HTC One (M8) review: great build quality, as much as 70% more battery life vs. predecessor
The HTC One (M8) Review — HTC remains one of few Android OEMs insanely focused on design. Even dating back to the origins of the One brand in 2012 with the One X and One S …
Context & Ripple Effects
AnandTech's verdict lands four days after The Verge called the M8 a gorgeous, fast, long-lasting phone dragged down by a weak, inconsistent camera (The Verge's early verdict), and two days after iFixit opened the device up (the teardown). The through-line is continuity: HTC has been running the same design-first playbook since the 2012 One X and One S, and AnandTech's own review of the 2013 One set the baseline the new phone is measured against.
The headline finding is endurance — up to 70% more battery life than the predecessor — attacking the one spec where last year's model lagged. The story travelled widely across the review-cycle press, with CNET among the outlets noting HTC openly acknowledging benchmark tuning on the device.
First-order effects
- Buyers choosing between Android flagships get a phone that fixes the 2013 One's endurance gap while keeping the aluminum unibody approach, leaving camera quality as the main reviewer objection.
- HTC's pitch shifts from brand to product: the company says it markets devices rather than its name, so the M8's reviews carry the weight the advertising budget doesn't.
Second-order effects
- Samsung, described in coverage as dominating the market HTC must fight uphill against, now faces a rival whose flagship competes on the same pillars Samsung sells — design and battery — forcing the comparison onto HTC's chosen ground.
- Persistent criticism of the camera puts pressure on HTC's component and sensor choices for the next iteration, since reviewers consistently isolate it as the weak point despite the phone being called the best HTC has made.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Android flagship competition consolidates around industrial design and real-world endurance rather than raw spec sheets, rewarding OEMs like HTC that invest in build quality over marketing spend.
- Benchmark results become contested territory: when a vendor openly tunes for them, reviewers' measurement methodology becomes part of the product story, pushing the industry toward more skeptical performance testing.
The trend: Android flagships are shifting from spec-sheet arms races toward differentiated hardware craft — build quality and battery endurance — with camera capability emerging as the deciding battleground.