear winner between the two.
More striking to me, though, is
how the M8's elegantly crafted hardware and intuitive software highlight
HTC's and Samsung's opposite approaches to making smartphones.
Samsung's Galaxy handsets aim to please the greatest number of customers
by packing in the most features and performance for the lowest price.
HTC, on the other hand, targets handset connoisseurs with painstakingly
constructed devices running slick and efficient Android skins. Honestly,
it's a combination I'm particularly defenseless against. Sorry,
Samsung, but TouchWiz and plastic materials don't feed my soul.
Based
on CNET's experience with the Samsung GS5 , it's clear that the S5's
camera gives the gadget one leg up over the One M8 performance-wise.
This is why I can't say with certainty that the One M8 is a better
phone or even if it's the best Android alternative to the iPhone 5S. But I can say that the One M8 is a truly great phone all on its own -- one worthy of anyone's investment.
Google Glass is a project started by Google that is intended to
bring hands-free display technology to the general public. By utilizing
voice commands, users can interact with their Google Glass device to get
information from their phones, participate in Google+ Hangouts or to
get information from the internet. With a wireless data connection,
Google Glass adds an augmented-reality overlay to whatever you're
looking at, automatically bringing up relevant information from various
Google sources. This is still a prototype project, but Google hopes to
bring it to consumers sometime in 2014.
