HTC One E9+ :
Introduction
If you want HTC's highest-specced, big-screened QHD smartphone, the One E9+ is very likely the one you're looking for. Only the lack of the signature all-metal unibody saves the company's reigning flagship a good deal of embarrassment.
It's quite hard to actually decide which precise model sits atop HTC's 2015 One lineup, and there may well be more than one correct answer. You have the M9, obviously, which has Qualcomm's latest chipset inside and the metal design to appeal to your sense of style, but sticks with a FullHD 5-inch screen.
Midway up the size ladder, you'll find the 5.2-inch QHD M9+, which retains the metal unibody and adds a second camera on the back, as well as a fingerprint sensor, but opts for an arguably inferior Mediatek chipset. There's an almost identical ME version, which comes with a single rear camera, and comes with a polycarbonate body.
All that builds up to the HTC One E9+, which has finally landed in our hands. It has the largest 5.5-inch QHD screen of the bunch (so, not to be confused with the E9, which is apparently a China-only 1080p 5.5-incher), a slightly downclocked version of the same Mediatek chipset and a polycarbonate build.
With the family relations (somewhat) settled, let's move on to the list of key specs.
Key features:
- Polycarbonate body, soft matte finish, thin and light for its size
- 5.5" 1440p capacitive touchscreen with 534pi; Corning Gorilla Glass 4
- Mediatek MT6795M (Helio X10) chipset with a 2GHz octa-core Cortex-A53 CPU, PowerVR G6200 GPU, 3GB of RAM
- Android 5.0.2 Lollipop with HTC Sense 7 UI
- Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 & 5 GHz); DLNA, WiFi direct, hotspot
- 20MP AF camera with a 1/2.3" BSI sensor; 27.8mm f/2.2 lens; single-LED flash; 2160p@30fps video capture, 720p@120fps slow motion
- 4MP fixed-focus UltraPixel front-facing camera with a BSI sensor; 26.2mm f/2.0 lens; HDR; 1080p video recording
- 32GB of built-in memory; microSD card slot; 100GB of free Google Drive storage for 2 years
- Dual nanoSIM slots, LTE Cat.4, GPS/GLONASS/Beidou, NFC, Bluetooth 4.1, FM radio; microUSB 2.0 port, MHL, USB host
- Active noise cancellation with a dedicated microphone
- Front-facing stereo speakers with BoomSound and Dolby Audio
- 2,800mAh battery
Main disadvantages
- Tall for a 5.5-inch phone, massive top and bottom bezels
- Non-removable battery
- Chipset looks more suited to a mid-ranger
You can see why one might get confused. The HTC One E9+ has all the makings of a modern day high-end device, albeit in a rather understated package. And it's not like HTC hasn't done it before, last generation's E8 was just that - a flagship in disguise. Only, now HTC is giving you even more options and it's not a simple price-vs-looks dilemma.
HTC One E9+ press images
It is, however, the first time we get to see the Mediatek MT6795 in action (also going by the PR-friendly Helio X10). It's an interesting decision by HTC part to equip all its QHD smartphones so far with the Mediatek top-of-the-line solution and reserve the Snapdragon 810 for the FullHD One M9.
We've yet to see what that means in terms of performance, but not before we've unpacked the handset and got a real feel for it in-hand.
Standard retail package
The HTC One E9+ comes in a box, which emulates the looks of the optional DotView case. Inside, there's the usual set of accessories, including a USB cable, an A/C adapter rated at 5V/1.5A, and a set of high-quality in-ear headphones with a single-button remote and flat cords.
Retail package has you covered
Body and design
The HTC One E9+ measures 156.5 x 76.5 x 7.5mm, which is big, really big. The only other major 5.5-inch smartphone, which is larger, is the iPhone 6 Plus at 158.1 x 77.8 x 7.1mm. Even the Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML, which isn't exactly saving space, is shorter at 152.5mm. The LG G4 is the undisputed champ in this department at 148.9mm.
The HTC One E9+ weighs 150g, about what you'd expect for its screen diagonal. True, the Samsung Galaxy A7 is tangibly lighter at 141g, but the iPhone 6 Plus and the Zenfone 2 ZE551ML both hover around the 170g mark. That said, the E9+ actually feels light, simply because you expect more heft from such a large device.
