HTC One M8 Review & SUPER SECRET SURPRISE
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
2,827 words · ~14 min read
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the Jazz mini is a beautiful and compact aluminum stand for your smartphone that
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even holds tablets up to 8 in Click now to learn more finally the update to the
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phone that's been my daily driver whenever I'm not working on reviewing
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something else for the last year it is time to replace my HTC1 with this other
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more different HTC1 and if that seems
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confusing you're not the only one HTC's
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own website actually even resorts to using the code name M8 to clarify what
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product it is you're looking at now as far as specs go there's not much for me
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to say in a video it's got a Snapdragon 801 chip clocked at 2.3 gz in most
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markets it's got 2 gigs of RAM and realistically if you want to know more
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there's an amazing site called gsmarena.com where you can enjoy a wall
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of text just like this one for any phone you can imagine so without further Ado
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let's get on with the stuff that watching a a video legitimately helps
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with kicking off our physical tour I've got the gunmetal version which features
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what feels like a perfectly smooth back but it actually has a brushed looking
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finish to it but the phone is also available in silver and pirate the
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gorgeous backing wraps up to the screen which it nearly perfectly joins with a
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tasteful bevel Edge and the overall fit and finish of the phone is immaculate
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with almost no discernible imperfections even Where Metal meets glass at the top
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and the bottom of the screen a somewhat common issue on the last generation
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product the increase in metal content for the chassis from 70% to 90% features
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prominently in HTC's marketing and while some reviewers preferred the flat
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composite edges of the M7 for grip I
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actually like the seamless rounded edges it reminds me of Samsung's whole made
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for humans thing that they did with the S3 except that HTC does it with a level
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of build quality that Samsung for whatever reason just refuses to
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acknowledge is important bottom line this phone feels great and even more
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solid in my hands than the M7 a phone that survived quite a few significant
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drops without uh damage for me the one gripe that I had initially was the extra
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weight but given the larger 5-in screen size and even more premium feel it has I
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can forgive this and in fact I'm beginning to appreciate the sheer this
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is a serious piece of Hardware mass of the M8 it reminds me of the feeling I
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get when holding an iPhone 4 which it remarkably only weighs about 8% more
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than in spite of the larger screen it really does set this phone apart the
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5-in display is covered in Gorilla Glass 3 and features some of the most subtle
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sexy haptic feedback I've ever felt and while objective testing on the interwebs
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would indicate that in fact the black levels are not as deep as the M7 and the
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color accuracy is perhaps not as good as the Moto X or even the One Max I
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subjectively found both of those aforementioned phones very warm looking
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to the eye and the M8 much more pleasing so your mileage may vary one thing that
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really blew me away though was the lack of color shift or image quality
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degradation when viewing off AIS Kudos HTC and I also really like the small
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tweak to their auto brightness since I last used it 40% is enough for me even
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outside and now I can set a maximum for auto brightness so I use it all the time
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and it works great above the screen is a 5 megapixel camera that records 1080p
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video and here's an audio sample from it more than enough for video chatting
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under the screen the dedicated multitasking button built into s six
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instead of requiring a double tap of home is very welcome but using that
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extra3 in of screen real estate that we gained from the M7 on onscreen buttons
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in general is a bit of a mixed bag for me Google is putting pressure on handset
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makers to move towards them but between the HTC logo chin bar that HTC says they
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needed for internal components and the onscreen buttons in landscape mode the
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keyboard is shifted so much to the left that I find myself mistyping a lot more
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than usual that combined with the way that the onscreen buttons disappear
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sometimes and you need two button presses to do stuff but I mean I like that they're
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contextual and stuff so I don't know on
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the top of the phone we find an IR emitter a feature that I actually didn't
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use once with the M7 but one that's nice to have if you watch TV I guess and the
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power button or lock button which is actually as shallow as this might sound
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my second biggest gripe with this phone you don't need to use it to turn the
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phone on thanks to HTC's gesture based motion launch controls that let you
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double tap to wake and swipe for home screen voice styling blink feed or
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whatever was the last thing you were doing but I still use it to turn the
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screen off and I just can't find a comfortable way to do that without
