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Could the M9 fall into the same sales trap as the S5?

rushmore

Extreme Android User
Nov 13, 2008
8,256
1,355
Kentucky
Seems it could. Both are following already great products with relatively (for non tech types) nominal improvements. A big selling point is the display, but same 1080p as the M8. That said, if no Gear VR type add-on, 1080p is more than fine IMO.

Maybe HTC is counting on just people due with their two year cycle for upgrades.

JMO, since I hope the M9 sells well since has a micro sd slot :)
 
Tough call isn't it?

The plus side of the display is that it's the opposite of the G3 - more graphics power than the display needs, less display power consumption.

People are certainly polarized over the design. Tech Radar said that the M8 was the best designed phone of 2014 so why change it, while others are making fun and calling it the M8s lol.

But I think unlike the S5, no one is facing the 16 GB debacle that that phone introduced for a lot of people.
 
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Good point. That was the first device only having 16GB impacted. Folks with Lollipop are really going to feel the lack of storage on 16GB models. Net of about 8.5GB of free storage.

The thermal issues being reported could be an issue with the 810. Wonder if HTC jumped the gun trying to get this out now? I would have thought 1080p would not cause any issues.

Anandtech though is not sure:

"As for the underlying SoC, it seems that a lot of the concerns with the Snapdragon 810 remain unfounded, as the One M9 was quite smooth even with this non-final build of software. It’s likely that while the Snapdragon 810 SoC itself is without issue, properly tuning all of the controls in Qualcomm’s big.LITTLE implementation is a much more difficult than a standard aSMP solution. Unfortunately, due to the non-final state of the software we are unable to present benchmarks of the device, but we will be sure to do this for the full review of the device. In general use, the phone remained cool and comfortable to use, and it was hard to really tell if the phone got any hotter than the M8 in practice, even in benchmarks. The One M7 is definitely far hotter in comparison due to its 28LP process used on the SoC in comparison."

His wording does suggest the M9 might get hot (all do at some point), since worded, "the M7 gets far hotter".
 
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The concerns are unfounded for good reason -

http://semiaccurate.com/2015/03/02/behind-fake-qualcomm-snapdragon-810-overheating-rumors/

I said from the beginning, month by month, that that entire rumor did nothing but benefit Samsung and drive down Qualcomm stock.

Pretty obvious that Samsung had a profit motive in the nonsense coming from a Korean source.

As the phone didn't get hotter than the M8 during benchmarks, that would sum it up except that the software is not final and nothing much counts until it is.

And yeah, take any phone, put on constant GPS tracking, wifi tethering from 4G or screen casting, play an intensive game - and they'll all get hot, as you say, they all will at some point.

Otherwise, the Samsung 810 heating kool aide is exactly that, as has been obvious all along.
 
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But I think unlike the S5, no one is facing the 16 GB debacle that that phone introduced for a lot of people.

Good point. That was the first device only having 16GB impacted. Folks with Lollipop are really going to feel the lack of storage on 16GB models. Net of about 8.5GB of free storage.

HTC UK report you're getting about 21GB free space from the 32GB, International model.

Given 64GB SD Cards are relatively cheap now, that's more than enough internal storage for me.
 
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As the phone didn't hotter than the M8 during benchmarks, that would sum it up except that the software is not final and nothing much counts until it is.

Why do you keep saying the "software isn't final?" Mr. Nickinson from Android Central completely disagrees with your assertion. People were asking him did you get the M9 that had the final software? He said he has never heard of the term "final software" before. If the phone didn't have the right software on the phone, I took his comments as that's a first out of all the phones he has to review and conferences he visits for mobile devices. Go to the 38 minute mark and listen to his comments. His comments disagree with your comment of the software isn't final. Sounds like an article was read on your part, then repeated to sound credible.

 
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I have a lot of respect for Phil, he's a nice guy, obviously knowledgeable, and in my few exchanges with him, I've found him to be nothing but an honest broker.

