HTC One (E8) hands on

HTC One (E8):

After a lot of rumours and speculation HTC has finally launched the One (E8) in India for Rs.34,990. We managed to spend some time with the device, read on for our first impressions.

HTC calls the E8 the fashionable variant of the One (M8). It looks very similar to its famous cousin, but there's a different plastic, polycarbonate body. It is offered in a glossy white finish and a matte black option. The matte black option is actually quite similar to the One X that HTC launched a few years ago. It feels very nice to hold in the hand and the curvature on the back makes it very ergonomic to hold.
The white one is undoubtedly attractive but in the it hand feels a little slippery and slimy. We prefer the matte finish.
It's worth noting that the E8 is also slightly thicker than the M8.
Internally, it has the same engine as the M8. This means there is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core chipset clocked at 2.5GHz, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal memory. There's also a microSD card slot which makes memory expansion possible. This is a very fast processing stack.

In our short time with the product we found it to be extremely smooth. Of course, HTC's Sense 6 UI works very well in tandem with Android 4.4.2 KitKAT. This was also true of the HTC One (M8).
On the back there is a major change. HTC has opted for a traditional 13-megapixel camera with a f/2.0 aperture instead of the UltraPixel camera found in the M8. We did not test the camera in our short time with the device.
There is also a very nice 5-megapixel front camera, which is probably the same one as the M8.
It has a 2,600mAh battery which works in concert with a software based power saver. The HTC m8 lasted a day handily, we are yet to test the e8 in this regard. It's also a dual-SIM smartphone which the M8 was not.
Overall for Rs.34,990, it makes for a great option considering the premium plastic based design and fast processing package. That said, it's camera and battery remain unproven and it still needS to go through the rigours of our test. Watch out for a detailed review soon.