[One (M9) General] trwnh:
Well, I've been holding off on posting here for a while, until I could gather a few more samples to illustrate my personal experiences with the M9 for the past almost-exactly-2-months. I think I had some comparisons with an iPhone 6 I was using temporarily around the same time, too, but I may have forgotten to copy them off before I restored and sold the iPhone... oops.

Here's a Dropbox folder with the original files (which I may update as I take more samples):

EDIT: I can't post links yet, so parse this on your own.

https:// www (dot) dropbox (dot) com/sh/po555sn6ttjeoat/AADbQ-SUfW8ftqe9V7tEkfcka?dl=0

When I got the M9, I was very wary of the auto results, due to the inconsistent reviews floating around. I don't need much from a camera, but my primary concerns / interests are:

1) accurate colors (so that I can accurately show/remember a scene, accomplish photorealism, or make a record of certain tones),

2) low-light performance (to be able to take a good, acceptable photo in nearly any light conditions), and

3) dynamic range (coming from the M7, dynamic range was sorely lacking in my 2 years with that phone; although it wasn't flat-out terrible, the iPhone 6 would blow out the highlights a lot less even without HDR, and the M7's HDR mode wasn't that great, so I tended to avoid it).

So I wasn't too sure how the M9 would perform in those regards until I got to playing with it. When I bought it, I figured that since it had pretty good RAW capabilities, I could use RAW to shoot any serious photos and auto for anything stupid like Instagram or Snapchat.

EDIT: I can't link full-size pics because XDA, so bear with the formatting here. You can view the image, then remove "/thumb" from the URL to view the corresponding fullsize image.

1.32 was *okay*, and 1.40 has been slightly above expectations. (I haven't updated to 2.7 yet because I don't like some changes in HTC's implementation of 5.1 system features, like not being able to tune the Power Saver Mode anymore.) Below are a few of my choice samples from 1.32:

[IMG="Mine No.13, Red Mountain Park, Birmingham, AL. 1.32 auto @ ISO 400 max, possible sharpness minus. "]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7940995/TRWNH/photosamples/M9/1.32/thumb/20150515-JPG.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG="Mine No.13, Red Mountain Park, Birmingham, AL. RAW in PSX, unknown values again. Clearly much better. "]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7940995/TRWNH/photosamples/M9/1.32/thumb/20150515-RAW2PSX.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG="Opera Tower, Miami, FL. Unprocessed RAW."]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7940995/TRWNH/photosamples/M9/1.32/thumb/20150521_01-RAW2JPG.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG="Opera Tower, Miami, FL. RAW processed in PSX, don't remember the values."]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7940995/TRWNH/photosamples/M9/1.32/thumb/20150521_01-RAW2PSX.jpg[/IMG]

RAW performed quite well, auto had trouble frequently, it was problematic but altogether still quite manageable.

And then 1.40:

[IMG="Lincoln Road, South Beach, FL. RAW in PSX, unknown values."]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7940995/TRWNH/photosamples/M9/1.40/thumb/20150527-RAW2PSX%20%282%29.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG="Lincoln Road, South Beach, FL. RAW in PSX, unknown values."]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7940995/TRWNH/photosamples/M9/1.40/thumb/20150527-RAW2PSX%20%283%29.jpg[/IMG]

You can see I relied a bit too much on boosting the shadows, which sometimes created a slight purplish hue in areas. The dark areas were just too dark for me, and my workflow was tuned to quick processing in PSX instead of doing exposure blends in something more advanced.

[IMG="Bayside Marketplace, Miami, FL. RAW in PSX, unknown values."]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7940995/TRWNH/photosamples/M9/1.40/thumb/20150527-RAW2PSX%20%285%29.jpg[/IMG]

Certainly no wanting of detail here. In broad daylight, the camera is a clear upgrade over the M7's 4MP camera. I don't think I could have resolved those rocks so nicely with the M7, although in 1:1 crop the rocks appear somewhat smooth. (I'm not a pixel peeper, so that doesn't bother me as long as the whole image looks nice.)

[IMG="Wafi Mall, Dubai, UAE. RAW in PSX, unknown values."]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7940995/TRWNH/photosamples/M9/1.40/thumb/20150606_01-RAW2PSX.jpg[/IMG]

(100% crops hidden)

[IMG="Crop from the processed RAW."]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7940995/TRWNH/photosamples/M9/1.40/20150606_01-RAW2PSX-CROP.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG="Crop from unprocessed RAW."]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7940995/TRWNH/photosamples/M9/1.40/20150606_02-JPG-CROP.jpg[/IMG]

You can get some really nice results, and it holds up even when you zoom in. There's some slight noise in the sky, that was introduced by PSX's "Vibrance" boost.

