A while back HTC got in touch and asked if I’d want to try their latest Android cell, the One (M8). Initially, I was hesitant – I was using an iPhone 5s and was quite happy with it. What if, after giving me this super expensive li’l item, I decided I totally hated it and then had to tell them that? You all know I’m the girl who tells it like it is and I didn’t know if I was up for that kind of awkwies.

Nonetheless, I started poking around, asking people for their thoughts and was overwhelmed with positive feedback. It seemed that anyone who owned a HTC was just as rabid a fan as iPhone users (‘You’ll never look back!’ ‘The best!’) and, get this the One (M8) beat out the iPhone to get crowned as phone of the year at the T3 gadget awards.

So far so good. But what really swayed me was my dad’s opinion (daddy’s girl for life, yo!) I’d asked him what he thought and he was all ‘Oh, that’s a good phone’. Now, from someone like my dad, a man whose spirit animal is Simon Cowell, this was Very High Praise indeed. And with that, I agreed to take on and use the HTC One M8.

Myself and a handful of Cape Town HTC ‘ambassadors’ hopped on a plane to Jozi for a handover event at Churchills bar in Melrose Arch. Please forgive my blurry piccies. I was stuck using my kak back up camera that night – long story – and it handles low light horribly. Check out SAFashiongirl’s post on the event for much nicer shots.

It was here that I consumed waaay too many whiskeys and got hypnotised by mentalist-magician Larry Soffer. Larry never fails to impress, what with his crazy coin bending and what not, but this time he kind of knocked it out the park/totally freaked me out.

You see, he had myself and Truth Coffee’s David Donde (AKA The Biggest Skeptic in the World) hop up on stage, close our eyes and pretend we were in a garden. Once relaxed/possibly hypnotised out of our minds, Larry would say ‘I’m going to touch you now.’ He’d then proceed to tap my arm or nose or whatever and then, afterwards, ask David and I to show us where he touched us.

Easy enough, right? Except get this – the entire time, he’d only been touching me. Not David at all! And yet David still ‘felt it’ every single time, God knows how, and the two of us would show Larry exactly where in perfect sync. Crazy, crazy stuff! Now, if I pop into Truth and David doesn’t give me a free coffee I’ll merrily punch myself in the face and watch him cry about it.

Anyway, while at the bar, we were given the option of getting help in setting up our phones but I declined ‘cos I’m a difficult cow. I wanted to do it myself to see if it was as easy as setting up an iPhone. And yep, the whole experience was seriously easy peasy. I’ve been using it for a few days now and I’ve been really impressed, especially with the incredible battery life that kicks the iPhone in its moer. The camera’s really good too and based on those two things alone it’s kind of like a blogger’s dream phone.

Also, I thought the fact that it was kind of big would be a buzz kill, but in fact it’s just the opposite. Other phone screens now just look piddly and small and I love watching YouTube videos on it in bed just before I fall asleep (‘cos that’s what sad, single people do) – it kind of feels like having a li’l flatscreen floating on my boobs.

But ja, these are all things I’ll cover a helluva lot more in-depth when I write my actual review later on this month where I cover all my favourite features and list the pros and cons. Much like my dad I’m also a tough nut to crack.

Love, love

Leigh

Update:

Did you see my tweet last night? (I’m @lipglossgirl on twitter). I’d left the house yesterday morning with just 89% battery and a zillion apps open, used it the whole day and then got home 8/9pm to discover I still had 45% battery life left. Errrmiiigod! I then proceeded to use it in bed – catching up on twitter, Instagram, my favourite news sites etc – and have woken up to see it still has 12% battery going on. If you’re an ex-iPhone user who’s used to charging their phone at their desk, in their car and at their friends’ houses, you’ll know this is the equivalent of waking up to find Tom Hardy riding a blerrie unicorn in your garden. Sjoe! And you’ll still have battery life left to snap a piccie of him. With flash sommer! God bless you HTC…

Are any of you girls HTC users, both past or current? I’d love to hear your thoughts.