We’ve passed April 10th and you know what that means—the official release of the HTC One M9 here in the US. I have the Verizon version here so I just wanted to go ahead and unbox it for you guys to see if there’s really anything special in here Verizon-related and just to see how much Verizon vandalized this device with its logos.

So this is the HTC One M9 and it’s actually really easy to get inside the M9 box. All we have to do is slide off the cover and then lift off the top of the box and we will find the HTC One M9 sitting to the left. To the right of the device, we have a piece of cardboard paper that kind of holds the HTC One M9 in the box and has some information about HTC’s Uh Oh Protection plan.

Basically, HTC will replace your phone for free within the first twelve months for a cracked screen or water damage. And if you don’t need a replacement after those twelve months and up, HTC will give you $100 towards the purchase of your next HTC One; that being the HTC One M10, I’m assuming. So it’s actually very nice of them to include this insurance plan with the purchase of every HTC One M9. But I’m going to set the device off to the side for a moment because underneath the Uh Oh Protection cardboard piece of paper.

We have some official HTC earphones with removable red tips. It actually looked pretty decent and pretty darn stylish. I always find it nice to find included earphones with the purchase of a smartphone regardless if I’m actually going to use it or not. I think it’s still nice to have them included. There is also a standard USB charging cable in here along with an HTC branded wall wart that will work in conjunction with the microUSB cable to help you charge your new M9. To the left of that stuff, we have a pamphlet with an HTC SIM card ejector tool and inside of that we have a bunch of Verizon info in both Spanish and English.

There’s a Get to Know Your Phone guide, a Global Support Information and Toll-free Numbers pamphlet, Important Consumer Information pamphlet that is literally what it says, and then a Consumer Information about radio frequency emission and responsible driving packet, as well as a Product Safety and Warranty Information Packet. Wow that was a lot of pamphlets. I really doubt you’ll even look through this stuff but hey, it’s nice to have them included right?

Anyways, that is all that is included in the box. So let’s go ahead and take a look at the star of the show—the HTC One M9 in gunmetal gray. I’ve never laid hands on this device prior to this video, FYI. But I’m blown away by the build quality. The back is super smooth and the device feels incredibly solid, it’s just really well-made just like the previous HTC One M8.

If we take a look around the device, we will find the microSD card slot above the volume up and down controls on the right hand side above the power sleep on/off button. The SIM card slot is located on the left hand side and there’s a very large plastic IR blaster located on the top of the device with the micro USB charging port and 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom.

The front of the HTC One M9 is home to the iconic BoomSound stereo speakers and 4 UltraPixel front-facing camera as well as some ambient light sensors and then a 5-inch 1080p Super LCD display. On the back, you will find a 20.7MP camera sensor and dual LED flash with an HTC logo below that and then the Verizon 4G LTE logo below that. And you know what, with the gunmetal gray configuration I can’t really notice the Verizon tramp stamp very much. It’s definitely there but it looks more sleek and subdued than on other devices so that is definitely good. I always try and look at the positive.

With that said, I absolutely love the brushed metallic build construction of the HTC One M9. It’s an impressive device and I’m glad HTC continued to include the microSD card slot for expandable storage here even with an all metal build construction.

If we take a look at the software, it is running Android 5.0.2 Lollipop with the Sense 7.0 skin, Blinkfeed is still definitely present here and can be found by swiping left on the home screen. There’s also a new widget that is supposed to deliver you personalized apps and information based off your location so I’ll definitely be sure to test that the more I use this device. I also noticed quite a bit of Verizon bloatware that can’t be uninstalled. They stuck most of it in its own folder but I still would have liked to have been able to remove it. In terms of overall performance though, based off first impressions, it’s a very quick device. The Snapdragon 810 octa-core processor is an absolute beast.

To be honest, I’m not exactly wild with the performance or the display quality. I think I’ll have to put on the Google Play Launcher and tweak some of the developer settings to really notice the speed. The display isn’t bad at all, it just really didn’t wow me that much. I mean, not every device can wow me. But that’s necessarily a bad thing. It just happens.

I’m definitely going to continue to test the HTC One M9 some more so let me know what you think of the HTC One M9 and the Verizon tramp stamp and the bloatware. Does it bother you? Let us know and check out Cam and Marco’s coverage of the HTC One M9 and see what they think of this device over on PhoneDog YouTube channel.