The HTC One line of phones as a whole has many wonderful qualities going for it. Many people love the clean metal design with the BoomSound front facing speakers. They also like Sense 7 as a UI compared to rival UI’s from Samsung and LG. Other than only being a small upgrade from last year’s HTC One M8, there is not much to dislike about this year’s HTC One M9 except one little thing, the camera. The camera has been a pesky thorn in the side of all the previous two HTC One phones, and it has plagued the HTC One M9 Developer Edition with everything from poor low-light photos to grainy close-ups.
For those wondering what is the difference between the HTC One M9 Developer Edition and a regular HTC One M9 is, in short the bootloader. With the HTC One M9 Developer Edition, the bootloader is already unlocked and you can put anything you want on the phone and change it as you see fit. The HTC One M9 Developer Edition even has a bump of 16 megapixels to the rear camera from over the previous models. Regardless of the camera improvement, the pictures taken with the Developer Edition don’t come close to other flagships such as the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the Apple iPhone 6. HTC promised to try and upgrade the camera, and it seems help is on the way as the Android Lollipop 5.1 upgrade has just gone live for the HTC One M9 Developers Edition.
The Android 5.1 update started to trickle out to the regular HTC One M9’s in the past few days and now its time for the Developer Edition to receive all the new upgrades. Some of the new changes are data performance improvements, call drop improvements, temperature management optimization and of course Android Lollipop 5.1. The improvements HTC One M9 Developer Edition users need to focus on here are battery life enhancements which has been another sore spot with the phone and, of course, the big one is the camera enhancements. This particular update hit Europe first in the last few weeks, so we have a small idea of what’s in store for U.S. model of the phone. European users have noticed more balanced auto exposure and more accurate colors in extreme lighting conditions. These upgrades to the camera and battery life should really upgrade and enhance the experience in what was already a very nice flagship phone from HTC.