I respect his opinion, he has the chops and experience and doesn't speak out of his rear end.

He and I differ on what it means when we say final and we differ on the reference.

He gets insider access all the time for phones. For me, it's rare, I get access to parts.

His view is from rumor through release, further if it's one that interests him.

My view is on his reports as well as others but primarily what happens at the moment of release and onwards because I do a lot of device support here.

I refer to the final software as that chosen when the phone is actually shipped.

Phil is right about "final". Although he said what he meant, my choice of language is imprecise - my M8 is still getting updates. So final is a charged term.

In my experience, not just with HTC, I find that the truth is that a lot of last minute bug fixes go on since the time of news reports - and performance may change.

Sometimes it's for the better.

Sometimes they really bork a last minute bug fix and the as-shipped performance is much worse.

Sometimes, it's the same as the expectations set during this period before release.

Reread my comment, please.

I hope that my intention was clear - in my opinion, we don't know what the as-first-shipped software will do until it happens.

It's more of a "uh, meh" attitude rather than something clever or disagreeing because I don't know the future - neither does Phil.

We call what we see based on experience.

His experience, he's made his call.

My experience, too soon to call.

If Phil is right, great. Just proves what we already know, he's sharp. And I'll take it from there when the support questions hit, if I can.

If it changes - better or worse - then I still have no problem with Phil and I proved nothing. I don't think that me saying what amounts to, "Meh, don't count your chickens before they hatch," represents some great credibility or original thought on my part.

If you search my posts (and I think that isn't a great use of your time, I'm just saying that my track record is pretty open) then I think you'll find that I have consistently said during every device release I've helped on, whether I own the device or not, has been to tell people to not get discouraged, only take your phone back if the hardware is broken, they all rush delivery, and there's usually an important bug fix update in the first month with all of them.

I know I've said that often for Samsung, HTC and yes, even in support of Apple's new iOS releases in Lounge threads (and I'm not innocent in poking fun at Apple but fair is fair).

None of these companies are our friends and they ought to be held accountable by the people that buy their products. We have a right to value for our money.

I think that HTC does a lot wrong. Including the camera. I know that you feel the same about the Ultra Pixel camera being wrong. So do I but I think that they broke different things than you do.

I have my own concerns about the new M9 camera. Serious concerns. I've been lucky enough to talk to one of their camera design team members and I was able to successfully convey those concerns. I am hopeful based on the conversation that they may be addressed in a future update. If HTC management agrees. But no way in time for release, the conversation was too recent.

More than one reviewer is convinced that the camera issues shown so far cannot be fixed with software.

Perhaps they're right.

But my experience working with developers who really understand digital camera software and providing surprising fixes for crappy cameras says - don't count your chickens before they hatch.

A lot can be done with software.

My opinion is, take all prerelease comments - including mine - with a great big grain of salt and don't count your chickens before they hatch.

The proof is in the pudding. Not in what Phil says, or Anandtech says, or what Android Police says, or what Tech Radar says, or in what I say.

I trust one end-user's experience, coming to a forum and really talking about what they got, over everything else on the Internet.

Decades ago, I worked in a lab facility where the lab manager put up a sign that you couldn't not see before entering the facility -

One test is worth more than a thousand expert opinions.
 
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Why I come down like a ton of bricks on benchmarks saying that the Samsung is better than the HTC -

Benchmarks promise that with their information, you can choose a better phone.

So let's listen to what goes on in my mind comparing just HTCs.

According to benchmarks my M8 is 20 to 30 times faster than the fastest hot rod rom I ran 5 years ago on my HTC flagship.

And the M9 will be 30 to 40 times faster.

If my M8 loads web pages, emails, takes pictures, sends texts, opens apps, refreshes the screen, or anything else up to 30 times faster than my 2010 HTC, up to 20 times faster than my 2011 HTC, or 10 times faster than my 2012 HTC, then I'm a monkey's uncle.

