HTC is expected to unveil its next flagship smartphone at Mobile World Congress next week… but alleged specs and pictures of the upcoming HTC One M9 have been leaking for weeks. Now a few leaked videos give us the best idea of what to expect yet.
Note that HTC hasn’t officially announced anything yet, but it’s a lot easier to fake a picture than a promotional video, so there’s a pretty good chance the videos are legit.
First up, the 2015 HTC One M9 looks almost exactly like the 2014 HTC One M8. That’s not necessarily a bad thing: last year’s phone had a rather attractive design and front-facing stereo speakers. But a lot of folks had really been hoping for something new.
There is one major visual change: there’s a single lens camera on the back of the phone instead of a dual-lens camera. That’s because HTC has reportedly replaced the Duo camera with a new 20MP camera. The front-facing camera, meanwhile, is now an HTC UltraPixel camera which allows more light in, allowing you to snap better selfies in low-light settings.
The videos also show off software features including a new Photo Editor app, a 3-finger swipe gesture to bring up HTC Connect for streaming music or video to other devices, and a home widget that lets you adjust the apps on your desktop depending on your location. There’s also a Themes feature which lets you customize your home screen with wallpapers and more.
We’ll still have to wait for official confirmation from HTC before we know for certain what other features the phone has or when it’s expected to go on sale, but it’s expected to feature some sort of Qualcomm Snapdragon processor (likely the Snapdragon 810) and 4G LTE.
The HTC One M9 videos were originally posted (then removed… then re-published) by @upleaks. Update: And now the @upleaks Twitter account seems to be missing in action. Update 2: And the account has been restored.
Same thing except better camera, processor, and speakers. Same design, with ugly htc black space making device asymmetrical! No thanks, I will stick with Oneplus One, glad I sold my m8 to get it.
Just another observation. HTC needs to step it up if their promo videos are being leaked (IIRC in previous years specs, benchmarks, renders and pics were leaked but not videos). If all of this is legit, what the heck are they going to do for their presentation this Sunday? I hope there’s actually new info released then.
I was hoping that the full glass front with subdued speakers renders were more accurate. I’ll most likely get it anyway since I like HTC’s software and build, am not too big of a fan of Samsung’s (though I love their multi-window functionality and their Wacom pens). Also I’m afraid of screen burn-in associated with OLED (which is actually one thing that worries me about the new OLED TVs to be frank).
So for phones that leaves HTC and Sony with my preference being HTC.
Still, those other renders sure were pretty…
It’s sad how small that screen is for such a big body, those looks are getting outdated too and this 2 years old design is becoming too bulky. If they really tried to cut costs by going 1080p here, the only way to sell this is with a significant price cut and even then they still don’t have a competitive flagship in 2015 terms.
They keep going on this absurd path that fewer and fewer customers prefer.
idk i have the first one (m7) which also uses 1080p (on a 4.7″ screen, i believe) and unless i abuse reading glasses and tell myself i’m using a tablet, pushing all those pixels wastes a lot of battery. i always carry an external.
over 300ppi, i really wonder if it’s a waste of power pushing all that light through the lcd subpixels and you’re far beyond diminishing returns
i’m more hoping they’ve gotten back on the *optical* image stabilisation bandwagon and kept the micro sd slot. sad that replaceable battery is too much to ask, but the stacked design inside that they use does indeed seem complex