Fortysomething Geek

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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