Mini review; HTC One M8 Vs. OnePlus One

[Tig Bitties]

Here's my little review between both phones, my previous HTC One M8 ( converted to GPE ) I had for six months, and my new OnePlus One, I have had for one week now.

I have lost track of all the different Android phones I have owned the past 5 years, but let me try to recap; MyTouch 3G...Nexus-One...EVO 4G...Nexus-S...EVO 3D...Galaxy S2...Galaxy Nexus...Galaxy S3...HTC One X...Note 2...Nexus 4...Galaxy S4...HTC One M8 GPE...OnePlus One.


HTC One M8 ( GPE ) ;
- Beautiful design, and excellent build quality, IMO best built / looking Android to date
- Gorgeous screen
- Very smooth and fast performer
- Stock GPE / Nexus type OS is awesome on this phone
- Battery life is very good for this size phone ( Averaged approx 5h Screen On time )
- Easily one handed phone
- Speakers are amazing sounding, loud and crisp, and the sound faces you, not below or behind you

OnePlus One;
- Nice build quality, not as good as the One M8, but still pretty good
- The screen might be better than the One M8, the whites are very white, and the brightness is super bright, I can keep it at 25% in the house and it's more than enough.
- Performance is great, maybe a tad smoother than the One M8, but not by much
- CM11S is very close in look and feel to a Nexus / GPE OS, just more customization
- Battery life = AMAZING, I get easily 7h Screen On time, sometimes 8h Screen time
- It's big, this 5.5" phone is hard to one hand comfortably
- Speakers are very loud, and face downwards, which is noticeably different than the front facing speakers on the One M8


I gave my One M8 to my Wife, and setup it with CM11 and a Lollipop theme, so both phones look and run very similar. Funny thing is, when I play with her One M8 now, I feel a little sad I got rid of it, the size of the One M8 is damn near perfect, it's not tiny, and not huge, it feels very comfortable one handed. The OnePlus One, to me, is on that border of being just too large, so there's no way I would like the Nexus 6, that would be just too large for me to ever be comfortable with. Funny, I got rid of Note 2 back in the day, due to it's large size, just couldn't text one handed easily on it, or reach the top corners of the screen without always shuffling the phone in my hand, but the One M8 could all be done with one hand only.

But the battery life and and very bright screen of the OnePlus One is a huge plus. For work this OnePlus One never dies on me, I hammer my phone all day long for business, and most phones die by the afternoon, or the One M8 would be in the red % by end of the work day or dinner time, but the OnePlus One still has plenty of juice even at midnight.

Overall I really like the OnePlus One, only drawback being the size, I feel the One M8 is more of a comfortable phone to use. I have a case on my OnePlus One, the Diztronic slim case, but without a case on, the OnePlus is even more AWESOME feels lighter and easier to use obviously, but then I'm afraid of dropping and breaking the phone.

Once the official Android 5.0 Lollipop build comes to GPE for the One M8, we'll see what I do, I may ask my wife for the phone back and give her the OnePlus One, or trade it online for another One M8. But the battery life on the OnePlus is a HUGE deal to me.

I have checked out all the other popular phones out there in the stores, like the Galaxy S5 ( Don't like Touchwiz, and hate the hardware buttons ), LG G3 ( Laggy, and underpowered for that 1440p IMO ), iPhone 6 Plus ( Not an iOS fan ), Note 4 ( Very nice, but too large and Touchwiz not my cup of tea ) etc...to me, I still think the One M8 and OnePlus One, are the best of the best for Android. For a smaller phone the One M8 is the king for 2014, and for a battery champion and larg screen the OnePlus One wins.

 

[jamezr]

Here's my little review between both phones, my previous HTC One M8 ( converted to GPE ) I had for six months, and my new OnePlus One, I have had for one week now.

I have lost track of all the different Android phones I have owned the past 5 years, but let me try to recap; MyTouch 3G...Nexus-One...EVO 4G...Nexus-S...EVO 3D...Galaxy S2...Galaxy Nexus...Galaxy S3...HTC One X...Note 2...Nexus 4...Galaxy S4...HTC One M8 GPE...OnePlus One.


