Help Why did you buy an M8 instead of an S5?

s5 wasn't out yet :-D
..but seriously.. had s3 before so didn't want another Sammy really.. needed a change.. liked the m7...but the m8 was the only phone I tried that I went wow! gotta have that :-D

I had an S3 and thought the S4 was too similar to it, I was hoping for something new with the S5 but it, again just looks so like the S3. I loved the S3 but wanted my new phone to feel like a new phone. The gimmicks don't impress me on the S5, fingerprint reader, heart beat monitor etc. I already had so many things turned off on my S3 to save battery. Anyway, got the M8 and I love it. Looks and feels great, battery lasts for ages. The sound is fantastic, how natural is it to put the speakers on the front rather than on the back where they get muffled. And yes the camera is fine, I only use my phone camera for quick snaps, if I am going somewhere and I know I want real high quality snaps I take my real camera. Even with a clear case on the M8 it still feels great and just oozes quality. I was in a store the other day and they had the S3, 4 and 5 all in a row and they were just so bland looking. All great phones but looks wise so samey. Anyway, that's my reason and I am delighted with the phone, good luck.

for me the phone just fits better in my hand and the test calls i got to do the m8 just sounded better

yeah sure does feel nice

dontpanicbobby said:

I'm leaning towards an M8 purchase after being a long time Samsung user. As current owners of the HTC M8 please tell me why you preferred the HTC One (M8) over the Samsung Galaxy S5.

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I have had damn near every Samsung (galaxy 1,2,3, note 2,galaxy 4, note 3) and HTC phone (G1, my touch, HTC evo, HTC evo 3d, droid DNA). I purchased the m8 the same day the s5 came out. And this is after going from forum to forum and site to site looking at comparisons between the two. My reasons are as follows:
Lately, it seems like everyone has a Samsung lol. But the real reason however took place the moment I actually went to the store and compared the two together. First reason is the amount of storage that was ready at the box on the s5 (16 with 9 available) as opposed to the m8 (32 with 26 available), which isn't good for Samsung if you plan on downloading a lot of memory hogging apps and games and such. Secondly, is the s5 is packed with a lot of useless crap that I know I have no plans on using, like the heart rate moniter and all of the useless bloatware they packed into it. The m8 doesn't have not nearly as many gimmicky features, but the features that it does have, you're more than likely use on a regular basis. If it going to spend a lot of money for something, make sure the product that is worth the price is justified for what you're going to use it for. Then there is the noticeable lag. If you're coming from two generation prior phone to the s5, the S5 is faster. Put the s5 next to the m8 however, and the m8 is faster and much more user friendly. Besides, if you looked at the Samsung sides of the forums, you hear about the majority of them switching out their S5 launchers in place of TouchWiz. You're not going to want to do that with sense 6 on the M8. It just works......awesomely. I do wish that the M8 had bigger megapixel camera like Samsung did. Shoot, at least 8 to 16. But the trade off between phone comparisons is definitely in HTC's favor. I've always said this to my coworkers who love the iPhone or Samsung as to why I chose the HTC: the S5 has a better camera, the M8 is a better phone.

Hope this helps

I don't like TouchWiz and I don't like all the Samsung bloatware. The M8 seemed like a solid phone so I picked that up on release day.

Samsung designs look uninspired to me and the phones feel cheap and plasticy.

I used to love Amoled screens, and was actually a fan of the Galaxy line, owned them all. But after owning the GS4 for a few weeks, and just really getting turned of by their software, and then switching to the GS4 GPE and getting turned of by their hardware was enough to make me totally skip the S5.

The S5 has a really good shooter on board, and it has the capabilities to capture some really good pictures. But sacrificing everything else was just not in the cards for me!

I've been able to take some awesome pictures with the M8 (little more work) and I'm happy with the entire package as a whole, which includes...Hardware, build quality, software, user experience , battery life, and yes ...The camera

I actually got one of each because my wife was ready for an upgrade and there was a buy one get one free on Verizon.

I've been using the M8 for a couple days and then setup the S5. Touchwiz just feels very cheezy and cheap compared to Sense.

I feel Samsung has handicapped Android.

That being said, I love the camera and water resistance of the S5.

I love Sense more than touchwiz. I like that I can change the color scheme on sense and the notification bar is cleaner than the GS5. I have both right now and you can see my post about comparing photos between the two, its the M8 vs Galaxy S5 thread. I see a lot of people saying if I'm going somewhere to take photos I take a real camera LOL. Well in todays age our smartphones are suppose to be real close to a REAL camera. I use my camera phone for everything, but thats because I can then upload it right to facebook and instagram.

With all that being said I'm probably keeping the M8 over the S5 because the M8 has a better phone look and experience

mach1man said:

I love Sense more than touchwiz. I like that I can change the color scheme on sense and the notification bar is cleaner than the GS5. I have both right now and you can see my post about comparing photos between the two, its the M8 vs Galaxy S5 thread. I see a lot of people saying if I'm going somewhere to take photos I take a real camera LOL. Well in todays age our smartphones are suppose to be real close to a REAL camera. I use my camera phone for everything, but thats because I can then upload it right to facebook and instagram.

