HTC One M8

The HTC One M8 is a brilliant smartphone with very few flaws. Its main strength is design, but I don’t think that’s a negative thing as many brands still seem keen to race on specs rather than attracting users when they wander into a shop to buy something for two years (at a rather high price).

It doesn’t really skimp on specs though – even the weaker camera has some rationale behind it, rather than something to apologise for – and the audio capabilities, be it the Boomsound speakers or the music reproduction, are excellent.

You could say that, Duo Camera aside, there’s no real headline feature of the HTC One M8, but that would do it a disservice as the brand has made a phone that really impresses at nearly every turn.

I’m not sure the shareable Zoes will take off, even a year on, nor are the Video Highlight and BlinkFeed services up to the level where you can call them factors in purchase. But at least HTC has decoupled these apps from the main OS, so when it upgrades them you won’t be left waiting for a massive software update to change things.

The One M8 was the phone of 2014 – and given that the One M9 hasn’t added much to the mix, it could be a very good buy now it’s dropped in price too.