The World best HTC One M9 release date, news and rumors

While we don't know anything for sure about the HTC One M9 (other than the fact that it's coming and is probably codenamed Hima), it's going to be a massive deal - will it be the best Android phone of 2015?
Mooted specs include: a QHD display, a Snapdragon 810 processor, 3GB of RAM, a waterproof body and more megapixels in the camera, making the One M9 one of the highest-specification phones on the market.
Updates: A new photo of the phone has appeared, a shot supposedly taken with the camera and a benchmark has given up a number of specs.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? HTC's next flagship smartphone
• When is it out? Launch event set for March 1
• What will it cost? Likely at least £549 / $649 / AU$849

HTC One M9 release date

HTC has sent out invites to an event on March 1 at MWC 2015 in Barcelona, and it's almost certainly going to unveil it's next flagship smartphone here.

One M9 or HTC Utopia?

The invite reads "utopia in progress" - possibly a hint at the name for the flagship phone, or perhaps it's another new camera mode HTC has developed.
What we do know is we'll be there, reporting live on the event so you get all the latest news as it breaks.

News and rumors

The most recent rumors regarding this new phone seem to make the most sense: the HTC One M9 will have an octa core Qualcomm 810 Snapdragon chipset at the heart, according to recent benchmarks - which saw it score over 20% better results compared to the One M8.
This dovetails with rumours from retired leaker @upleaks, saying the new HTC phone will have 3GB of RAM and an octa-core 64-bit Snapdragon 810 processor, with four cores running at 2.0GHz and four at 1.5GHz, allowing it to switch between them depending on what it's doing, using the slower cores to conserve battery when the extra power isn't needed.
Further rumors have corroborated and smoothed these early specs: from a source speaking to Bloomberg stated that there will be a 20MP snapper on the back and an UltraPixel one on the front (probably 4 UltraPixels but that's not specified).
The 20MP camera theory has been made ever more likely as a picture, apparently snapped by the One M9, has made its way onto the web, detailing a 16:9 20MP photo.
The source goes on to say that the HTC One M9 / Hima will include Dolby 5.1 audio technology.
A rumor from GforGames states the HTC One M9 might have a MediaTek processor rather than a Qualcomm one, but if it does that will likely be a regional version for China and possibly some other markets but not the whole world.
While it's possible that all versions will sport it we'd be surprised, as MediaTek chips tend to be cheaper and less powerful than Qualcomm's. More likely if this is on the cards at all it will be for developing markets.
Unsurprisingly it's rumored to run Android 5.0 Lollipop but that's hardly a surprise - imagine if it launched on KitKat?
In terms of power, it will apparently have just a 2840 mAh battery, but that's still an upgrade on the One M8's power pack and combined with a more efficient processor it could get the job done, especially as rumors claim HTC will be sticking with a 5-inch 1080p screen, rather than moving to QHD.

Design

With the same size screen as the One M8 comes similar dimensions apparently, as the HTC One M9 is said to be 144.3 x 69.4 x 9.56mm, making it marginally shorter but actually slightly fatter than the 146.4 x 70.6 x 9.4mm HTC One (M8).

However, following the 5.5-inch and 5.0-inch rumors there's now talk that the HTC One M9 could meet them in the middle and have a 5.2-inch screen. That's according to Nowhereelse.fr, which even has images purportedly showing the display panel to back it up.

We also may have got our first real look at the HTC One M9, as two images of an alleged prototype have been sent to Nowhereelse.fr. The images show a device which looks a lot like the HTC One M8 or even the original HTC One, suggesting the company isn't straying far from its existing designs.
The front has speakers above and below the screen, while the back shows a curved metal shell with a camera and a dual-flash, though as the top of the phone has been cut off in the image it's impossible to say whether it's got a second sensor, like on the HTC One M8.

It's also hard to say whether they're accurate. They don't look fake and nor are they an exact match for any existing HTC handset, but they could easily be of an HTC One M8 protoype.

