Here's the Top 10 most Handy Tips & Tricks of the HTC One M8. Make a use of your new HTC Smartphone capabilities.





1- Customize Quick Settings to suit your needs

The Quick Settings menu is packed with handy shortcuts, but you may find that some are less useful than others. Fear not, as you can mess about with the order of the settings by tapping the Pen and Paper icon in the top-right corner of the screen. Using this method, you can push up the more important toggles to the top of the Quick Settings menu.

2- Enable faster typing



Trace-to-type has been available on Android for ages thanks to the availability of the Swype keyboards, but many handset makers are now baking it into the firmware and HTC is no exception. When the keyboard is open, long-press the key with the "cog" icon to access the keyboard settings menu. Make sure "Trace keyboard" is ticked and you're away.

3- Make your phone even faster by enabling ART runtime

With Developer Mode enabled you can switch on the experimental ART runtime. Android currently uses Dalvik Runtime, but Google is going to move over to ART in a future update. ART is a "Ahead of time" compiler, and should make your phone feel faster. You can always revert back to Dalvik if you don't find it to your liking, but we think that the difference is genuinely noticeable.

4- Control your TV, AC, Home theater wit your M8

The HTC One M8 boasts an IR blaster, which means you can use it as a conventional remote control to change channels, toggle the volume and generally perform other tasks. You'll need to tell the phone which brand of TV, AC, BD, DVD... etc that you own for it to work properly, but once you've done this you'll never have to fumble around the living room for your remote ever again. You'll find this feature in the TV app.

5- Hide annoying and bloatware applications

HTC has done a decent job of keeping bloatware applications to a minimum on the One M8, but you may still find yourself wanting to get rid of some of the more annoying programs in your app drawer. Bloatware is so named because it cannot be uninstalled, but you can still hide it from view.

In the app drawer, tap the three dot icon in the top-right corner of the display and then select "Hide/Unhide" apps. Tick the ones you want to remove from view and you'll be on your way to a less cluttered phone.

6- Answer a call just by picking the phone up

There's nothing more natural than scooping up a phone and answering it in one motion, and the HTC One M8 allows you to do just that. Using the proximity sensors located near the top of the device, the handset can tell when you've placed it next to your ear and will automatically answer the call.

7- Use gestures to control your phone quickly and easily

The HTC One M8 is all about gestures, and it comes with a series of quick swipe gestures branded "Motion Launch" by HTC which can be used to open certain applications even when your phone's display is powered down and it's sitting on your coffee table.

A double-tap wakes or locks the phone, while swipes from the left and right open BlinkFeed or your home screen respectively. You can wake the phone in the state it was when it locked by swiping up from the bottom of the screen, and swiping downwards fires up the dialer so you can make a call quickly.

8- Disable BlinkFeed

BlinkFeed is HTC's way of aggregating everything that is important to you, including RSS feeds, social networking updates, forthcoming calendar appointments and more. It's a pretty swell application, but Android purists often complain that it feels like it's being forced upon them. If you don't like it then you'll be pleased to know that there's a way to disable it completely.

On any homescreen, simply perform a "pinch zoom" gesture with two fingers. You'll see an overview of all your homescreens, with BlinkFeed appearing on the far left. Long-press BlinkFeed and then drag it to the "remove" icon, it will be banished forever, or at least until you decide that you want to reinstate it.

9- Create an animated GIF from a Zoe clip

HTC's Zoe shooting mode complies a video from a set of images, and is a great way to share precious moments with others. It's even easier to exchange these memories thanks to the option to transform a segment of a Zoe clip into an animated GIF file, which can be viewed on most phones, tablets and computers. Simply select the Zoe clip, tap "Edit" and then select "GIF Creator".

10- Show your battery level as a percentage

By default, the HTC One M8 displays your current battery stamina as an icon rather than a percentage, which gives a quick visual indication of how much juice remains in the tank but isn't entirely precise. Thankfully, you can display a percentage by going to Settings > Power > Show Battery Level.