[IMG="Granny's Waffles, Dubai Mall, Dubai, UAE. RAW 2 PSX, unknown values, macro."]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7940995/TRWNH/photosamples/M9/1.40/thumb/20150608_01-RAW2PSX-MACRO.jpg[/IMG]

It's pretty good in macro, too. You can adjust the focus to get a good depth of field effect. Overall, what I like most here is that the colors are very accurate to real-life... the most out of any of the pictures I've shown in this post so far.

[IMG="Amman, Jordan. 5:30am. RAW 2 PSX."]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7940995/TRWNH/photosamples/M9/1.40/thumb/20150618-RAW2PSX.jpg[/IMG]

Even early morning shots are nice, although I had to boost the shadows by a slight amount, approximately 20 or so. Light touches (~15) of vibrance and clarity here.

Yeah, so that's cool, you may ask, it does well in good lighting conditions, especially with RAW. What about nighttime and low-light?

[IMG="Burger Joint, Amman, Jordan. Auto (ISO 400 max)."]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7940995/TRWNH/photosamples/M9/1.40/thumb/20150628_01-JPG.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG="Burger Joint, Amman, Jordan. HDR. It went for a bit of a long exposure."]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7940995/TRWNH/photosamples/M9/1.40/thumb/20150628_02-HDR.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG="Burger Joint, Amman, Jordan. HDR processed in PSX to reduce brightness only."]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7940995/TRWNH/photosamples/M9/1.40/thumb/20150628_03-HDR2PSX.jpg[/IMG]

These low-light shots were better than I was expecting. I was sitting outside near a wall, with the only immediate light source coming from inside the restaurant to my right. There were some streetlights some distance behind and in front of me, but they didn't really reach my seat. The auto shot wasn't bad; it accurately captured the overall brightness of the scene with fairly accurate colors, and a slight lack of detail in my eyes, particularly around the Coca-Cola logo (to be expected out of low light). The HDR shot seemed to capture more detail, because it actually went for a longer exposure time, so of course it captured more light. To get the best shot IMO, I took that HDR picture and brought the brightness down to match what my eyes saw. Not bad at all.

[IMG="Jordan Armed Forces Hotel, Amman, Jordan. (Auto, ISO 400 max."]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7940995/TRWNH/photosamples/M9/1.40/thumb/20150703_02_JPG.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG="A random house in Abdoun, Amman, Jordan. (Auto, ISO 400 max."]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7940995/TRWNH/photosamples/M9/1.40/thumb/20150706_02-JPG-LOWLIGHT.jpg[/IMG]

Just straight-up auto shots here, no RAWs to look at. These shots are definitely at least "acceptable" by most people's standards. The hotel may have lost some detail, but it makes up for it with more accurate colors than, say, the Galaxy S6. In the second photo, it's much the same, although the colors are only fairly accurate due to even less illumination (only one streetlight behind me).

[IMG="Outside of Gerard Ice Cream, Abdoun Circle. Abdoun, Amman, Jordan. Taken in Instagram's Photo view."]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7940995/TRWNH/photosamples/M9/1.40/thumb/20150706_01-JPG-LOWLIGHT-5MP-IG.jpg[/IMG]

This one's 5MP instead of 16MP (Medium) like the others, because it was actually taken in Instagram's Photo composer. Only two streetlights or so, and the results were surprisingly good by my standards. I didn't think it would be nearly this good here, so this photo exceeded expectations.

There are more photos in the Dropbox folder, and I'll probably add more over time, but the M9 is legitimately not as bad of a camera as I thought it would be. I feared for the worst coming from my M7's Ultrapixel camera, but it's not bad. Low light could be BETTER, yeah, and it's still frustrating occasionally where I have to take a longer exposure than I would with my M7 (about 4x as long on average), so it's a good thing I have freakishly steady hands for those 2-second shots. But overall... it's certainly acceptable, even good as of 1.40, and while I still think it could be better (especially with things like pixel binning, or if HTC had opted to go for a wider aperture, or 13MP at 1.4um or 8MP at 1.um, or something like that...), the main question should be, is it good enough? More importantly, is it good enough for you? For me, I have to float a tentative yes, and hope for future updates to continue to improve. Imagine taking that 20MP sensor and doing a 2x2 bin to end up with 5MP of 2.24um pixels... that would be basically like having Ultrapixels again, except even brighter and with more detail. Best of both worlds. Ah, I can dream, can't I...?

(Addendum: I don't take any videos on mobile, so I don't have any samples there, but from the few times I've recorded something like a Snapchat video... it's fine with lighting, it's nearly impossible to see in the dark.)

(Wow, formatting took a while on this post.)