I bucked the trend... no iPhone 6 for me - new convert.

[DitchedTheiPhone]

My first post...an introduction.

All of my smart phones have been iPhones. I would skip a generation and get a new one every two years. My most recent was iPhone 5. It was actually a piece of junk with several hardware problems. Not the rock solid build I was accustomed to.

When the 5s came out and still had a small screen, I had mad the decision that if the next iphone did not have a larger screen, when my contract was up, I would move to android...probably Galaxy. My son has the S4 and really likes it. I was, of course, worried about the difficulty of switching from one OS to another.

Fast forward to the release of the iphone 6. Although they did go with larger screens, I had already begun researching android phones and was really impressed with the options. From what I can tell, apple hasn't added anything new...only stuff that was already available on android, and they didn't hit the sweet spot on phone size...at least for me. I think 4.7 isnt' quite enough (another modest increase), and 5.5 is too large for me. I already have a Kindle Fire.

You can imagine how surprised they were at the store when I came in a couple of days after the iPhone 6 release and asked to upgrade to the HTC One M8. At best buy it's only $99 for 32g and expandable to 128g. A 128g iphone would have cost me 4 times as much. It just doesn't add up anymore.

Anyway, just wanted to drop a quick note to say hello. I joined to start learning about many of the features I didn't even know droids had... like face recognition...who needs thumb prints! lol.

 

[exninja]

Welcome! You'll love the M8. I don't have it, by I've seen it and it seems like a quality phone. You shouldn't have many issues converting over from iOS. Pretty much everything over there has an equivalent counterpart in Android land.

 

[Cagey75]

Sounds a lot like me

I went from Nokia phones to iPhone about 4 years ago, had the original iP4, and upgraded to the 5 later on. I liked the 4, it was a jump up in class for me at the time, and I found it very easy to navigate and get along with in general. After about a year the home button gave in, or you had to really press down hard to kick it into action. The back screen shattered after a low drop, coffee table height, also. Good job upgrade was incoming!

When I got the iPhone 5, I was disappointed. It was taller, but slimmer, they got one part right! I didn't find it any better than the 4, considering it was an eagerly awaited upgrade for all iOS users at the time ... I found texting on it a pita, I'd constantly make mistakes because the keyboard was so narrow. yeah, I could turn it landscape and that was a bit better, but when texting I want to do so in portrait orientation. After a year and a couple of months, the phone jacked it in. Just ... died! Battery refused to charge, it was a brick, basically. Great.

I bought a crappy cheap phone to get by until my next upgrade, and as that came close began to research some Android devices. I upgraded just the other day, and I now have a snazzy blue-metalic HTC one M8! And so far so good.

Loving the fact you can customize it to your liking, with various themes and icon packages. It's like a breath of fresh air after having iOS straight forward, 'like it or lump it' styling forced onto you for years. The screen is far better than that of the 5 and 5s, many people I know have the s. And the M8 just feels overall a better piece of kit.

I also found the camera not to be anywhere near as bad as some would have you believe! Some are just too fixated on megapixel counts. I have a 36mp full frame sensor dslr for when I want good top quality images! I don't need my phone to take pro shots, just the odd snap of the kids, and you could very well get arty with this camera phone if you're any way useful at photography, as it does feature some handy manual controls. You're never going to be printing poster size versions of the images you take using it, so I don't get why people harp on about the mp count being low.

I too could have gone for the iP6 ... but after looking up on that too, I see no major upgrade from the 5. Only that it's bigger, and a little faster. Their screen res is still behind the top Android devices and, I don't find them appealing in any way anymore.

Good to see other people decide they've had enough of the over-rated other side too

 

[iowabowtech]

1 vote for best username of the year.

Welcome to Android and Android Forums!

 

[bjacks12]

1 vote for best username of the year.

Welcome to Android and Android Forums!

1 vote for best signature of the year.

 

[DitchedTheiPhone]

Thanks for the warm welcome! Really enjoying the M8 so far. The intial awkwardness of moving away from iOS is mostly gone and I'm getting more comfortable with the new phone.

About the only thing I miss is the mute toggle switch on the side of the phone. It is nice to flip that when walking into a meeting or a movie. Other than that, no lookin back. I expected the camera to be sub par, but so far, really like it. I especially like the Depth of Field setting - looks like I'm using a nice DSLR.

Also I can give a big thumbs up to the Supcase Unicorn Beatle PRO case. It's a little thinner than the Otterbox Defender and seems to offer equal protection. While I do hate to cover up the great gun metal alumimum body, the size of the phone and smoothness of the sides just left me feeling like I could drop it at any moment. With the UBP case, I have no such wories.

Thanks again!

 

[Cagey75]

I just ordered a transparent gel backing case, with blue trim for mine. As mine is metalic blue, and needs to be shown off

I get ya on the quick mute button! It was my fav button on the iphone, no fiddling about through options when you were entering a quiet area - a 2 second flick jobby did it.

