It is March 2014, and HTC has just released a phone that is being hailed as the most beautiful Android device ever made. The HTC One M8 has ditched the plastic-and-glass norms for a ‘Zero-Gap’ unibody aluminium chassis that takes 200 minutes of CNC machining to produce. In the UK, it is the darling of the tech press, a 160g masterpiece that feels like a solid ingot of high-grade tech in your hand. It is a bold technical statement that challenges the dominance of the Samsung Galaxy S4 by prioritizing quality, audio, and ‘meaningful’ innovation over raw megapixel counts.
The technical headline remains ‘BoomSound.’ Instead of a tiny, tinny speaker on the back, the One M8 features dual front-facing stereo speakers with dedicated amplifiers that are 25% louder than the previous model. It is, quite simply, the best-sounding phone in history; watching a movie or playing a game on this device is a transformational experience. The screen is a 5.0-inch Super LCD3 with a Full HD (1920 x 1080) resolution, offering a staggering 441 PPI. It is arguably the best display on the market, bright, pin-sharp, and with viewing angles that are virtually perfect. Powering this beauty is a 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor and 2GB of RAM, making the ‘HTC Sense 6’ interface feel incredibly snappy.
On the imaging front, HTC has used the ‘Duo Camera’ system, a 4-megapixel ‘UltraPixel’ main sensor paired with a secondary depth-sensing lens. This allows the phone to capture a spatial map of every photo, enabling ‘UFocus’, the ability to change the point of focus after you’ve taken the shot. It also features a 5-megapixel front camera for the selfie generation. Connectivity includes 4G LTE, Wi-Fi ac, and an IR blaster hidden in the power button. The 2,600 mAh battery is a solid performer, providing a full day of use even with the heavy speaker usage. The HTC One M8 is a technical and aesthetic triumph; it brought premium materials and high-end audio to the Android world in a way that had never been seen before.
LG G3 Welcome to mid-2014, and LG has just stolen a march on the entire industry by releasing the first globally available smartphone with a Quad HD screen. The LG G3 is a technical showpiece that packs a massive 5.5-inch display into a body that feels no larger than a standard 5-inch phone, thanks to its microscopic bezels and the continued use of rear-mounted buttons. It’s finished in a ‘Metallic Skin’ plastic that looks and feels surprisingly like brushed aluminium, but it allows for a removable 3,000 mAh battery and a microSD slot. In the UK, the G3 has arrived as the ‘thinking man’s’ flagship, a device that offers more pixels and more innovation than the Galaxy S5 for a more competitive price.