I can only explain that it is a short three-year story, but for HTC, it has been condensed into a lifetime. Hi, welcome back, I am a donkey , and the second episode of the old machine Bonnie is coming. Today , let’s talk about a story that happened 8 years ago. HTC turned the tide This story begins with the successful New HTC One launched in 2013. With the new HTC One ’s internal code name M7 , the metal back cover of the whole side surprised everyone in appearance design, and the appearance design trend of HTC’s new generation is also clear. The outline of the HTC One (M8) launched in 2014 was even more aggressive. The more mature manufacturing process also brought HTC’s appearance to a new peak in that era. Looking at the Galaxy S5 in the next shed, it is still sticking to plastic materials. It is not difficult to imagine HTC One M8 has a one-piece all-metal body. You don’t need to wait until 2023 to know that M8 must be a classic . Two years have passed, and the time has come to 2015. The two I have are HTC One M9+ and HTC One M9+ Aurora Edition . Both phones were launched in 2015. One was launched in April 2015, and the other was launched in September 2015. You should have noticed that this phone is called HTC One M9+. According to the routine , if there is HTC One M9+, then there should be one. HTC One M9, right, that ’s right , the disappearing M9 is the beginning of HTC’s efforts to turn the tide. Back in 2013, the New HTC One is the M7 . In terms of product features, it can be said that HTC is quite a complete work . I have high hopes. Leaving aside the small problems of UltraPixel in the early stage, such as the purple fringing problem of the photosensitive element in the early stage, fortunately , the supply components were replaced urgently. The disaster was quickly brought under control , or HTC needs to spend more effort to communicate with users what UltraPixel communicates. Well, everyone should still remember the saying that the pixel is not equal to the image quality. It is said that the UltraPixel camera adopted by HTC back then "is really important to the image quality" "not the number of pixels" "it is the size of the pixels" Although there are only 4 million pixels , each pixel has sufficient light input, which makes night-time details more advantageous. Indeed, in that era, HTC had enough market power to communicate this very illogical technical issue . The biggest highlight of the New HTC One M7 is the design of the fuselage. Under the beautiful all-metal back, the texture is absolutely amazing, but do n’t be too happy. This amazing design is also the biggest problem of the New HTC One M7. In order to achieve the New One, HTC is similar to the above . This one-piece texture is limited by the technology of the year, and it is impossible to process a whole piece of metal completely. So the New One is actually a sandwich structure. The front is a metal speaker patch , the middle is a plastic middle frame, and the back is a metal cover. Then they are stuck together with special glue. It is this complex body design that makes HTC meet . The biggest trouble is that the New One is even better , but it cannot be produced smoothly at all. It has been in a state of poor supply. How difficult is the New One to repair? In the year of iFixit, it directly gave a score of 1 in the maintenance difficulty, basically it was installed with something else. If you want to take it back cover is not separated, but the metal patch of the speaker is somewhat loose. After all , it is difficult to stick different materials together through glue . Therefore , the product condition of HTC 2013 is actually not bad, but the supply is not smooth. The HTC One M8 launched in 2014 is of course the first task of HTC to solve this manufacturing problem. The difficult point is that the one-piece molding process has finally matured. The HTC One M8 back cover processed by one-piece molding in our hands is really beautiful . Has HTC solved the assembly problem? Although the assembly and maintenance are still a bit complicated , compared to HTC The One M7 is already much simpler. If you want to see more details, we have done a separate teardown of the HTC One M8. You are welcome to watch it. Even HTC has been saying that they are ready for this one at the beginning of the M8 launch. The supply of the first generation will be much smoother, and even hired the well-known Iron Man Robert Downey Jr. to continue to endorse the HTC One M8 in Asia and continue to be endorsed by Mayday , but in fact benefited from the global best-selling HTC One M8, although the supply has improved But the volume is still not up to the mark. The previous story has been completed. Finally, today’s story is