Like the late American comedian Rodney Dangerfield, HTC is a company suffering from a chronic lack of respect. The Taiwanese phone maker has a pedigree of mobile innovation rivaling that of Nokia and Apple, but last week it had to change its CEO amid ambivalent feedback to its latest smartphone and a struggle to generate consistent profits. There are many challenges for new CEO Cher Wang to overcome in the months ahead, but beside the technical issue of just building better cameras, probably the most critical among them will be to reestablish the company’s respectability.
Great devices, but nobody buys them. Good luck getting out of that conundrum.
I think there were two major complaints HTC needed to address with the M9:
1. Improve the crappy camera
2. Get rid of that hideous black bar with the HTC logo
They did nothing about the second issue, and hardly made a dent in the first. (Yeah, I know… the black bar had actual speaker components in it and wasn’t there for decoration. However, that’s a problem they needed to work around somehow, but didn’t.)
Is there any wonder why this phone was met with such lackluster enthusiasm?
For me, too, aesthetic factors are pretty heavy and HTC fails to satisfy them. The front of the phone simply looks stupid and I also don’t like the brushed aluminium backside either.
Since the One became their flagship with it’s “It’s aluminum, the only thing that matters!” ad campaign, I’ve thought of HTC phones as Android phones for people who would really prefer an iPhone. If they were undercutting Apple’s price significantly, that would be fine, but if you have to pay the same amount, might as well get what you really want.
Aside from the design, which some people love (especially iPhone fans) but I don’t feel strongly about one way or the other, what’s so special about HTC devices? I remember the camera got a lot of attention, but I feel like it’s been mostly negative following release.
I just don’t feel like HTC is really the cut above they are so often made out to be.
Why on earth would they prefer iPhones?
I can’t speak to this specific device, but I just upgraded my phone. I was convinced that I wanted android this time instead of another iPhone. Then I looked at android phones.
Many were really great if you like giant phones that can’t fit in your pocket. No one had a decent small phone with fast specs and a somewhat stock android build. The only two products I could find were samsung and sony. The former’s android builds are terrible and the latter wasn’t available locally. Even if it were, there were already rumors about Sony selling everything off and bad reviews about the phones holding up.
Thus I was stuck with a new iPhone.
I did get a free android tablet with the purchase though and still got to try out android. It’s very nice, but I miss software updates to the OS. (it’s on 4.4 and LG can’t be bothered)
What you’re saying is that the HTC is not for people who’d rather want an iPhone.
Android is rubbish as a tablet OS, btw. Or perhaps that’s just tablets.
If you are a captive of Apple’s prison farm (they call it a “walled garden”) then you do iPad/iPhone.
Android is commoditized. Dasani, Perrier, are all fancy water, but I get a 24 pack of the cheapest at Big Lots and refill until the plastic weakens.
The HTC is trying to sell its camera, and its specs seem good, but is it enough? My personal preference is for a stylus like the Galaxy Note 4. There is a Sony. But they are more similar than different. What could they do?
Most of the other specs are “also rans”. Samsung’s OLED display is insanely great. It dims for reading in the dark, can be red in sunlight, and the color saturation is beyond vivid. Cameras vary across the board. Sensors too – Most have baros and the GPS does Glonass.
I could use an XXXL extended battery pack option. If the back can come off, you can put a larger battery and a deep back.
The lastest Droid has a superfast charging mode.
Extra ram or speed anyone? I think Amazon’s Fire Phone has the fastest.
I don’t know. But it takes a lot to differentiate a phone. A compelling reason to buy X instead of the rest at the same price or to pay a premium.
Of all the current HTC phones, not a single one has a removable battery.
I have a difficult time understanding why they can’t realize the simplicity of the solution… Just add a removable battery.
Then the people will buy.
Edited 2015-03-26 02:11 UTC
How many average users care about removable batteries? I personally don’t know any. It’s mostly just geeks who rail on that thing as far as I can tell.
Every budget Android and Windows phone has a removable battery. It is obviously something that millions of people consider to be an important feature.
They care as soon as they find out they have to get rid of a perfectly good phone because they can’t replace the battery like they could on their previous phone. And gee… wouldn’t you know that’s another damned 2 year contract?? Course, they end up getting another one that has the same problem because they didn’t bother checking so it’s their own damned fault.
Yes I do know plenty of non-geeks that won’t buy a phone without having a replaceable battery. It’s usually the people that replace their phones every time Apple or Samsung comes out with $NEW_HOTNESS that don’t care about batteries as the average lifetime is roughly the 2 year lifetime of lithium based batteries.
My Galaxy S4 is now 2 years old, and while it is starting to look a little sad due to wear and tear, i can not tell a difference in battery endurance compared to when it was new, and i use it heavily every day.
In fact i can mention noone that replaced their phone because the battery died, it was always because they wanted a newer one or because something else, usually the display, broke.
My last HTC (ever) fell out of my pocket onto grass while I was getting out of the car and broke.
An egg may actually survive that.
They don’t make good phones and few do that’s why they don’t deserve respect.
I’ve had the exact opposite experience. On my 2nd HTC One M7, the first fell from my pocket, was run over by a bus and at least one car with studded tires, then spent 15 minutes sitting in a puddle of salt water.
The cell modem is broken and Android reboots after about 5 minutes of uptime, but the memory and screen work, and the bootloader environment is stable. I was able to retrieve my data and can still try out a custom ROM’s (5 minutes at a time).
The replacement M7 is constantly being abused/borrowed by kids under 6. It gets dropped regularly. So far after 10-11 months of such abuse, it’s only developed a small crack and a bunch of divits in the metal. Still works fine.
I bought this phone as I like the screen quality and needed something immediately. I figured I’d be able to flash a decent ROM and customize some wiggly bits. I’ve been sorely disappointed – after a bit of use, I wouldn’t get another Android phone. Nor another one over ~ 4.5″, or without a removable battery. Not that I’d replace the battery, but when something hard locks the phone it’s faster to pull the battery than pray for some arcane hit-or-miss button holding ritual to work.
As such, I predict not buying HTC again, on the basis of form factors and OS’s. But I can’t agree on the build quality. My experience with HTC there has been excellent.
I have the One M8. I don’t miss having a removable battery at all.