HTC One E9+ side by side with the similarly sized iPhone 6 Plus and the metal-bodied 5-inch One M9
The HTC One E9+ is not a low-key handset, that's for sure. Aside from being very tall, its single most striking feature is the enormous lens window on the back, which easily sets it apart from anything else on the market. A large part of it is exclusively for design purposes, as the actual lens resides in the center of the 17mm circle.
The designers wanted to make a statement and weren't overly subtle at it. While it may polarize opinions, it certainly shouts E9+ like nothing else, so bystanders will know you're not handling one of the common HTC models.
The back has a soft matte finish, which on our black model (or Meteor Gray in marketing talk) looks quite formal and "business", if you like. It does pick up prints and smudges, and although it's not as obvious as a glossy finish, it does look greased when you hold it at an angle against the light. It's not particularly easy to clean either, so you might as well accept it'll be like that forever and move on.
Matte back finish • camera lens is where the eyes land first
Update: As it turned out the HTC One E9+ does have stereo speakers and it was only our unit that had some issue with one of them. The text below has been edited to reflect that.
The front presents a more traditional HTC styling which has become synonymous with stereo BoomSound speakers on either end.
As has become typical of recent HTC phones, the One E9+ comes with onscreen buttons eating away some of the screen estate. It's worth pointing out that the gap between the speaker strips and the glass that covers the display tends to accumulate dirt, which is rather tricky to clean.
Display covers a small portion of the front • looks better when off • gap between the glass panel and speaker strip
Side bezels are decently sized and provide enough room to grip, without adding excessive width. The sides were given the same matte treatment as the back and a slit that runs all around the device may lead you to believe the back cover is removable, which it isn't. There's a shiny chrome-looking outline on the front which serves as a nice accent, but also a boundary of sorts between the phone and the outside world.
Controls
The One E9+ features the company's newly adopted control layout with the power button on the right side. The E9+ being taller, the button sits noticeably higher than on the M9, well above the midpoint. Further up is the volume rocker, which is indeed a rocker and not two separate buttons (again, the M9).
Power button and volume rocker high up on the right
On the left side there's a 48mm long flap, but long it needs to be, because it has to cover three separate card slots - two for nanoSIM cards and an extra one for microSD. Its length aside, the flap is nicely slim and doesn't spoil the overall looks. It also fits snuggly and it's unlikely to be opened by chance. If anything, you may have a hard time finding a proper tool to pop it out, as fingernails don't seem to work.
Card slots behind a flap on the left
On top there's nothing but a 3.5mm headphone jack - no IR blaster. The bottom is scarcely populated too, with only a microUSB port.
3.5mm jack on top • microUSB port on the bottom
Handling
We'll reiterate, the HTC One E9+ is one tall smartphone. It is, in fact, 3mm taller than the 5.7-inch Samsung Galaxy Note 4. It's narrower though, and that helps its handling.
The buttons on the right are easily accessible with your right thumb or with the left index finger, depending on which hand you're holding it with. The sides and the back with their matte surface provide a secure grip.
HTC One E9+ in the hand
It should also be noted that due to the generous bottom bezels the on screen buttons come pretty high and are very easily reached, more so than, say, Samsung's capacitive buttons on its phablets. It's still open for debate though, whether that comes close to being worth the extra footprint.
Beautiful 5.5-inch QHD display
The HTC One E9+ has the largest QHD display in the company's lineup at 5.5 inches (certain apps report it at 5.46 inches, but we're fine with calling it 5.5). At this diagonal 1,440 x 2,560px translate into 534ppi, which is crazy sharp, though the smaller 5.2-inch QHD panels on the One M9+ and One ME will obviously boast an even higher ppi.
HTC One E9+ display
The display has great viewing angles and delivers spot-on colors, though its rendition is somewhat different from the One M9's. If anything, its colors are even more accurate, where the M9 has a slight greenish tint. Unlike other manufacturers, HTC doesn't give you the option to tweak the white balance to your liking, nor are there presets, but chances are you wouldn't want to anyway.
Our microscope revealed a standard RGB pattern with equal numbers of red, green and blue subpixels.
The display isn't overly bright at 100%, but for what it lacks in brightness it more than makes up in contrast. The deep blacks help for a stellar figure, which beats everything we've tested, except the Xperia Z1 Compact.