HTC One M8 ( GPE ) ;
- Beautiful design, and excellent build quality, IMO best built / looking Android to date
- Gorgeous screen
- Very smooth and fast performer
- Stock GPE / Nexus type OS is awesome on this phone
- Battery life is very good for this size phone ( Averaged approx 5h Screen On time )
- Easily one handed phone
- Speakers are amazing sounding, loud and crisp, and the sound faces you, not below or behind you

OnePlus One;
- Nice build quality, not as good as the One M8, but still pretty good
- The screen might be better than the One M8, the whites are very white, and the brightness is super bright, I can keep it at 25% in the house and it's more than enough.
- Performance is great, maybe a tad smoother than the One M8, but not by much
- CM11S is very close in look and feel to a Nexus / GPE OS, just more customization
- Battery life = AMAZING, I get easily 7h Screen On time, sometimes 8h Screen time
- It's big, this 5.5" phone is hard to one hand comfortably
- Speakers are very loud, and face downwards, which is noticeably different than the front facing speakers on the One M8


I gave my One M8 to my Wife, and setup it with CM11 and a Lollipop theme, so both phones look and run very similar. Funny thing is, when I play with her One M8 now, I feel a little sad I got rid of it, the size of the One M8 is damn near perfect, it's not tiny, and not huge, it feels very comfortable one handed. The OnePlus One, to me, is on that border of being just too large, so there's no way I would like the Nexus 6, that would be just too large for me to ever be comfortable with. Funny, I got rid of Note 2 back in the day, due to it's large size, just couldn't text one handed easily on it, or reach the top corners of the screen without always shuffling the phone in my hand, but the One M8 could all be done with one hand only.

But the battery life and and very bright screen of the OnePlus One is a huge plus. For work this OnePlus One never dies on me, I hammer my phone all day long for business, and most phones die by the afternoon, or the One M8 would be in the red % by end of the work day or dinner time, but the OnePlus One still has plenty of juice even at midnight.

Overall I really like the OnePlus One, only drawback being the size, I feel the One M8 is more of a comfortable phone to use. I have a case on my OnePlus One, the Diztronic slim case, but without a case on, the OnePlus is even more AWESOME feels lighter and easier to use obviously, but then I'm afraid of dropping and breaking the phone.

Once the official Android 5.0 Lollipop build comes to GPE for the One M8, we'll see what I do, I may ask my wife for the phone back and give her the OnePlus One, or trade it online for another One M8. But the battery life on the OnePlus is a HUGE deal to me.

Nice little review TB! Thanks for sharing......

 

[Tig Bitties]

What's the perfect size screen IMO ? I think the One M8 is a little too small at 5", where the OnePlus One at 5.5" is a tad too large, so maybe a 5.2" / 5.3" with slim bezels like the LG does would be the sweet spot.

That new Motorola Droid Turbo at 5.2" would have made the best Nexus phone in history. 5.2" is a great screen size, and that 3,900mAh battery would be a beast, and running stock 5.0 Lollipop would be a nerds wet dream.

 

[MRU]

The M8 is an amazing phone and I would certainly still have mine had it not been for the only OK camera. I actually like Sense 6 too.

Finding the perfect size is always going to be subjective and individual.

For me as it turns out 4.7" is about right. Strangely however some 4.7" devices are easier than others, I find the alpha easier to use one handed than my iPhone 6 despite same screen size.

I didn't like the one plus one. I sold mine within two days of getting it for a loss. It was two big for me and felt bigger because of the chin. Though I did like the back texture / grip feel.

 

[Destroysall]

I own the One M8, and love it very much. I love HTC Sense, it's probably my favorite UI when compared to the others. It's a pleasure to use, but I feel like it does get a bit slippery. I love the battery because it lasts me the whole day. My previous phone only lasted me 5 hours and it would be dead.

 

[Vegastouch]

What's the perfect size screen IMO ? I think the One M8 is a little too small at 5", where the OnePlus One at 5.5" is a tad too large, so maybe a 5.2" / 5.3" with slim bezels like the LG does would be the sweet spot.

