Fortysomething Geek

I have to admit, since I got my iPhone 6 Plus, I haven't been using my HTC ONE M8. It has been sitting in the carry brief for more than a month. However, I like to keep current gadgets relevant so I got me the HTC Dot View Case. As a result, I pulled it out this afternoon to try on my new case and there it is.



If you want to know what it is, it is a gimmicky folio case that is unique to HTC and gives you some notifications through the case.

The case retails for 45ドル-49. I strongly do not recommend anyone purchase it at retail. It is simply not worth it. There is no real protection and the case makes it really hard to hold in the hand when making phone calls.

You can tell by looking at this picture that a flip out case like this will effect the ergonomics; especially one handed use.

However, I didn't pay 45ドル for this. Instead, I got it for around 12ドル and a month delivery time from China. At 12,ドル it is still gimmicky. I can see the weather and the time.
I can answer calls and cue my music playback tracks.



The dot view notifications are pretty limited. It supposedly supports text messages but none showed for me. Rather, it prompts you to open your case. It would be nice to have it delete messages.



So far, I'm not that impressed. It would be nice to get at least GMail or calendar notifications.

It does support some theming.






In conclusion, I think this is gimmicky at best with no real value. Especially at 45ドル. I think your money will be better spent on a Spigen case that would offer better phone protection.

The picture above is the back of my HTC ONE M8.The camera lens is fairly scratched up. Taking pictures with is unbearable and it is driving me nuts. I'm not an isolated incident and a simple Google search of "HTC ONE M8 scratch lens" reports this has effected a large number of users.

This blog post was originally meant to be a review on a new SanDisk 128GB micro-sdhc card with my new HTC ONE M8. Let me repeat, that is 128GB micro-sdhc! How insane is that with that much storage on a micro-sd? The whole idea was tantalizing. In reality, it didn't turn out the way I hoped for. SD cards are pretty much useless on the new HTC ONE.

The latest version of Android, KitKat 4.4.2 has rendered my nice, 128GB sd card useless. Yep, the smart folks at Google, in their infinite wisdom have closed one of the biggest compelling feature of Android (over iOS) for this user. Why oh why you must ask? Well, I suppose they want to get serious about security and are now implementing a sandbox model where apps only have write access to their germane folders.

In short, this means, I can't even benchmark this sdcard. Most benchmark apps can't write to the root of the sd card which is a big no-no. I can't even copy files from an OTG USB drive using ES File Explorer. Forget about doing something like this pictured below. Everything is borked now. File Explorer/Manager apps are pretty much useless. I can't even copy files around on the Phone itself. The workaround is to root the phone and patch it which I'm not going to do.

For as long as I can remember, I have been a dual OS phone user. First with Windows Mobile and iOS. Then with iOS and Android. I've always carried two, three phones on me at all times.

I've owned and carried several Android phones through the years - Moto Droid, Droid Incredible, Galaxy Nexus.  None of those phones kept my interest besides the fact they were partially work issued. Now, in 2014, my latest work issued phone is the HTC ONE (M8). This is HTC's current flagship phone. The company is riding on this phone to be a success. Will it?



I can pretty much pick any phone I want that runs on Verizon - LG 2, Galaxy Note 3, etc but I chose the HTC One. I chose the HTC One for it's incredible build quality and overall compromises on features. Is it the fastest? Does it have the best camera? Does it have the largest screen? The answer to those questions are no.The Samsung Galaxy Nexus left a very bad taste in my mouth (due to Verizon and Google's handling of the updates and poor battery life) that my main concern was battery life and overall usability. Stock Android isn't a big draw to me any more (aka Nexus 5 and stock Android) and HTC Sense 6.0 doesn't offend me much.  And I'm still stuck with Verizon (due to work) so this was my best option.

I'm going to be playing with this phone for a while and report back with my findings. But for now, here is a first review.

Spec wise, you can read about it all over the Internet as this is a fairly recent new flag-ship phone from HTC. Quad-Core SnapDragon 801 processor, 2GB RAM, 32GB Storage, 5" 1080p LCD display, yada-yada. This is my personal review from a dual OS, multi-platform agnostic user.  Since I'm a dual OS handset kind of guy, the Android vs iOS debates are pretty silly.

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