Two day battery life

We were pretty impressed by the battery life of the HTC One M8, but the Samsung Galaxy S5 and the Sony Xperia Z2 had it beat, while it looks like the Sony Xperia Z3 and the Xperia Z3 Compact might well widen the gap even further.
So we'd love for the HTC One M9 to have more juice. We don't think two days of battery life should be unrealistic, after all the HTC One M8 and a number of other phones can already comfortably make it into a second day, they just need a bit of a boost to make it to the end of the day.
If HTC can deliver even more than that then great, but we'd be happy with two days, at least until the M10 comes around.

A better camera

The HTC One M8 is great in low light as its lens lets more light in than competing smartphone cameras, but when you're trying to take photos in bright conditions all the extra light it takes in actually seems to work against it, causing the image to over-expose.

On top of that it's only got a 4MP sensor, which is fine when you're just viewing shots on your phone, but blow them up and there'll be noticeable noise.
So ideally we want more megapixels and a sensor which is as adept in bright light as low light. It almost seems like HTC itself might be moving away from UltraPixels, given that the HTC One Mini 2 and the HTC One E8 both have 13MP snappers, so we might well see a big change to the camera in the HTC One M9.

A QHD display

The HTC One M8 has a gorgeous screen, but it's very much an early 2014 screen, as the LG G3 and the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 are now bringing QHD (1440 x 2560) displays to the mainstream.
All those extra pixels don't make a huge difference but it is a noticeable one and if the HTC One M9 doesn't have a QHD display then it risks being overlooked, because you can be almost certain that the competition will.

A sapphire screen

Since we're talking about the screen, how about making it with sapphire crystal glass? The HTC One M9 is bound to be expensive, so many people are going to want to put it in a case to keep it protected, but it's also bound to be a thing of beauty so it would be a shame to cover it up.



The more durable it is the less necessary that becomes and a sapphire crystal screen would help a lot. The iPhone 6 didn't have one in the end, so if the HTC One M9 does it could also be the first mainstream smartphone to do so, which would surely be a big selling point.

Water and dust resistance

Another way to keep it protected is with dust and water resistance. We don't need to be able to take it swimming, but knowing that it could survive a spill or a bit of rain would certainly be reassuring and now that Samsung and Sony are both water and dust proofing their phones there's little excuse for HTC not to do the same.

More of a health and fitness focus

The world is going health and fitness mad, or at least that's what many of the latest smartphones and smartwatches would lead you to believe. HTC though doesn't seem so interested and we can't help but feel that it's missing a trick, especially if the market for fitness focused tech continues to grow.
Sure a heart rate monitor and UV sensor are hardly essential components of a smartphone, but we wouldn't say no to them and we'd also be quite happy to see more of a focus on fitness software from HTC, rather than it relying on third party solutions, as HTC has done with the M8 by simply including the Fitbit app. Apple has Health, Samsung has S Health, HTC needs something.

Lots of power

It's reached the point where almost every high end phone and a fair few lower end ones feel fast and powerful, so we don't really need a lot more power in the HTC One M9.
But specs sell and while HTC's flagships are always powerful they're not always quite as powerful as the competition, at least on paper. So next year we hope that changes. Impress us HTC, put in an octa-core Snapdragon 810 with 6GB of RAM, or at least make sure your phone is a match for the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Sony Xperia Z4.

An even better design and build

Design is one of the things HTC has done best in recent years, with the One M8 rivalling even Apple's products, but it could still be better.

There's that black bar below the screen for example. On the original HTC One that housed some capacitive buttons, but they've gone from the HTC One M8 so it no longer serves any visible purpose. There may well be some internal reasons for it but we'd love it if HTC could find a way to remove it.
HTC could also improve the buttons, which feel a little plastic on the M8 and we'd rather have the headphone port on the top than the bottom.

More storage

HTC wisely added a microSD card slot to the M8, but we'd still love more internal storage. Apple now offers 128GB iPhones, so why can't an Android phone do the same? And more specifically why can't HTC?
Do that while still including microSD support and we could be looking at a phone with 256GB of combined storage, which is far more than most people are ever likely to need, but we'd rather have too much than too little.