That new Motorola Droid Turbo at 5.2" would have made the best Nexus phone in history. 5.2" is a great screen size, and that 3,900mAh battery would be a beast, and running stock 5.0 Lollipop would be a nerds wet dream.

Its not so much the screen size though. The Nexus 5 screen is 4.95" and it is very noticably shorter than the M8 at 5.0". I do think all the Notes are huge and way too big for my liking and the Nexus 6 is bigger than the Note 4 overall. It is wider.

I dont know the specs of the Moto X+1 or if it is even called that anymore ....i see links calling it the Moto X 2(i havent kept up on that one) and see it only has a 2300 mah battery which is too small. Im thinking the OPO will be too big for my liking too. So, no idea what im going to get next right now. I also would like to stay in the 5.2-5.3" range with a phone that overall isnt too tall.

 

[scott craft]

I upgraded from the G2 to the M8. After using it a few days I ended up returning it for the iPhone 6. Sense was great, but I didn't really care for the size and for some reason using it daily I didn't like it as much as when I played with it in the store. It seems the size of the G2 and the iPhone 6 suit my hand size better.

 

[Tig Bitties]

I have to admit, this OnePlus is a frigging BEAST on battery life . Today unplugged phone off charger 14 hours ago, and I have 5h 54m Screen On time , and battery is at 42% remaining. Watching lots of YouTube videos today, which is a big battery drainer.

And the screen is so bright, in a good way. Right now I have it set to only 15% brightness, and it looks great, if I go up to just 25% it seems too bright and blinding in the house. By comparison, my One M8 in the house was usually best at 40% brightness indoors.

 

[spriter]

OPO is indeed a beast. No doubt about out.

Couple of minor downers for me are the camera software on CM11S. ColorOS took much better, quicker photos in my experience. At least there's room for for CM to work on.

The other was outdoor in direct sunlight. It was notably worse than my 5S and can't hold a candle to the Note 4 which has an override mode where it ramps up to 700 nits if on auto-brightness.

The last minor is the known yellow issues. Some people had it, some worse than others, some not at all. It didn't really bother me but it did exist.

However, with that said, they're pretty minor issues. Price for spec and features, it's hard to beat and easy to overlook some minor shortcomings.

 

[Tig Bitties]

Out of the 14 different Android phones I have owned over the past 5 + years, this OnePlus One is hands down the battery champion marathon winner

8h Screen On time And over a 1 whole day of heavy use of total battery time.

 

[Tig Bitties]

Running a custom ROM, not CM11S anymore. This one is the very popular ' Mahdi ' ROM. Mahdi feels smoother than stock 11S, and offers even more customization and special tweaks.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-one/development/rom-mahdi-rom-2-7-oneplus-camera-4k-t2813107

Check this out. After 17 hours unplugged with heavy workday use, this is what I got. And keep in mind I still had 40% battery left

 

[Tig Bitties]

My OnePlus One lock screen;



Center home screen;

 

[Savor]

Nice comparison on basically what I consider two of the top 5 best smartphones out right now. With Sony Xperia Z3/Z3C, Samsung Galaxy Note 4, and Apple iPhone 6/6 Plus in there somewhere and Samsung Galaxy S5, LG G3, and several others not so far behind.

I actually think HTC did a very good job correcting some things I hated with the M7. On the M8, I liked how they made the edges rounder and also battery life. It is a bit too tall for something carrying just a 5-inch screen but it probably the best looking phone of 2014 even if it is a bit of rehash of last year.

But I might favor OnePlus One because it does offer better value and battery life. Camera seems to be a tad better too and CM right out of the box is just awesone. Jon Rettinger says Cyanogen Mod is his favorite flavor of Android. It loses out in display, sound, and design. But overall, I would pick the Chinese One over the Taiwanese One even though HTC is one of my favorite OEM's. Durability is also a factor and metal doesn't hide bumps and bruises like a customizable rear can.

People shouldn't be forced paying thousands of dollars on contract plans and HTC's resell value is quite terrible anyway. Better price and battery life is more important to me right now. Now if only OnePlus One's successor can go smaller like the M8 or even M7...