Being a gadget geek usually means I’ll know within just a few minutes of use whether or not I’ll like a device and from the moment I opened the box, before I even turned this one on, I knew this phone would fall into the category of something I liked. Aside from the gorgeous screen, here are what I consider to be the 6 Best features of the HTC One Harman Kardon Edition.

I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting (#MC) for Sprint. I received a product sample to facilitate my review and to thank me for participating.

HTC Advantage

• FREE one time screen replacement within the first 6 months of ownership. In other words, you get a mulligan.
• 50GB of FREE additional Google Drive storage

Come on, really do I need to say more?

Built in Camera Features

This section really deserves a post in and of itself – there are sooooo many built in features sure to keep any shutterbug experimenting for hours. One of my favorites is UFocus. Shoot now and change the focus later – a really handy feature for adding bokeh to your photography or correcting that annoying “stop trying to autofocus on that” syndrome. It’s something that you don’t have to setup pre-photo and is accomplished with the built in secondary camera.

Motion Launch Gestures

For most phones, you need to turn on the phone before you have the ability to make it do what you want. This isn’t so with the HTC One M8. There are 6 handy gestures you can do while the screen is “off” to get to what you need or want quickly.

1. Double tap to wake up/put back to sleep
2. Swipe up to open to last place you were
3. Swipe down to initiate a voice call
4. Swipe right for Blink Feed
5. Swipe left for home screen
6. Turn device sideways and push volume key to open camera (handy for those quick photo opps!)

HTC TV

With TV + Phone integration, your phone is now your TV remote. In addition to controlling your TV, it also has the ability to find shows based on your viewing preferences, allow you to find what’s on TV now with a graphics guide, and see real-time Facebook and Twitter feeds about the show you’re watching.

Extreme Power Saving Mode

As a blogger, we are often faced with long days filled with social media obligations and not enough juice left of on our phones to make it through. With Extreme Power Saving mode, your HTC One M8 turns into the ultimate green machine offering only the bare essentials:

• Phone
• Messages
• Mail
• Calendar
• Calculator

You won’t be able to use any of the handy Motion Launch gestures or run things in the background like a bluetooth connection. But when it can make your last 5% of battery life last up to 15 hours, well, I’ll take it!

The Sound

The HTC One operates on Android Kit Kat with a 2.3 GHz Quad Core Snapdragon Processor that is great for downloading, uploading and streaming. It supports 192KHz FLAC audio and also has patented Clari-Fi™ technology, which analyzes digital audio files in real time and restores what was lost in compression. In layman’s terms, this is a mobile device that offers studio quality audio for the most discerning audiophiles.

On it’s own, the HTC One has dual front facing stereo speakers, built in AMPS and the ability to reach volume outputs of 95 dB – which means you won’t have to constantly turn it up. This is a great compliment to Sprint’s new Sprint Sound Sessions where Sprint is giving customers access to Spotify’s catalogue of more than 20 million songs! I’ve never used Spotify before so I was excited to give this a try. Spotify allows users to play music on demand, create playlists, discover new music, share tracks with friends, listen to songs offline, and listen to music without ads across multiple devices.

Pair the HTC One M8 with the Harman Kardon Onyx Studio bluetooth speaker and you have one brag worthy sound system! I definitely don’t fall into the audiophile category, but I can certainly appreciate incredible sound and all I can say is WOW. That gorgeous design hides 4 powered speakers and dual passive radiators that create an acoustic experience that no other bluetooth speaker I have tried thus far even compares to. The rechargeable battery carries enough juice for 5 hours of put it anywhere music – great for our backyard BBQs!

As a Sprint Ambassador we are so excited to be sharing our experience with various Sprint devices over the course of the next year. (You can see our previous articles here). Is there a hot upcoming Sprint device that you’re excited about?

I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting (#MC) for Sprint. I received a product sample to facilitate my review and to thank me for participating.