At 50%, brightness actually drops to a little more than 40% of maximum. Mind you, with HTC's custom brightness toggle you can only set it precisely from within the menus. It does roughly correspond to the 2-bar position on the toggle.
| Display test | 50% brightness | 100% brightness | ||||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | |||
| 0.14 | 205 | 1435 | 0.29 | 487 | 1657 | |
| 0.15 | 175 | 1180 | 0.44 | 534 | 1221 | |
| 0 | 149 | ∞ | 0 | 372 | ∞ | |
| 0.39 | 317 | 805 | 0.75 | 598 | 799 | |
| 0.09 | 130 | 1450 | 0.43 | 626 | 1453 | |
| - | - | - | 0.69 | 775 | 1127 | |
| 0.11 | 149 | 1428 | 0.37 | 530 | 1428 | |
| 0.17 | 208 | 1197 | 0.52 | 705 | 1361 | |
| 0.09 | 108 | 1240 | 0.43 | 532 | 1238 | |
| 0 | 152 | ∞ | 0 | 398 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 291 | ∞ | 0 | 399 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 208 | ∞ | 0 | 363 | ∞ | |
| 0.05 | 77 | 1435 | 0.38 | 584 | 1516 | |
| - | - | - | 0.34 | 626 | 1819 | |
| - | - | - | 0.68 | 789 | 1158 | |
The HTC One E9+ is a decent performer in the sunlight legibility test, getting almost the same score as the One M9 before it.
Sunlight contrast ratio
Connectivity
The HTC One E9+ comes with dual-SIM slots and each card supports quad-band 2G. Only one of those cards can benefit from the quad-band 3G and some 10 bands of 4G support, where Cat.4 is supported for download speeds of up to a theoretical maximum of 150Mbps.
There's a GPS receiver with A-GPS and GLONASS and Beidou support for even more accurate positioning across the globe.
Local connectivity features include Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands) with DLNA and Wi-Fi Hotspot.
The HTC Connect feature works over the DLNA protocol to provide smoother integration of your phone to your home-entertainment setup, with supported devices of course. Those include multi-room speakers adhering to the Qualcomm AllPlay standard; DLNA and Miracast-compatible devices, Bluetooth speakers, as well as HTC-certified devices carrying the HTC Connect logo.
Bluetooth 4.1 is on board, which sorts LTE interference issues. Version 4.1 is said to be more power-efficient and supports direct communication between connected peripherals, keeping your smartphone out of it. There's also NFC support.
An MHL-enabled micro-USB 2.0 port sits on the bottom of the phone with USB host, for connecting external storage or wired peripherals. A standard 3.5mm headphone jack on top lets you plug in your headphones of choice.
The One E9+ accepts nano-SIM cards. The microSD slot lets you extend the 32GB of built-in storage to up to 2TB, although we are yet to see such a monstrous card in the real world.
Battery life test
The HTC One E9+ comes with a 2,800mAh battery, which is not user replaceable. We had our reservations before we kicked off our battery test routine, because the battery capacity is actually smaller than what the M9 has, and the E9+ has both a larger screen area to light up as well as much more pixels.
That said, the One E9+ is powered by an entirely different chipset, and the Snapdragon 810 inside the M9 isn't exactly famous for its efficiency, so there was still hope.
In the end, although the One E9+ is no miracle worker, it managed well with what it's got. That's not to say that we're happy with the 7 hours of video playback or the 8-hour web browsing record, on the contrary. But credit must be given to HTC for actually squeezing more or less the same screen-on usage times out of the E9+ as it did from the M9, despite the increase in diagonal and resolution.
The less than 12 hours of 3G talk times also don't stand very well with a high-end device, which is made to be used.
Truth be told, there is an area in which the One E9+ does excel. With a single SIM card inside, the smartphone can remain in 3G standby for a little short of 14 days, which drops to about 12 and half days if you pop in a second SIM. Now, while that's half of the manufacturer's claims, it's still a respectable achievement in real usage terms.
All of the above adds up to a decent but far from spectacular endurance rating of 58 hours (59h with a single SIM). What the number means is that under the hypothetical scenario that you use the One E9+ for an hour each of video playback, web browsing and voice calls per day, it'll last you for about two and a half days.
It's worth noting that there's a variable which influences the standby times and, therefore, the overall endurance rating. BlinkFeed refreshes once every hour when connected to Wi-Fi. Depending on the number of sources you have selected that may mean up to a 30% hit in standby times, robbing the E9+ of the only admirable aspect of its battery life.
However, that only results in a three-hour drop in the overall rating, so it's negligible in the grand scheme of things. Just bear in mind that if you absolutely must squeeze every minute of battery life, you'd better disable BlinkFeed.