Category 6 LTE

4G is taking off in a big way, but while current phones are equipped to support the fastest speeds we're likely to get in most places right now, they're not particularly future-proofed. That's why we'd like to see HTC put Category 6 LTE support in the HTC One M9.
That would theoretically allow it to reach download speeds of around 300Mbps, which is double what most current handsets can manage and should make it a viable handset right up until 5G arrives.

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Best mobile phones in the world today

  We know why you're here: you want to find out the best smartphone 2015. Come on, it makes sense: we've all got at least one mobile phone, right? We've probably got about three or four nowadays, and that counts giving your old Nokia 3310 to your Mum a few years ago.
But now the world has changed, and from Apple to Samsung to HTC to a host of up-and-coming names, choosing your next greatest smartphone is a tricky task.
This is where we make it easy: we thoroughly test hundreds of top smartphones and have found the ten best you can spend your money on. It needs to be good, after all, given it will reside in your pocket for the next two years.

Our ranking of the best mobile phones available in the UK today celebrates the brilliance of the smartphone. We only feature the latest handsets available (unless an older model has become hyper-cheap and still offers decent functionality) as the newer models will stay serviced with software updates for longer, safeguarding you from having a broken phone with no hope of updates in a year's time.
We're just beginning 2015, and at the end of the year the Apple iPhone 6 and Apple iPhone 6 Plus challenged the heads of state in the smartphone world - namely the LG G3 and the HTC One M8.

But if you're currently considering your next mobile phone, don't forget we're not far away from the next crop: the HTC One M9 and Samsung Galaxy S6 are tipped to be coming at Mobile World Congress in March, so it might be worth waiting to see what appears then before making your decision.

 

 

• MWC 2015: What to expect

If that still doesn't help, well, there's always our extensive mobile phone reviews pages as well.

When you've decided which new phone to buy (and checked out the best mobile phone deal), why not cash in your old one with our phone recycling price comparison service?
Here are our rankings for the best mobile phones around, currently available in the UK. 

 You've probably never heard of OnePlus... but if you have, you'll know why this unknown brand is suddenly sitting in our list of best smartphones in the world.

The reason is simple: it's a phone that has all the power, specs and functionality of the top dogs, adds in super-customisable software and does it at nearly half the price. We're talking big savings on cost (£229 for the 16GB version and £269 for the 64GB variant) without much in the way of compromise.

In fact, the only things it's really missing are a microSD slot and removable battery, and those are elements more for the purists than absolutely necessary.
If we're being super picky, it's not got the greatest camera set up and the design is a bit... efficient, but at this price point it really doesn't matter. And given the target audience is those that care about raw power over style, it makes sense that this is where the costs could be saved.

Quick verdict

We love the fact that a new contender can maintain such a high place in the ranking of the best phones in the world - it means that it's not just a case of 'big budget means best phone'.
We were debating whether the OnePlus One could even have gone higher, but there's one big problem that you'll have if you want to get your hands on one: they're impossible to find. Numbers won't ramp up for a while, and probably never to the level of availability of the better-known names.
But if you want a phone that offers supreme power at a really low cost: the OnePlus One is it. It's what the Nexus range used to be, and if Google ditches that program, then thankfully OnePlus has shown there will be brands to pick up the slack.

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Sony Alpha a99 SLT-A99V Camera

The Good The Sony Alpha a99 SLT-A99V has a lot going for it, including excellent photos and very good video, a well-constructed and well-designed body, solid performance, and a great feature set.

The Bad For some folks, things like the lack of CompactFlash, poor battery life, and compromises on video autofocus may not be reasonable trade-offs.

The Bottom Line The Sony Alpha SLT-A99V is a generally great camera that's equally adept at both stills and video, but with a few caveats.