about to be told. On the premise that the actual sales of the HTC One M7 and M8 flagships are not as good as expected, I think this is quite critical for HTC. Time to look at the stock price around 1300~140. There is definitely pressure to fight back and turn the tide . In March 2015, HTC launched the HTC one M9. First look at the basic specifications. HTC has retained all the features that everyone likes . Clean Sense operating system, two front speakers, infrared sensor , changed the 4 million UltraPixel and even replaced it with a 20 million pixel BSI CMOS camera, and added the latest Snapdragon 810 that year. It seems that there is no big problem, right? Wrong problem But it’s too big. At that time, everyone didn’t know that the Snapdragon 810 was a ruthless character. “The core of this well-made mobile phone (M9)” and “Snap "Dragon 810" "is the latest and most powerful processor on the market." The word "Dragon" started from Snapdragon 810, and it debuted in various flagships for the first time. In fact, there were many good phones that used Snapdragon 810. I like it very much. Sony Xperia Z5 Compact is also a Snapdragon 810 Xperia Z5 I even used a heat pipe to suppress this fire dragon and HTC One M9 is also one of the victims of the Snapdragon 810 wave. Although Qualcomm continues to try to communicate with everyone that the Snapdragon 810 itself is not overheating Problems , but it is not enough to restore the overall reputation of the Snapdragon 810 generation. Everyone knows the story behind this fire dragon. After all, this fire dragon was not tamed , but Samsung avoided this fire dragon. It adopted its own Exynos and abandoned the Snapdragon 810 Galaxy S6 to catch the new The design ID of the era is well- received and well- received around the world, so HTC’s plan to turn the tide seems to have failed again, right? After a month and a half HTC once again brought the HTC one M9+ to turn the tide. The three biggest changes. The first 2K screen finally officially debuted on the HTC One M9+. The second HTC added the long-awaited fingerprint reader, which can be unlocked with one touch. Recognition rate and speed Absolutely. The third and most important point is that HTC has changed the processor from Qualcomm’s flagship SoC Snapdragon 810 to MediaTek’s mid-range processor Helio X10 . The best choice, but when it comes to FaGe back then, it is completely different from the Dimensity that is now so fierce . Rationally speaking, Helio X10 is definitely not a flagship in terms of architecture and process. Even the Samsung Exynos 7420 of the same period has entered the 14nm Helio X10 The 28nm architecture has not kept up with the new A53, A57, the new generation of large and small core architectures. By the way, the Qualcomm S810 uses TSMC’s 20nm , that is, this generation of 810 gave TSMC the nickname of Leakage Semiconductor and Taiwan Leakage at that time. It is also through continuous evolution that TSMC has become the current God of Protecting the Country , while Exynos 7420 has kept up with the new architecture and new manufacturing process, and the overall performance is fairly stable. In other words , the Samsung Exynos back then was actually quite strong. What is more interesting is the HTC One M9+ back then. The asking price is 23,900 yuan , and Fa Ge’s Helio X10 will appear on a mobile phone called Redmi Note2 in a while . The cheapest version of the Chinese version is less than 799 yuan, and the Taiwan version is 4999 yuan. But to be honest, the overall system experience of HTC One M9+ is not really stuck to the point that it is completely unusable. It can only be said that HTC engineers try to adjust Sense to a better state in very limited system resources. Even today in 2023, it is still Simple browsing can be completed smoothly . The engineers at HTC really worked hard. Well, let’s talk about the fact that HTC One M9 + does not use the flagship processor. There are four words in the technology circle to describe this situation. What about other places? The 2K QHD resolution Super LCD3 screen is here. After a long time of knocking on the bowl, HTC finally brought a 2K resolution screen on the M9+. It will be fun to look back from 2023. Do you think that everyone in 2023 should have used it in 2015? There are at least 4K resolution mobile phone screens. There are not many FHD or even 2K screens. You can see from the screen that this screen has obviously turned yellow after 8 years. And I have three HTC One M9+ screens in my hand. The same collectively turns yellow, and we also simply measure the brightness , and you can guess as well . How many nits can the brightness of the flagship LCD in 2010 reach? 