HTC One (M8)

The HTC One (M8) (also marketed as the all-new HTC One) is an Android or Windows smartphone manufactured and marketed by HTC. Following a number of leaks that occurred during the months prior, the device was officially unveiled in a press conference on March 25, 2014, and released the same day by Verizon Wireless at retail, and by other Canadian and United States carriers for online orders prior to its wider retail availability in mid-April.

The device retains a similar design to the HTC One (M7), its predecessor in the HTC One series, but features a larger, rounded chassis incorporating a 5-inch 1080p display, a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, a depth of field sensor which can be used to individually refocus and apply various effects to the foreground and background elements of photos taken with the device's camera, a higher resolution front camera, improvements to the device's front-facing stereo speakers, expandable storage, new gesture functionality, and a refreshed version of HTC's Sense software. In August 2014, HTC unveiled a software variant of the device running Windows Phone 8.1 instead of Android, aiming to adapt the operating system's experience to the device "[without] any compromises."

The device received mostly positive reviews, with particular praise devoted to the design improvements within its hardware and software, and its upgraded internals in comparison to the One (M7). However, some reviewers criticized certain aspects of the device, such as its large bezels, the lack of significant improvements to the main camera's image quality, removal of optical image stabilization, and the inconsistent quality of the effects enabled by the depth sensor.

Development

Although it was once a leading manufacturer of smartphones in terms of market share, HTC has struggled in the wake of other vendors such as Samsung and Apple, due particularly to their wider marketing reach. As was common during the early years of Android, HTC manufactured a large number of exclusive devices customized for several major U.S. carriers, who took on the role of marketing them. In 2013, HTC chose to release a single flagship device, the HTC One, across multiple carriers, and handled much of its marketing and promotion. While it was critically acclaimed, the launch of the One (despite being deemed the best in the company's history by the president of its North American division) was hindered by supply chain issues and was ultimately deemed to be commercially unsuccessful. HTC continued to lose market share, and in October 2013, had its first-ever quarterly loss—which is attributed to poor marketing. As a result, HTC planned to "leverage the momentum" and critical success of the One to produce an updated version for 2014, expanding upon concepts introduced by the previous model.