I admit, I really didn't like Sony's first full-frame cameras, the DSLR-A900 and its stripped-down sibling, the DSLR-A850. I used to use them as examples of poor noise reduction and for before-and-after examples for the virtues of third-party raw-processing software. But that was almost four years ago, and just before Sony had its "aha!" moment and started churning out excellent sensors, like the one in the Alpha SLT-A99V. The company's flagship (and at least for now, only) full-frame model delivers excellent photos and very good video, and has a well-constructed and intelligently designed body, solid performance, and a great feature set. Despite all the excellence, though, there are some caveats to consider before shelling out the not-inconsiderable amount of dough it costs.
Image quality
The photo quality is great -- pretty much what you'd expect from a full-frame camera -- with well-resolved detail, accurate color (as long as you use the Neutral Creative Style setting), and a broad tonal range with very good latitude in the highlights. Though it doesn't have an antialiasing-filter-free model, the sensor in the A99V incorporates a new selectively applied low-pass filter as a compromise for increased ability to resolve detail.
According to Sony, the sensor also has new noise-reduction algorithms designed to reduce noise only where you need it, but I still find that (oddly) the Nikon D800 outperforms the A99V in this respect, especially around ISO 1600 and above. For JPEGs, photos are extremely clean through ISO 400, and you can start to see some slight edge artifacts appearing at ISO 800. There's a noticeable jump in noise suppression between ISO 1600 and ISO 3200, regardless of how bright the scene is. But I couldn't gain any better noise reduction below ISO 3200 by processing the raw; at ISO 3200 and above I did manage to get some better results, enough to gain about a stop of latitude. Overall, though, while the SLT-A99V is extremely good at ISO 1600 and below, if you need the cleanest-possible high-sensitivity results, the Nikon D800 and Canon EOS 5D Mark III are probably a bit better.
The camera also does an excellent job of preserving highlights in seemingly blown-out areas. I was less impressed with recovering clipped shadow detail, in part because it inevitably introduces a lot of color noise, significantly more so than with the D800.
I was especially impressed with the auto white balance. For one, it handled cloudy shooting conditions properly; a lot of cameras I've tested recently have not. Same goes for balance under our tungsten studio lights. Normally I don't comment on the tungsten results because every camera handles it miserably. On the flip side, though, Sony's default Standard Creative Style pushes hues slightly, throwing off color accuracy. Switching to the Neutral setting delivers the kind of results I expect from a pro camera, though some people might want to tweak the sharpness (like most manufacturers, Sony assumes if you want neutral colors you want no processing at all).
The video quality is very good as well, though here I admit I'm still partial to the warmer tonality delivered by the Canon 5D Mark III and Nikon D800 and the sharper, less noisy low-light video of 5D Mark III.
Performance
Most of the time, the A99V feels responsive and fluid to shoot with. Yes, there's the occasional bout of reluctant autofocus lock and battery death -- for decent battery life you really need the multibattery grip, though that kind of defeats the purpose of making the camera lighter -- and the menus take just a hair longer to come up than I'd like while the camera's processing images. But overall I was happy with the camera's speed.
By the numbers, the A99V offers performance competitive with other full-frame cameras. (Our benchmarks for the 5D Mark III and D800 used different methodology, but our numbers for the Nikon D600 and Canon EOS 6D are comparable.) It powers on and shoots in just under a second -- a little on the slow side. In good light, it takes about 0.4 second to focus, expose, and shoot, which rises to 0.5 second in dimmer conditions; that's relatively good, and partly held back by the somewhat slow-driving but optically excellent lens we used for performance testing, the Zeiss 24-70mm f2.8. Two sequential shots run about 0.3 second for either raw or JPEG, also decent times.