3 2 1 is about 400 nits, but the current brightness is for reference only. After all, the brightness of the backlight strip must have attenuated over the years. Oh yes , do you still remember the story of HTC’s four-chin? Since the M8, HTC’s flagship has removed the physical touch button design of the M7 and turned it into a real virtual button . Because of this, it has added a speaker Logo bar, a navigation bar, and even a menu bar at the bottom of some apps. This is how everyone used to laugh at HTC back then. The four-chin design , especially the seaweed bar below, not only takes up space, but also takes up space. Although HTC has updated a design that can hide virtual buttons in the later stage , I actually think the best solution is the same as Android 12. To mature full-screen gestures you Look at my M8 with Android 12 and full-screen gestures. The whole thing is great liberation. Hey, there are still people who continue to maintain the ROM of the M8. I also flashed Android 12 for a while. Thanks to the great gods for their efforts. In fact, I think M7 is on The navigation bar is really the most balanced and beautiful arrangement, especially from the perspective of future technology , it is not difficult to add fingerprint recognition under the HTC Logo, but it is a pity that HTC did not sustain it , which has always troubled HTC's manufacturing process. Is there any improvement for HTC One M9+? I don’t need to talk about it. Let’s take it apart and see it. Compared with HTC One M7 and M8, HTC One M9 is really the best HTC flagship to disassemble. It’s very easy to remove . The cover on the top of the fuselage, then loosen the two screws , and finally, gently separate the back cover to complete it. It ’s that simple. This is definitely the best machine we’ve disassembled recently. The back cover and the screen frame are completely combined through snaps. It also means that the HTC One M9+ is difficult to be tight, and even basically has no ability to resist water and dust. However, it can be clearly seen from this that HTC has suffered two years of assembly losses, and there is really no error on the HTC One M9. Finally , I would like to spend some time talking about the camera. Seeing this , do you think that the HTC One M9+ seems to be pretty good? At least it is a mobile phone with an overall experience that is still above the standard. According to the outcome we know, it is not right now. HTC used a 1/2.4-inch 20-megapixel main lens and a 2-megapixel depth-of-field lens supplied by TOSHIBA on the M9+. It seems to be a reasonable configuration and the specifications are also pretty. Although I gave up the slogan that UltraPixel pixels are not equal to image quality, at least the size of the photosensitive element is also very beautiful. However, in fact , the HTC One M9+ with the new photosensitive element has encountered many problems, such as inaccurate white balance, slow focus, and oil painting at night. Heavy Even under normal light sources, the bellows are constantly being pulled when focusing . That is to say, it looks like the picture. It feels like it is about to focus. I’m lying to you again. These problems have actually continued until 2023. Although the machines we have are well-lit Under the premise, the overall shooting experience of HTC One M9+ is not bad, but compared with other flagship HTC cameras of the same period, it should be better. So HTC turned the tide for the last time, and this is really the last time. I know I said a lot to turn the tide , but from the perspective of history This is true. This time , HTC brought back the HTC One M9+ Aurora Edition, the full name of HTC One M9+ Optical Anti-Shake Speed Focus Edition, to turn the tide back to the market. It is still Helio X10 or a very delicate 2K screen. The main change is to replace the somewhat disastrous lens. This time, it is replaced with an IMX230 photosensitive element F2.2 21 million pixel main lens supplied by Sony. From the proofs, we can simply see that the HTC One M9+ Aurora Edition is more advanced than the M9+. In addition, the focus of the HTC One M9+ Aurora Edition is two. The first is to add OIS optical anti-shake . OIS means that the lens group will correct the vibration in the opposite direction. If you go down, it will go down. In this way , the hand shake can be reduced, and the number of seconds of night shooting can be extended, allowing more light to enter and retaining more picture details. It is a must-have hardware for night shooting. Even in 2023, there is still a big difference between whether there is OIS or not. Yes . I saw that HTC One M9+ Aurora Edition will more aggressively extend the capture seconds when shooting in low-light scenes, and the final imaging details will be better. The second