HTC One M9 review: A fast, well built phone, that’s now more affordable

HTC One M9 review: Android 5.0 and Sense 7

Note: Since our initial review, the One M9 has received a free upgrade, to Android 7 Nougat.

We really like HTC’s new Sense 7 interface. We weren’t big fans of Sense 6, but Sense 7 really benefits from Android 5.0’s Material Design scheme, as its flatter, cleaner look and fatter, more rounded fonts look much more pleasing to the eye.

It’s a far more personal Android skin that any of HTC’s previous interfaces, as its brand-new Theme Generator will revamp the entire handset right down to your phone’s app icons, sounds, fonts and caller ID logo if you don’t like the default colour scheme. A handful of themes will come pre-installed (with more available to download from HTC’s Theme Store), but you can also use pictures from your own gallery to help define the look of your handset.

^ With Sense 7’s Theme Generator, you can customise the look of your home screens and app icons

It works by analysing the colours present in your chosen wallpaper and will then suggest various different tones and colours you can use as the basis for your home screen, Blinkfeed and settings menu. It’s a great touch, but you can always tweak things individually if you don’t like what you see. It worked extremely well when we tried it out for ourselves, as even a shot of a largely green hedge gave us plenty of different options to choose from, so you don’t need to have anything particularly colourful or busy to get the perfect personalised look.

We also like that you can add another shortcut button to the lower navigation bar. For instance, as well as the usual Home, Back and Recent Apps buttons, you can add a shortcut for quick settings or notifications. You can also have a shortcut to turn off the screen, hide the navigation bar and lock the screen’s auto-rotate function, all of which add another layer of convenience to the handset.

^ A handful of pre-installed themes will be available out of the box, but you can download more for free from HTC’s Theme Store

Much to our relief, HTC’s also revamped its Motion Launch gestures. These allow you to automatically activate certain features with simple finger swipes when the phone’s screen is turned off, but on the One M8 you either had to turn them all on or disable them completely. Luckily, the One M9 lets you choose which ones you want to have active, so you’ll never again accidentally unlock your phone when you’re trying to fish it out of a pocket and move your finger up the screen.

Sense Home is another new feature and learns which apps you use most in certain locations and then promotes those apps to the front home screen when you need them. For instance, when we were in the office we were presented with our Mail, Google Drive, Calendar and HTC’s note-taking Scribble apps. On our way home, though, it swapped these for Google Maps and HTC’s Music and Car apps.

You can still pin apps to the home screen so they don’t disappear, but it should certainly help reduce the amount of app clutter clogging up your various home screens. Likewise, if you’re near certain locations such as a station, Sense Home can suggest other relevant apps such as train timetables or route planners in the Suggestion folder. Taken together, Sense 7 is a vast improvement on Sense 6 and it greatly adds to the overall appeal to the handset.