HTC One M8 review

Camera

Technical specs for the rear-facing camera are identical to the 2013 HTC One- a baffling move as firm's usually upgrade this when revising a product.

The M8 uses a 4-megapixels "UltraPixel" shooter. HTC has added an additional sensor below the camera, which processes depth-of-field data. After you take a picture, you can rotate the image around with a 3D effect or change the focus. But this comes at a cost as optical image stabilisation has been removed.

There are a number of post-production effects available - and these range from useful tweeks to complete gimmicks.

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The UFocus feature allows you to pick a point on the image to focus - blurring the background. It will please novice camera users but it's not going to satisfy those who are used to DSLRs.

Other features include Forgrounder adds a sketch effect to parts of the image, Dimension Plus allows you to get a pseudo 3D-effect when you tilt the device and Seasons allows you to sprinkle leaves or snow over the top of a picture to give a festive effect. We can't see these last two being used much.

Everytime you choose an effect and save the image a new file is created - but you can always revisit the original and pick another effect should you wish.

The front-facing camera clocks in a 5-megapixels, bizarrely exceeding the rear camera. It's clear HTC wants this to be the best "selfie" phone on the market. You can touch up photos, but we're not sure you'll want to do this unless you fancy a laugh. The Eye Enhancer, for example, does nothing but make your eyes bulge to alien-like proportions.

Face Contour will shed some digital pounds - but this isn't photoshop and the way to enhance an image is to use one of the many Instagram-like filters pre-loaded onto the device.