The original HTC One, launched in early Spring 2013, quickly became a darling among tech critics. But the phone struggled to catch the attention of the premium smartphone-buying public, to the point where HTC went into the red later that summer. With the 2014 HTC One (M8), the Taiwanese company doubled down on the premium smartphone feel and features, but is it enough to warrant a big purchase?

The Basics

The HTC One (M8) is not a variant of the HTC One like a "max" or a "mini", but rather the flagship successor to the 2013 handset, which actually had the unadvertised designation "M7." When HTC decided to stick with one name -- a la Apple with the iPhone or Samsung with the Galaxy S series -- the company added the M8 designation to clarify which generation the new device is. But for all intents and purposes, it's the new 2014 HTC One.

HTC's iteration strategy mirrors Apple a lot more than Samsung in how much it feels and looks like a new iteration of a classic form. The 2014 HTC One holds the same rounded metal design as the 2013 flagship, and just like that much-lauded handset, it's got a solid, if a little heavy, feel.

Specs

As far as phone specs, this year's HTC One offers some minor improvements, along with a couple of features that were sorely lacking in the premier 2013 HTC One.

The 2014 HTC One features a 5.0-inch touchscreen, up from the previous model's 4.7-inch display. Both feature the same 1080 x 1920p resolution, which on the 2013 handset led to an outstanding 469 pixels per inch, and on the slightly larger 2014 HTC One gives you a still-impressive 441 ppi density. Text and graphical edges on the screen really do pop, but the Super LCD3 is harder to see in the glare of broad daylight than Super AMOLED screens. Both years incorporate Gorilla Glass 3, which looks really nice and should be capable of sustaining minor drops without major damage.

This year's HTC One comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chip, clocked at 2.3 GHz with 2GB RAM, which is just as leading-edge this year as 2013's Snapdragon 600. And most other specs -- 16/32 GB internal storage, FM radio, front-facing stereo speakers, 5-megapixel front-facing camera, IR blaster, a big, non-removable battery, etc. -- remain the same, or feature slight improvements. The BoomSound speakers, for example (though no longer officially "Beats" brand), are advertised to be about 25 percent louder than the 2013 HTC One, and with greater clarity through all frequency ranges. I'll take their word for it, but it's hard to tell -- as both iterations of the HTC One basically have the best speakers in the smartphone market.

But there are a couple big changes that may push people who were somewhat curious about buying an HTC One in 2013, but decided to wait, over the brink to commit to the HTC One M8. For one, HTC thankfully added a microSD card slot, and since it's 2014, you can pack up to 128 GB of extra storage into the device. The second big change comes to the camera.

Duo Camera

One of HTC's biggest selling points for the 2013 HTC One was the "Ultrapixel" sensor technology. Rather than go with the Android crowd and simply pack in more megapixels, HTC had a 4-megapixel sensor but with a larger pixel size, optical image stabilization, and the largest aperture on a smartphone. It translated into superior low-light photography without losing image quality -- something other manufacturers have still yet to conquer. Add on top of that HTC's camera software, like Zoe, and the company had a completely unique offering to bank on.

The 2014 HTC One doesn't change the Ultrapixel sensor, but adds yet another new, unique feature that genuinely makes the camera easier and more fun to use. Calling it Duo Camera, HTC stacked another sensor about a centimeter above the main camera to gauge and capture depth, much like how our eyes do.

When you take a photo, behind the scenes, the depth sensor automatically adjusts the strength of the flash (which in the M8 is now a dual-tone LED, much like the iPhone 5s), and most importantly, translates into really fast focusing -- something that most smartphone cameras are still terrible at, compared to standalones. For the M8, HTC dropped the optical image stabilization feature, but it at least seems like Duo Camera makes up for it: taking photos just works, even in low light, and without the usual wait-for-focus. The depth data mapped on each pixel also allows for additional image editing after-effects, which fans of selective focus will find fun to play with.