HTC One M9+ removes the depth-of-field lens and replaces it with a laser The focusing lens further enhances the fast focusing ability of close objects. We also look at some samples here. It is a pity that in this link, we usually compare the new phones of the same brand in 2023, but everyone knows HTC, so we will use blood comparisons here. Dear Pixel 7 Pro brothers, let’s compare . In fact, the camera of 2015 is already of a certain level. Except for the HDR algorithm details, there must be some differences. I think the mobile phones of 2022 are obviously better than those of 2015. It’s an experience. If you still remember that in the early days of auto-exposure and HDR synthesis, you had to always light up the parts of the screen to make it less bursty , and lighten the dark places to make it brighter. But there are very few new machines in 2022. These operations, whether it ’s focusing or auto-exposure , you should seldom click on the picture, just press the shutter button, and this seemingly simple operation is actually behind the ISP AI algorithm, HDR algorithm, and the hardware of the photosensitive element accumulated over the years. The operation can only be completed with a comprehensive improvement in physical fitness and tolerance , especially for video recording . The biggest improvement of the HTC One M9 series is the replacement of high-resolution photosensitive elements, which can finally support 4K video recording. We also provide a set of comparisons here, although they are all 4K . But we can simply see from the screen. Let’s first look at the traffic flow . The 4K 60FPS on the Pixel 7 Pro is obviously smoother. The HTC One M9+ even has subtle long-exposure smears to ensure the amount of light entering . The sky is noisy, which is expected But I think the biggest difference between the 2022 mobile phone and the 2015 mobile phone is that when you move the camera, there is no problem with fixing it, but when you start to move the camera, you will find that whether it is the video algorithm OIS or the optical anti-shake hardware The quality of one frame can't keep up, as long as there is a slight movement It will be a blur. I think these experiences will never be reflected in the specification sheet. Only when you use it yourself, you will realize how wonderful the fruit of technological exploration is. It is also the support of 4K video that has gradually changed from the beginning after so many years . Usable, even easy to use. Well, the story of HTC One M9+ and M9+ Aurora Edition is almost here. In 2013, HTC brought the amazing New HTC One. In 2014, they brought a more complete and mature HTC One M8 2013 . , In 2014, you would never associate Turning the Tide with HTC. However, after two consecutive generations of applause but failed in sales, HTC One M9 is definitely the first piece of HTC Turning the Tide. In 2015, they first brought the HTC One M9 , which was originally a good sprint. Timing , but encountered the Snapdragon 810's fire dragon chaos, and then the second chapter of HTC One M9+ came to turn the tide. You can clearly feel that this is a mobile phone that is full of things but has to do it. It's really not HTC. It 's hard to imagine that HTC who made M7 and M8 will use Helio X10 on HTC One M9+ and even put the fingerprint reader in this position a bit rudely. I think the final chapter of HTC's turning the tide is HTC One M9+ Aurora Edition and this hoarse cry After all , the word-of-mouth reputation of these three generations of classics cannot be restored. Seeing this , I can only explain that it is a short three-year story . For HTC, it has been condensed into a lifetime. HTC did not make too many fatal wrong decisions in the product itself , and the adjustment and layout were also very fast . I think it was the global policy at that time and the shift of the market center of gravity, which eventually slowly dragged down HTC's sales strategy between the three generations of flagships. Although these are all things to say , if you can go back in time, you will want to do something about HTC's history. What has changed? Maybe the U series never appeared . Now we have the M17 with the 8 Gen 2, which will be sold globally. To be honest , we miss the day when HTC launched the flagship. Looking forward to one day, we can continue to see the past With many engineers, HTC is glowing together . Let us put the word " amazing " on their works again. Well, the above is all the highlights of this episode . What do you think? Let us know in the comments below. Finally , if you are willing to give up I am also willing to share it with everyone to see the unboxing . Welcome to contact us. Thank you very much . I am a donkey. See you next time.
