HTC One M8 review: Is this the best smartphone ever made?

After two weeks living with HTC's new flagship handset, here are our thoughts.

It's one of the best, purest Android experiences there is, with less 'bloatware' - pre-loaded apps that can't be deleted - than Samsung, in particular. Straight out of the box it's perfectly intuitive.

If you're already an Android user, getting started should be a cinch. You realise just how much of your online life is tied to your Google iD when it seamlessly brings across your apps, email accounts and even your background picture.

But we struggled with the HTC Transfer tool - designed to import contacts, settings, pictures, videos and SMS messages, when we tested it from a Samsung Galaxy S3 it refused to bring our texts across.

The phone itself looks pin-sharp. The single-piece brushed-metal case is sleek and smooth. It's not a small phone - is anything these days? - but the screen runs almost edge-to-edge, making you feel like you're getting the best out of the five-inch display.

[Galaxy S5 outperformed by HTC One M8 and iPhone 5S in tests]

Having a metal body does mean the new One suffers from overheating as badly as the old One - run a game or several basic apps for any length of time and it gets surprisingly toasty.

This is mitigated - insulated, if you like - by one of the M8's coolest features, however: the Dot view smart case. This is a hard plastic rear case with a softer, rubbery, flip lid on the front.

It's great because: it comes with the phone. No more spending silly money on overpriced phone cases. It offers a reasonable level of protection, and it's not too bulky. But mostly it's great because it's very clever. The rubbery front 'lid' has a dot-matrix design that is capable of displaying information. Double-tap the lid and the time, date, and weather pop up, displayed in endearingly gameboy-esque dot style.

It gets better - incoming calls display on the case, and you can swipe up to answer without even opening it. When you do open the case, the phone recognises that you've done so, and activates the screen.

So far, so much a stroke of genius. But the Dot View cover annoys because a) it covers up the phone's good looks (although given that it's worth £530, we concede that some kind of cover is needed) and b) it makes using the phone harder. The lid is just springy enough to always want to flip closed, so you find yourself either folding it back behind the phone (making the whole thing thicker, and slightly wobbly when you're typing) or holding it open while you jab with one hand.

It's not a fatal flaw, but it would be nice if it could have incorporated some kind of magnetic clasp to hold the lid open behind the phone - like a smart cover does on an iPad.

The phone itself is a perfomance powerhouse. 4G browsing (we tested on Vodafone) is as fast as you expect it to be, and better yet, we found it plugged gaps in our 3G network coverage.

[Why I wouldn't wear Google Glass - Jason Bradbury]

It can easily run a dozen apps without you noticing a slowdown, and better yet, it doesn't drain the battery too heavily. In general, we're finding that it can just about do two days of average use on a charge.

The sound is by a long, long way the best we've heard from a phone. The speakers sound surprisingly deep and rounded - it's not flat or tinny like most phones, and you could definitely use it instead of any sub £100 bluetooth speaker. It's loud, too - and the same applies when using headphones. Media is a real strong point of the M8.

Another strong point is photography. The M8 has a front-facing (we refuse to say 'selfie') camera and two - yes, two - rear cameras. This allows for some brilliant depth-of-field editing, whereby you can refocus an image once you've taken it, with the Ufocus setting in the gallery app. There are dozens of other features, all worth exploring, but this is definitely the most exciting.

Filming video is also improved - and you can now instantly select still frames from a clip that you've just shot.

Something we would criticise - from the point of view of hands-on, nerdy users - is an occasional inability to get stuck in. For example, there's no file browsing app included as standard. But overall it's really hard to find anything the HTC One M8 is doing wrong.