
2.5 out of 5 for Color shading in bright light*. 3.5 out of 5 for Color shading in low light*. 3.0 out of 5 for White Balance accuracy. Overall DxOMark awarded the HTC One M9 scores of: However, "white balance is often very green in bright light", there is "visible color shading in bright and low light" and "colors are saturated in low light". The DxOMark team found that on the HTC One M9 "exposure behavior was overall good" and that the camera rendered "nice and pleasant colors in bright light". Still Photography Color, Exposure and Contrast The testers also found "visible luminance steps during exposure changes" and over-saturated colors in low light". On the downside "a lot of detail is lost in both bright and low light" and there is no video stabilization. When shooting in video mode the HTC One M9's autofocus is accurate and video footage shows "good noise reduction in bright light". The testers also criticized "strong quantification and color gradations" in areas of plain color and "strong ringing". However, they also found the colors to be over-saturated in low light, "white balance is often inaccurate in both bright and low light" and there is a "loss of sharpness in the corners of the image". The DxOMark team reports that in bright light "colors and nice and pleasant, detail is good and the autofocus performs well". With a DxOMark Mobile score of 69 the HTC One M9 improves over its predecessor by only one point and slots into the DxOMark smartphone rankings at a slightly disappointing position number 22. There is no optical image stabilization but the M9 is the first One model capable of recording 4K video. Instead, the One M9 comes with a 20MP BSI CMOS sensor that is combined with an F2.2 lens. Under the hood HTC has finally dropped the 4MP "ultrapixel" sensor of the predecessors that produced only mediocre image quality results in our testing.
The new model is a touch smaller and thinner than its predecessor, the One M8, but otherwise sports a very similar design. The One M9 is HTC's latest top-end smartphone.