With all that being said I'm probably keeping the M8 over the S5 because the M8 has a better phone look and experience

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With that being said, keep this in mind when comparing cameras from their respective phones: compression.
When you take a picture, be it with a 4mp or a 16mp, to send it either as a message or to a social site means to compression shrink it down to a size that is transferable. So if you take a pic at 16mp on your phone, it's not going to be 16mp in the site or message. That was why HTC decided to stick with 4mp (wish they went with 8 though lol). All in all though, love the phone!

That's what I was going for in my ramble, I may not have gotten there lol. I to wish they would have went with at least an 8mp, I mean the OG Incredible had an 8mp and that was HTC's thing back then, biggest camera on the market lol

Lol as well as the orginal HTC evo, along with the droid DNA. But with that being said, I still think the M8 is a better overall device than the s5. I was really going back and forth between either or device because I REALLY wanted that 16mp camera. But that pro wasn't enough for all of the cons of unneeded bloat that it came with IMO. Hence why I still rock the M8.

mach1man said:

That's what I was going for in my ramble, I may not have gotten there lol. I to wish they would have went with at least an 8mp, I mean the OG Incredible had an 8mp and that was HTC's thing back then, biggest camera on the market lol

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Sort of wish they did too, and then many people would probably not against it.

But maybe they ran into a cost or size issue with making the sensor with more megapixels. Since doubling the MP would mean they would have to double the size of the sensor. They only have so much space and budget per device.

Demache said:

Sort of wish they did too, and then many people would probably not against it.

But maybe they ran into a cost or size issue with making the sensor with more megapixels. Since doubling the MP would mean they would have to double the size of the sensor. They only have so much space and budget per device.

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That wasn't it. They tailored the M8 to social media experience for the user. That's why it has so many instagram like festures, why the front facing selfie camera is 5mp over the 4mp rear main camera. Because a lot of people who take pics with their cell phones normally either send it as a message or to social media sites like Facebook and instagram. When the user does such, the picture file becomes very compressed to be able to fit sending the picture. So if you did have a 8 or 16mp camera, when you send it it always says 'compressing to fit'. It's not the same size picture anymore, but a smaller version. That was HTC's reasoning for keeping it at 4 mp. So that you aren't sacrificing as much quality if sacrificing any at all given the small mp count.

Damar1979 said:

That wasn't it. They tailored the M8 to social media experience for the user. That's why it has so many instagram like festures, why the front facing selfie camera is 5mp over the 4mp rear main camera. Because a lot of people who take pics with their cell phones normally either send it as a message or to social media sites like Facebook and instagram. When the user does such, the picture file becomes very compressed to be able to fit sending the picture. So if you did have a 8 or 16mp camera, when you send it it always says 'compressing to fit'. It's not the same size picture anymore, but a smaller version. That was HTC's reasoning for keeping it at 4 mp. So that you aren't sacrificing as much quality if sacrificing any at all given the small mp count.

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That's a pretty fair judgement. I never really use the full 5 MP the GNex has to offer, since the majority of my pics go to the internet.

Build quality was the selling point for me. Coming from the S3 I do miss a handful of features that are in touch whiz. I never thought it felt cheap as some others have mentioned but I can understand.

Oh yeah, unfortunately I can't really enjoy the build of the phone anymore cuz I have a screen protector and a case on it now. But I'd rather be protected then not.

I bought it because the S5 wasn't enough of an upgrade on the S4. Also, I have absolutely no need for thumb scanners and fitness apps. Lastly, metal > plastic. This M8 is one sexy, powerful machine.

Pros:
-amazing build quality AND design, still amazed to this day
-amazing stereo speaker sound, again amazed
-narrow width makes it easier to use
-16 extra gigs of internal memory for no extra cost
-does not look like a toy phone you'd give to your child
-very few gimmick features
-BlinkFeed (use daily)
-LCD screen
-UI: very clean, quick, and does not look cartoony which makes it appear to be a child's toy again
-5mp front camera, looks great on Skype
-not the same phone everyone else has
-dual flash works great, pictures in pitch black do not look over brightened by the flash
-swipe launch gestures
-better pictures indoors/low light settings
-free 6 month screen warantee
-free 50 gigs of cloud storage

Cons:
-back camera is sensative to bright light
-back camera captures slightly unrealistic color tones in some instances
-s5's camera had better resolution and better in daylight
-slightly too heavy (what can you expect from 90% metal)
-not certified dust proof and waterproof (there are videos of the M8 lasting under water for well over half an hour)
-does not have a fingerprint scanner (pro for me but a con for most)
-non removable battery

50 gigs free storage? For how long? Where is it from?

So I went from a Note 3 to the M8 and I love it. The best android phone over owned. I got it over the S5 because I'm just tired of touchwiz and Samsung absurd amount of semi-cool quickly forgotten features. Even with my note 3 I noticed that most of the features baked into touchwiz were rarely used by me after the first week of owning the phone. Also, when I saw the m8 is person I thought I died and went to phone nerd heaven. The design, build quality and in-hand feel had me at hello. Lastly, the camera. I've always been jealous about how fast iphones can snap pictures and I hated using my android and missing out on great shots because my camera was too slow. Not anymore! This camera is so freaking fast. I know its not the best when it comes to megapixels. But I am satisfied with the camera. This phone is great and I'd recommend it over the s5 any day.

I wouldn't buy a phone where the major marketing feature I hear about is a "finger print scanner". Seriously guys?

Also, touchwiz

And at the end of the day, I would be turning off almost every single one of Samsungs special "features" so what am I left with really?