Smartphones are always there, at our sides, waiting to perform their duties. As the market has filled with smartphones, one the primary uses of a smartphone is to act as a camera. As a result, the cameras on smartphones have continued to grow more and more advanced, allowing people to better capture their lives with higher resolutions and more complex features.

HTC has always prided itself on smartphone cameras. The company has experimented quite a bit in the past, and it garnered a fair amount of attention when it announced the HTC One M7 with an UltraPixel camera. While UltraPixel cameras were a novel idea, the images they produced lacked the clarity and size of competitor’s cameras. As a result, HTC dropped the UltraPixel camera in the HTC One M9 and switched to a standard 20-megapixel camera.

It’s been said time and time again that megapixels aren’t everything, and the One M9 further emphasizes that point. It packs in 20 megapixels, but the photos it produces are merely decent. So what else does it bring to the table? It also has a sapphire lens cover, f/2.2 aperture and a 27.8mm lens.

In general, the One M9 captures good photos. They won’t stun you, but they won’t disappoint either. Colors are fairly accurate (albeit with occasional white balance issues) and most photos come out sharp and in focus. One trend I noticed is that without HDR enabled, most photos come out bland and a bit washed out. Turning on HDR vastly improves the quality of the photo, meaning that if you’re in a situation that allows for the use of HDR, you should use it.

HTC’s camera software is relatively easy to use. There are plenty of options available, which can make it a bit hard to find certain choices, but it’s straightforward and intuitive. It also happens to be ridiculously fast, making it great for quick action settings. Need to grab a quick shot? Simply open the app and you’re ready to go. Auto focusing is fast and usually accurate, providing even more of a speed boost. If you’re into manual adjustments, you have full control in HTC’s app, including the ability to shoot in RAW for future editing.

The camera on the HTC One M9 is a good camera. It won’t set any new bars, but it’s reliable and gives perfectly acceptable results in most situations, which is what most customers are looking for. All around, it gets a thumbs up.

Check out some camera samples below.

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