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mashing the volume buttons on the side on the left side we've got an
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unnecessarily large large nano SIM slot and then on the other that somewhat too
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easy to press volume rocker that I mentioned before and great Scott what's
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this HTC yields to Google's onscreen buttons and powered by Android startup
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screen branding but not to the elimination of the micro SD slot great
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inclusion here if I had a dollar for every time someone bought a Galaxy S4
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instead of a 1 M7 because of the no micro SD slot I would have more money
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than HTC does right now the headphone jack is now on the bottom next to micro
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USB a position I used to prefer since it tugs less while holding the device but I
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use my phone with my right hand and store it in my left pocket so I actually
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find this a little bit more ergonomic than this when I'm putting it away so
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now I prefer the top headphone jack but it's a very very minor complaint since
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we're on the subject of the headphone jack I complained about the amp on the
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M7 early on but later discovered that the problems were caused by the subpar
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HTC music player app included with the m
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7 Since switching to Apollo on the M7 I
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no longer have any complaints about it and the M8 is also just dandy in terms
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of headphone audio output quality speaking of Dandy the speakers sure
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they're not Standalone Bluetooth speakers but they're loud enough and
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sound good enough for me to legitimately
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enjoy YouTube videos in a noisy environment like a moving car and listen
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to music at my desk while I work a freaking plus as a Content consumer I
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will trade the extra phone height that is consumed by resonance Chambers for
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this sound experience every day and HTC is just making the other guys look
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stupid at this point I mean these days whenever I get my hands on a device with
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bottom or rearm mounted speakers I can't even bring myself to make the joke about
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the cupping your hand trick anymore it's just not funny anymore it's a miracle
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the other guys have led HTC stay more than a year ahead of them now with an
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Innovative feature like pointing a sound Source at the listener's ears but since
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I'm an HTC user I guess it doesn't really matter to me what the others do
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and all I can really say is enjoy the cup trick everyone
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else turns out it's still funny when it's someone else moving around to the
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back of the phone we find the UltraPixel 4 megapixel camera is back with some
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capabilities added and others taken away it lacks Optical image stabilization
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this time but is now accompanied by a two-tone flash for better flesh tones
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and it has more processing horsepower behind find it a major contributing
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factor to the wicked fast shutter speed of this bad boy seriously whip your
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phone out horizontally press the volume button the camera app is ready to
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capture the moment you can rapid fire it when your kid has your finger up his
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nose or whatever it is that you're trying to get on camera you can use
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Zoe's HTC's video/ photo at the same
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time thing that works really well with highlight reels a little software
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feature that cuts together photos and videos with music and effects and now
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allows more granular clip selection and your own music to be added but I found
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machine gunning the shutter or capturing Stills during regular video recording
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was just as effective but all of that is still pretty normal stuff what about
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HTC's other camera on the back that one
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is used to gather depth information and in theory it allows images to be
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refocused in post or effects to be added to the background and also this funky
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Parallax effect um but in practice I use
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this about as often is the feature that lets me cover a photo with cherry
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blossoms or put Scumbag Steve hats on everyone all in all as someone who never
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prints my phone pictures I was already satisfied with the m7's camera for my
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Instagram needs and recording videos of my cats and I'm satisfied with this one
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too it's good enough for me and even though the M8 does not support 4K
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recording like some other phones are starting to I actually got quite a few
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compliments on a video I uploaded of my cat that looked pretty darn fantastic so
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there you go moving on to software I'm not going to say too much about Sense 6
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because I already liked sense 5.5 and Sense 6 is pretty much more of the same
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the keyboard prediction sucks the big one and I find the information density
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and blink feed just a little bit too low
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to be useful for me but swift key for the win and blink feed can be completely
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ignored quite easily so those are really minor complaints and there's so many
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other good things I mean even though I'm not detail oriented enough to notice
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exact changes like the notification bar changing color depending on the screen
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you're looking at I do generally appreciate the improvements HTC