If I can't trust benchmarks to tell me the difference between phones I've owned then I danged sure won't trust them to help me make a buying decision between two top competing phones just coming out.

And in a nutshell, that's why my criticism of benchmarks is always hard core and to the bone.

I think that you ought to choose your phone based on features and what you like and what works for you.
 
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The reality is the new chips in the S6 and M9 are still less powerful than the A7, yet alone the A8. I would love an Android device with either of those chips. CPU power still reigns supreme for Apple.
And you're basing that on...?

Because -

http://system-on-a-chip.specout.com...A7-APL0698-vs-Qualcomm-Snapdragon-810-MSM8994

And -

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Exyn...vs-Apple-A8-iPhone-6-benchmark-scores_id66748

Because the accursed benchmarks say -

geekbench-3-single-core.jpg


But -

geekbench-3-multi-core.jpg


Despite running disparate operating systems, I think that there's only so much that a 2 core Cyclone can do against 8 cores at higher clock speeds.

Believing benchmarks is up to the reader. I expect that they are the basis for such claims, pictures provided for entertainment purposes only.

Sure you didn't mean GPU? o_O
 
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I go by actual results rather than synthetic tests of which we do not know the weight or their potential bias due to weighting parameters.

A good test for actual cpu power is MAME Reloaded 139. Dead or Alive ++ is smooth with the A7, but jerky even with the 805 and K1.

Per the devs, both the Android and iOS versions are compiled very similarly.

Per Anandtech at least there is nothing radically different to suggest a big change in cpu power. Current architecture that mainly shrinks size to boost clock appear to be hitting diminished returns.
 
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How much can you even trust Samsung results in Benchmarks? Didn't they get busted a couple years ago for loading their phones with software that exaggerated their performance in those tests? I tend to think the app opening speed type tests give you a better idea of how fast the phones are in practice, and Samsung phones never really perform as well in those as the benchmark tests suggest they should.
 
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Lots of manufactures were found to be doing special things when benchmark software ran. Not just Samsung (though I think the Exynos-based S4 was the worst, as it used gpu speeds which were not available in normal use), not all did the same things, and HTC were not innocent themselves.

One of many reasons not to give benchmarks much weight.
 
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In the end benchmarks are going to mean little in the "real world performance" marketplace. Benchmarks are snazzy and let people play with cute bars, graphs, pie charts, and lots of pretty colors. When it all comes down to release day it's all going to be about how well apps and games perform. Here is an example > This is from my PC... It doesn't tell me what FPS I am going to get in games, or how well it's going to perform in real world situations....But sure does look pretty.

I expect that both Samsung and HTC are going to have blazing fast devices with little lag & plenty of uuumph to get any task done in spectacular fashion. I've even seen rumors going around that there will be a bacon cooking app for the M9...Mmmm Bacon!
 
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Lots of manufactures were found to be doing special things when benchmark software ran. Not just Samsung (though I think the Exynos-based S4 was the worst, as it used gpu speeds which were not available in normal use), not all did the same things, and HTC were not innocent themselves.

One of many reasons not to give benchmarks much weight.
Well HTC is still doing this (look at m9 review above)
 
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Well HTC is still doing this (look at m9 review above)
The review also had some words about using benchmarks immune to the cheat.

I immediately thought of "CF-Bench"

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.cfbench

Here's my M8, just now.

1427092861834.jpg

The review also stated that the M9 cheat is to temporarily invoke high performance mode in the developer's options.

You can do that yourself on an HTC, root isn't required, so I did and repeated CF-Bench.

1427093002817.jpg

I still don't trust much in the way of benchmarks.

I just thought that a few pictures would clarify what benchmark cheating means.

And I'm not sure if cheating is the right word when you can turn on high performance mode whenever you feel like it.

I'm also not sure if it's the wrong word when everyone wants to bias their tests for a benchmark write-up that influences sales and opinions either.
 
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