The camera excels at continuous shooting. Sony seems to have rated it pretty conservatively; as long as you stay below the buffer threshold, 20 JPEG shots or 17 raw shots, it can maintain a clip of roughly 6.2 frames per second (at least with a 95MBps SD card). Once you've exceeded the buffer, it slows considerably and erratically, below 3fps. In practice, shooting raw+JPEG, the buffer was less than 10 shots but overall adequate for small bursts.
Despite the tons of technological R&D it sounds like Sony put into the autofocus system, I didn't feel always feel the magic. It has a dual phase-detection AF system, which the company claims improves tracking AF considerably, and a new AF Range control that lets you specify near and far distance limiters for the focus range. I really like the tracking AF interface, with the big green box that follows your subject around the screen, but found that the focus lock just didn't keep up with the promise during continuous shooting, and even with the range limiter enabled I found that tracking box a little too fickle, willing to hightail off after any bigger object that enters the scene. Nonetheless, I had no issues with the AF system that I haven't had with other cameras.
In fact, I think the camera has too many autofocus options, making figuring out which settings you should use a bit too complicated. There are four AF mode choices: single, continuous, auto (which selects between single and continuous), and dynamic (Depth Map Assist Continuous AF), which seems to fine-tune the continuous AF phase-detection focus lock by expanding to the assist the areas. Then there are four AF area options: wide, zone, spot, and local. But the options or combinations that automatically choose the focus areas never seem to choose the correct ones, making it difficult to select the option with any confidence. This isn't a Sony- or A99V-specific issue; it's a problem with most AF systems that still remains despite all the effort.
I'm not sure if I've complained about this elsewhere, but every time you stick a card in, Sony cameras check it for an "Image Database" (a Sony-compatible file-system structure). But if it doesn't find the database, it pops up a message asking if you want to create one. Now, I don't know about you, but every time I stick a card in the first thing I do is format it and Sony's, um, helpfulness gets between me and the format operation, requiring an extra few button presses before I can start working. So no, Sony, I never want to create an image database. Get out of my way! I can sort of understand this on point-and-shoots where people might not realize the need to format, or if they never remove the cards, but on a pro camera it's intrusive and unnecessary.
Both the viewfinder and back display work very well, with no visibility issues in direct sunlight or refresh issues while shooting action, and though I still think that OLED displays are a little too cool and contrasty for cameras -- photos never look better than on those displays, and that's not necessarily a good thing -- Sony lets you adjust the color temperature of the viewfinder.
Design and features
For the most part, the camera body is very well designed and built, with a great grip -- one of the most comfortable I've used -- and an intelligent control layout. It's weather-sealed, though keep in mind that as far as I know Sony only offers two full-frame weather-sealed lenses to match. Yes, the body is also lighter than the competition, but I find once you stick a good lens on it that roughly 6-ounce advantage becomes moot.
All the controls are easily accessible and distinguishable by feel, the mode dial has a central lock button (not my favorite place for it), and everything is as configurable as you'd expect from a camera in its class. I don't think it's the snazziest design -- I'm not crazy about the bulbous look of the buttons boiling up from the surface on the back -- but it's effective and that's more important.

