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Let's start with the device itself, which is a gentle refinement of the two previous One models. The One is still an excellent phone, but while its competition rushed ahead, HTC stayed too still. While it sounds promising, unfortunately once you use the M9, that all doesn't add up to much.
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The new One looks the same as the last, but it has a new high-res camera, a homescreen that adapts to where you are and what you're doing, and an incredible number of customization options. With the new One M9, which is available now on all four major US carriers for the same price as your average high-end smartphone, HTC took the latter approach. The company had two options: try to level up its design game yet again, or make a phone with new or exceptional features. Lovely hardware design isn't novel anymore. Honestly, so do lower-end brands like Alcatel, Blu, and OnePlus. HTC built a big lead in design chops a couple of years ago, but the rest of the market has caught up fast: Samsung, Motorola, and Apple all make beautiful, big, high-resolution phones now. The One X, the One, and the One (M8) all stood as paragons of smartphone design. All the way back in 2012-an eternity ago, in smartphone years-it was building beautiful phones while everyone else was still shipping boring black slabs. HTC, though, figured it out before almost anyone. Over the last 12 months, that idea has gone from new and strange-"so, like, Chanel is going to make smartphones?"-to blindingly obvious. Fashion is technology technology is fashion.