Our battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you want to learn more about it.
Sense 7 complements Android 5.0.2
The HTC One E9+ runs on Android 5.0.2 Lollipop, with HTC's own Sense 7.0 UI layer on top, and we're already familiar with this latest iteration from the One M9.
The lockscreen hasn't changed much since Sense 6 - it features a clock with weather info plus four shortcut slots. Missed calls and incoming messages are duly displayed, too, of course. Lockscreen widgets aren't available this time around though.
The lockscreen in Sense 7 offers a brand new type of notification - mealtime, courtesy of the new Blinkfeed. The Blinkfeed will learn your lunch breaks and dinner times and it will pop up suggestions for nearby restaurants shortly before the time comes.
HTC Sense 7 lockscreen
HTC One E9+ supports both swipe up and double tap to unlock, meaning you won't have to rely on the power/lock key all the time. You should use the gestures with care though, as you may end up accidentally unlocking your phone.
Sense 7 homescreens • Editing homescreens
The leftmost homescreen pane of the HTC One E9+ is once again reserved for HTC Blinkfeed. It aggregates content from your social networks (Flickr, Foursquare, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Twitter, Zoe), as well as from over a thousand news sources. You can pick the topics you're interested in and Blinkfeed will automatically pull relevant content. You can also search for specific content.
Blinkfeed combines social updates with news articles
The Blinkfeed service, with the help of the new Sense Home feature will now suggest nearby places to eat. Blinkfeed becomes aware of your eating habits and will eventually begin poping up restaurant suggestions on your lockscreen shortly before your lunch break or after you leave work. And if some of your friends have left reviews for those places, those will be shown as well, thanks to the Yelp and Foursquare integration.
Homescreens are fully customizable with links and widgets. If you don't find Blinkfeed particularly useful and don't want it lingering on the front you can do away with it just like any other widget.
The Sense Home widget, which debuted on the M9 is present here as well. It looks quite ordinary with eight shortcuts - six of them are app shortcuts, while the last two are folders for recent documents and recommended apps you may want to download.
You can't configure the shortcuts, Home Sense chooses them for you, but you can opt to remove the smart folder. After you input your home and work addresses, the widget changes the visible shortcuts depending on your current location - work, home or outside. It learns what you are using the most and puts those apps up front. The Home Sense locations are also used by the Blinkfeed for mealtime suggestions.
Sense Home widget
Wallpapers, lockscreen style, ringtones, notification sounds and alarms can be customized via a dedicated menu.
Themes are also supported, and they change your lockscreen and homescreen wallpapers, the app drawer background, the default messaging app wallpaper, the system color scheme, the icon package for apps and settings, all ringtones and the system font.
There is a dedicated Themes Store for downloading themes, but you can also get fonts, pictures and ringtones separately and apply them to your current theme. You can even build your own themes very easily and if you think they are really good, you can upload them to the store for others to use.
Theme Store offers various customizations including icon and font packs
One finger swipe from the top of the homescreen will open the notification area, which features a cleaner look in Android 5.0 Lollipop. An additional swipe reveals the quick toggles area that include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Airplane mode, screen auto-rotate, flashlight, location on/off, and the option to cast the screen. A double-finger swipe goes straight to the toggles, which are configurable, of course.
The new notification area
The default layout of the app drawer is a 4 x 5 grid of app icons. A 3 x 4 mode is also available, though a 5 x 6 would have made far more sense. You can sort app icons alphabetically, chronologically or manually and you can hide the ones you don't need.
The app drawer
HTC is sticking with the 3 x 3 grid of thumbnails for the recent apps, and courtesy of Sense 7 there's no limit of 9 visible apps - once you pass 9 recent apps, a new page pops up to hold even more shortcuts. The default Card switching from Lollipop is available too, you need to enable it from the Task Switcher Settings.
Screen pinning allows to have an app displayed at all times until you unpin it with a simultaneous press and hold on the Back and Task switcher buttons.
Custom app switcher complete with the default card-view • screen pinning
HTC Sense has a dedicated Car mode screen, which can be preset to launch automatically when the phablet connects to your car's Bluetooth.
Car mode with big, easy to hit buttons
HTC One E9+ comes with the Zoodles app, which serves the purpose of a restricted access Kid mode. You set up a profile for each of your kids - with a photo and birthdate - and pick which apps they can have access to. You can also download new fun videos and games straight from within the app.
Kid Mode
No comments:
Post a Comment