There's only one control I really dislike, and that's the navigation joystick. It simply feels mushy and imprecise.

While I think competitors produce better video quality than the A99V, this is my favorite camera for shooting video. It's one respect in which the fixed-mirror SLT technology gains a huge advantage over SLR. The articulated OLED display, great EVF, and manual-focus peaking make it extremely easy and comfortable to shoot without having to Frankenstein the camera out with a rig, loupe, and other accoutrements. The one, somewhat huge, exception to the love: you can't adjust shutter speed or aperture for video while autofocus is enabled. A lot of videographers use manual focus exclusively, so it won't faze them, but it irks me to no end. And if you don't know this up front, you can spend hours trying to figure out why the camera won't let you adjust those settings.

Sony brings its Silent Controller from its prosumer camcorders for better video control.

While the Silent Controller is intended to allow you to avoid introducing noise while changing settings during video shooting, it's also really nice for simply changing settings without having to drop the camera from your eye. It offers a lot of the same settings as the function menu, but it has a different interface that takes up far less space in the viewfinder.

	Canon EOS 5D Mark III	Nikon D800/ D800E	Sony Alpha SLT-A99V
Sensor (effective resolution)	22.3MP CMOS 8-channel readout 14-bit	36.3MP CMOS n/a 14-bit	24.3MP Exmor CMOS 14-bit
	36mm x 24mm	35.9mm x 24mm	35.8mm x 23.9mm
Focal-length multiplier	1.0x	1.0x	1.0x
Sensitivity range	ISO 50 (exp)/100 - ISO 25600/102400 (exp)	ISO 50 (exp)/100 - ISO 6400/ 25,600 (exp)	ISO 50 (expanded) / ISO 100 - ISO 51200 / ISO 102400 (exp, via multishot NR)
Continuous shooting	6fps 13 raw/65 JPEG	4fps n/a (5fps with battery grip)	6fps 13 raw/14 JPEG
Viewfinder magnification/ effective magnification	Optical 100% coverage 0.71x/0.71x	Optical 100% coverage 0.70x/0.70x	OLED EVF 0.5-inch 2.4 million dots 100% coverage 0.71x/0.71x
Autofocus	61-pt High Density Reticular AF 21 center diagonal to f5.6 5 center to f2.8 20 outer to f4	51-pt 15 cross type; 11 cross type to f8	dual phase -detection system 19pt 11 cross type; 102pt focal plane
AF exposure range	-2 - 20 EV	-2 - 19 EV	-1 - 18 EV
Shutter speed	1/8,000 to 30 secs; bulb; 1/200 sec x-sync	1/8,000 to 30 secs; bulb; 1/250 sec x-sync	1/8,000 to 30 secs; bulb; 1/250 sec x-sync
Shutter durability	150,000 cycles	200,000 cycles	200,000 cycles
Metering	63-area iFCL	91,000-pixel RGB 3D Color Matrix Metering III	1,200 zones
Metering exposure range	0 - 20 EV (est)	0 - 20 EV	-2 - 17 EV
Image stabilization	Optical	Optical	Sensor shift
Video	H.264 QuickTime MOV 1080/30p/ 25p/24p; 720/60p/50p	H.264 QuickTime MOV 1080/30p/ 25p/24p; 720/60p/50p/ 25p/24p	AVCHD 1080/60p @ 28, 24Mbps, 1080/24p @ 24, 17Mbps, 1080/60i @ 17Mbps; H.264 MPEG-4 1,440x1,080/30p @ 12Mbps
Rated estimated max HD video length at best quality	29 minutes, 59 seconds	20 minutes	n/a
Audio	Mono; mic input; headphone jack	Mono; mic input; headphone jack	Stereo; mic input; headphone jack
LCD size	3.2 inches fixed 1.04 megadot	3.2 inches fixed 921,000 dots	3 inches articulated 921,600 dots
Memory slots	1 x CF (UDMA mode 7), 1 x SDXC	1 x CF (UDMA mode 7), 1 x SDXC	2 x SDXC
Wireless flash	No	Yes	No
Battery life viewfinder/Live View (CIPA rating)	950/200 shots (1,800mAh)	900/ n/a shots (1,800mAh)	410 shots (1,650mAh)
Dimensions (inches, WHD)	6.1 x 4.6 x 3.0	5.7 x 4.8 x 3.2	5.9 x 4.5 x 3.1
Body operating weight (ounces)	33.5	35.1	29.2
Mfr. price	$3,499 (body only)	$2,999.95/ $3,299.95 (body only)	$2,799.99 (body only)
	$4,299 (with 24-105mm lens)	n/a	n/a
Ship date	March 2012	March 2012/ April 2012	October 2012

In addition to the complete set of essential features for a pro camera, the A99V has a couple of unique features for this class, including built-in GPS (which strains the already lackluster battery life a bit), in-camera image stabilization (both Canon and Nikon use lens-based IS), and a built-in stereo microphone (which is nice to have in a pinch). On the downside, some folks may quibble with the decision to incorporate two SD card slots instead of an SD and a CompactFlash; while it would likely make little difference during shooting, CF is still the faster technology for moving files to your computer in a time-sensitive workflow.
If you're a Sony A series shooter disgruntled by the company's lack of tethering support for most of its modern models, the company has updated its Remote Camera Control software to support the A99V. And one note about accessories: the A99V uses the new Multi Interface Shoe, but ships with an adapter if you want to use your old accessories.
For a complete account of the A99V's features and operation, download the PDF manual.
Conclusion
The A99V is a powerful, complicated camera that may simply exceed the needs (or budget) of most photographers, and since Sony doesn't offer a cheaper full-frame model a la the Nikon D600 or Canon EOS 6D, the company's missing out on an opportunity. If you need a single model that can handle both stills and video with equal aplomb, and are willing to make some trade-offs -- sacrificing a little on the video and high-ISO quality as well as video AF -- it's a great choice.

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