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continues to make to their overall aesthetic and The Classy new stock sound
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scheme and I love their organization friendly app tray their multitasking the
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easy way that quick settings can be reconfigured and so much more sense is
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the Android skin that I started on and I actually like it better than stock
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Android Sumi it's super easy to use and low overhead enough that it feels just
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as Snappy as stock Android I mean obviously the wicked Hardware on this
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phone isn't hurting that either this phone is a blast to use so conclusion
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time there was a time when being the
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most beautifully crafted Android phone on the market was about like winning the
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chimp Olympics but with the M7 HTC took
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Android phone design and build quality to the next level and the M8 picks up
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where it left off there are some issues that persist the battery is still not
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replaceable and iFix it gave the phone a whopping two out of 10 for repairability
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in their tear down video but the good news about the battery at least is that
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even though they only increased capacity to an unexceptional 2600 milliamp hours
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the real world battery life is a lot better at the end of a weekday that
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means conference calls with the speaker phone and constant emails and texting I
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regularly have 40% left at night and on weekends I Can Go the whole 2 days
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before recharging and I'm not not I'm not cheating I've got Bluetooth on
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impared to my Pebble Wi-Fi mobile data accurate GPS location and the onboard
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popcorn maker are all enabled at all times and I am still getting these
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results the last phones that I tested that were like this for me were the
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Xperia Z with a bunch of power management stuff on and the One Max
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which just had a massive battery speaking of massive battery another
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Improvement is the noticeably faster battery charging on the M8 with my old
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iPhone I could pop it on the charger for 30 minutes while I you know get ready to
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leave the house and have that actually last me long enough to get back home and
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charge it for real not the case with the M7 but the M8 is much closer to that
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experience and it's a it's a really tangible Improvement no phone is perfect
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though and I'm going to wrap up this video with a couple of complaints number
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one is that a non-tech discovered HTC is still enabling higher power States when
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the phone detects a benchmark is being run and number two is actually my
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biggest complaint about the phone and that is that for some reason we're in
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the 21st century yeah I mean this guy figured out this crap a long time ago
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and this phone still doesn't have wireless charging words cannot express
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how much I wish that it did but oh sorry
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hold on I've got to take this call see that gesture-based phone call answering
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oh it's Luke hey he arrived safely at PAX East where he and Brandon will be
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bringing you guys the very best of the show with a particular EMP empis on the
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Indie Mega Booth stay tuned over the next couple of days for all that awesome
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content and wait sorry what's that Luke
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you also want me to give a huge shout out to our sponsors Intel and Corsair
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without whom you wouldn't have been able to go and remind everyone to tune in to
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our PX content ha what a guy he also forgot a couple things though Intel and
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ASUS are also giving away a taiichi dual
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screen ultra book just tweet what inspires you about PAX East with # Intel
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Inspire before the 18th of April 2014
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for a chance to win full Contest rules are linked in the video description
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speaking of giveaways huge reward for those of you who were hardcore enough to
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stick around through this very long video I have something exciting to share
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HTC gave me two giraffing m8s to give
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away hey why did you bleep that I didn't even say a bad word I said giraffing
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anyway all you have to do is post your
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favorite thing about the m in the Forum thread in the video description and no
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matter who you are or where you live you
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are entered you don't even have to sign up for the Forum you can use your steam
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Facebook or Twitter account to quickly log in and post your favorite thing and
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you're in the draw but there is a catch
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I only get two phones if 10,000 or more
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of you click the bitly link to HTC's m8
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page on their site also linked in the video description
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oh I've been talking for a long time otherwise I just get one so let's all
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work together to unlock the extra phone full giveaway details in the video
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description as well anyway guys thank you for watching my team and I worked
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really hard on this video and we hope you enjoyed it if you did please like
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and share it and if you didn't please dislike it and leave a comment with your
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thoughts we do take constructive criticism very seriously also linked in
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