HTC One M8 review: Not worth it in 2018

HTC One M8 review: Software

Note: The One M8 can now be freely upgraded to Android v6.0 Marshmallow.

The HTC One M8 is now available with Android 5 Lollipop after the firm speedily released updates to its HTC Sense Android skin. Those already familiar with the features of Android 5 will be pleased to know that most of Google’s additions have made it past HTC’s developers and work largely as they would have on a vanilla install of Android 5.

Phone, Messages, Mail and the browser are all unique to HTC, and while there’s nothing particularly wrong with them, they don’t really do anything special that makes us want to stop using Hangouts, Gmail, Outlook and Google Chrome for our daily tasks.

Multitasking has been improved, with a tap of the window selection button (officially called Overview, below, right) revealing your recent apps in a card-style list that’s easy to quickly scroll through. This area now has a built-in Google search bar, so if you were using a widget on one of your home screens for Google searches, you can save some space and delete it but still have easy access to it. It’s here you can also “pin” your apps: this allows you to lock your phone to one app for when friends or family are using your phone.

The notifications pane has been overhauled(above, left), with the slide-down pane now a translucent colour instead of opaque. Slide down from the top of the screen with one finger and you’ll get your notifications. Slide again and you’ll get customisable quick-access options such as Wi-Fi, silent mode and mobile data. These can be added and removed simply by tapping the edit button. This area is much easier to use than the stock Android 5 version and we think it’s a big improvement.

From the notifications area you can also access the Settings menu, which is largely the same as before. The one enhancement here is that you can now search for settings (above, middle) by typing instead of hunting around the menus for an option you almost never use.

HTC’s own-brand media apps for music, photos (below, left), radio and TV (below, middle) are largely unchanged, but they remain easy to use and handy for those who need them. The TV app is a unique addition, as it lets you use the IR blaster built into the top of the phone to control your home cinema system. It learns the IR signals based your brand of TV, set-top box or AV amplifier, so most models should be supported. You can also use it to check TV listings for Freeview, Virgin, BT Vision or Sky packages.

Blinkfeed, HTC’s news and social network aggregator, Blinkfeed (above, right), is still present on the leftmost homescreen if you choose to have it enabled. It picks up content from suggested websites, RSS feeds and your social networks, collating them into one picture-heavy list.

The HTC One M8 employs a dedicated low-power processor for gesture launch controls. This lets you double tap or swipe the screen to wake the phone and take you to the homescreen or Blinkfeed.

These work well, but we found ourselves turning them off because we found sliding the phone into a tight pocket with a thumb or finger on the screen would activate a gesture, switching the phone on and causing awkward pocket dials.Whether this affects you will depend on how you use your phone and which pockets you put it into; but it was annoying enough for us to want to stop using it.