But, like you, I'm also enjoying this phone otherwise a lot more

Now you got to start working on personalizing it with some snazzy themes

 

[lunatic59]

About the only thing I miss is the mute toggle switch on the side of the phone. It is nice to flip that when walking into a meeting or a movie. Other than that, no lookin back. I expected the camera to be sub par, but so far, really like it. I especially like the Depth of Field setting - looks like I'm using a nice DSLR.

If you press and hold the power button, you'll get the mute option. It's a little more than a simple single press, but it's still convenient. There might be some launchers that let you reassign button actions as well. There are a lot of apps that let you mute your phone by flipping it over. Give a few a try.

https://play.google.com/store/search?q=flip%20mute

 

[chanchan05]

Press and hold the volume down on some phones also does mute.

 

[Cagey75]

I just tried holding the power button, silent mode wasn't there, airplane mode, reset and Kid friendly options came up. Is there a way to change the options that pop up when you hold the power button I wonder? Hmmm

Holding down the volume down key is pretty quick alternative though. It just means you have to wake the phone up first to do it. On the iphone it was a simple flick of a switch and done, whether it was locked or not.

It's a small thing, but missed if you were used to it I guess

 

[lunatic59]

Did it look like this?

 

[icemanchilled]

Congrats, I definitely wouldn't have gone with the M8, but ignoring the camera it's a great device.

 

[DitchedTheiPhone]

Congrats, I definitely wouldn't have gone with the M8, but ignoring the camera it's a great device.

Actually, ignoring the specs on paper, it's a nice little camera. I can't remember the last time I printed a photo, especially anything larger than a 5x7. On screen, the Depth of Field shots look better than those I was taking with my iPhone 5.

 

[bezerkus]

You picked the one I want. Have the M7 now and I just got Kit Kat 4.4.3 update and hear it's going to get Android L as well. So we'll probably leapfrog each other and I'll probably wait for the M9. I tried to go iPhone when Android was brand new, but took it back the next week and ended up with Android because at the time it could actually do things my old Windows CE HTC phone could do that the iPhone couldn't. It took a little time for Android to mesh better with the hardware and get the same "smooth" navigation that iPhone's enjoyed. HTC, to me, always had better looks than anything out there while pushing the highest specs. Congrats, cool phone!

 

[Stuntman]

Thanks for the warm welcome! Really enjoying the M8 so far. The intial awkwardness of moving away from iOS is mostly gone and I'm getting more comfortable with the new phone.

Switching from iOS to Android is going to take a little getting used to. There are some subtle and not so subtle differences between the two platforms and phones. I'm glad you are enjoying your experience so far. We'll do our best to help you make the transistion.

About the only thing I miss is the mute toggle switch on the side of the phone. It is nice to flip that when walking into a meeting or a movie. Other than that, no lookin back. I expected the camera to be sub par, but so far, really like it. I especially like the Depth of Field setting - looks like I'm using a nice DSLR.

I recommend a software option in the form of a widget. This Volume Widget allows you to configure 3 different sound profiles. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.leepstudios.VolumeWidget

Configure one profile with 0 volume for mute. Configure one of the others to your normal sound level. Just by tapping on the widget, you can easily toggle between the different sound profiles.

 

[Cagey75]

Did it look like this?

Mine shows Kid mode and restart also, but not the options for silence etc beneath, different phones?

 

[icemanchilled]

Actually, ignoring the specs on paper, it's a nice little camera. I can't remember the last time I printed a photo, especially anything larger than a 5x7. On screen, the Depth of Field shots look better than those I was taking with my iPhone 5.

The quality of the photos is poor for a high end device, depth of field shots is pretty much all it's good at due to the gimmicky dual camera setup.

Can't comment of the iPhone 5 but the iPhone 5s takes great pictures, much better than the M8.

 

[Cagey75]

Not true at all ^^ the M8's camera takes pictures every bit as good, if not better, than the iPhone 5s. I've directly compared them to friend's ...

People are too hung on on the mp count, which doesn't matter one bit on camera phones. Tbh, none of them take great pics, a cheap compact will beat any of them, let's be honest.

 

[DitchedTheiPhone]

The quality of the photos is poor for a high end device, depth of field shots is pretty much all it's good at due to the gimmicky dual camera setup.

Can't comment of the iPhone 5 but the iPhone 5s takes great pictures, much better than the M8.

I was doing some reading on other threads about impressions on the HTC camera and found this link with sample shots from the M8. I suppose it's subjective but for my purposes, and I imagine the majority of users, I would be very satisfied with shots like this. That's the bottom line for me, but to each his own.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/phonewisdom/sets/72157642913906483/

 

[Cagey75]

One thing I will say, is that the WB on the M8 tends to veer toward the 'cool' side. I find using the manual WB better. For example, I took shots of the kids outside yesterday, the sun was pretty strong for September, it was more like an early summer's day - yet the Auto WB was giving that cooler, low K blue tinge - so I just switched to the sunny WB and the pics were perfect.

I normally shoot RAW with the dslr, so auto WB is fine but as with a lot of compact cams that only shoot jpeg, you are better to choose the WB yourself.

Otherwise I haven't found any issues with the camera.