The HTC One M8 and Sense 6 – Ask the Internet

So, if I were looking for a SmartPhone today, I’m certain that the all new HTC One (M8) would be at the top of the list.

I’ve had the HTC One (M7), last year’s model, since the day it came out last year. I’m not in a contract position to be able to upgrade to the M8 now, and there will probably be an HTC One (M9) by 2015, so I’ll probably be skipping a generation of phones.

There are some things I’m able to take advantage of now, with a download of HTC Sense 6 from XDA Developers specific to the M7.  Sense 6 is an improvement over Sense 5.5 in several ways.  I like the theme capabilities, and the ability to change system wide fonts.  The built-in apps (Calendar, Contacts, Mail, etc.) are all improvements over the previous versions.  The first Custom ROM I loaded from XDA was the Elegancia ROM which seems to work well enough.  However, one app I do have a complaint about is Gallery, which, for some reason, no longer has the social aspects (Facebook, Flickr, Dropbox) that it had in Sense 5(.5).  I don’t know why this was functionality was removed, but it reminds me of when Microsoft did virtually the same things with Windows 8.1.  Windows 8 had the same type of photo collection ability.  Want your Facebook photos? They’re there.  Flickr? Yup.  I wonder if making these collections available somehow violated Facebook/Flickr’s terms of service…. Just a thought.  At any rate, I think I’m gonna reflash and go with Android Revolution 61.1 which is also based off of Sense 6 and see if that behaves any differently.  Also, live wallpapers did not work in Elegancia either.

At any rate, back to the M8.  If I were starting from scratch, which I’m not, and if I had unlimited funds, which I don’t, I would be picking up an HTC One M8 as my next phone.