HTC’s next flagship looks killer

Even before HTC has officially unveiled their next flagship device, multiple leaks have pretty much revealed the entire picture ahead of the official March reveal. The new device goes by a couple of names – M8, HTC One 2, All New HTC One, HTC One 2014. Whatever the name of HTC’s new flagship is, it’s the company’s play to get back into the Android game, as it knows it has an uphill battle to fight against more established players like Samsung, Sony and Apple.

DESIGN

Twitter tipster @evleaks leaked the first ever press shot of the New One in hold, and then in stylish gray. We’ve always been fond of HTC’s designs, as the company has always created beautiful smartphones in the past, and it looks like the New One will be the same. Judging from the renders, the New One will have an Aluminum unibody construction, and very slim bezels. On the back, you’ll clearly see the rumored dual-camera setup. The new HTC One will also supposedly carry a bigger 5-inch display, which is slightly bigger than the one in the current HTC One. The display, according to the rumors, will have a full HD display.

INTERNALS

As far as the processor goes, it’s not hard to guess what’s going inside the new HTC One. NVIDIA’s K1 solution won’t be reaching devices until the second half of Q2, which means that the HTC One will possibly be carrying Qualcomm’s latest and greatest, the Snapdragon 805. Why will the 805 be in the new HTC One and not the K1? Well for starters, the 805 was announced two months ahead of the K1, which gives Qualcomm a head start in actually firing up production for the new chips.

Of course, there’s still a chance that HTC would utilize the Snapdragon 800 processor, just like what LG did with their latest hi-end device, the G2 Pro. Leaked benchmarks in AnTuTu back in November with a ROM code of htc_m8-userdebug|4.4|KRT16O showed a device using a variant of the Snapdragon processor family, MSM8974AB. Users theorize that the AB designation stuck to the end is an upgrade of sorts to stock Snapdragon 800 chip, which gave the alleged M8 36,000 points in AnTuTu.

SOFTWARE

One of HTC’s enduring legacies in the Android ecosystem was its sense UI, an Android overlay similar to Samsung’s TouchWiz UI and LG’s Optimus UI. The new One will also be the first HTC device that will have on-screen buttons. While the new One will have a UI overlay, it’s interesting to note that none of the leaks actually referred to the new UI as Sense 6.0. Could it be that HTC is retiring one of its longest running traditions?

CAMERA

The new HTC One will likely still use HTC’s Ultra Pixel technology, and the AnTuTu leak somewhat confirms the 4-megapixel resolution on the main cameras. Before you start commenting about the low megapixel count, remember that HTC’s Ultra Pixel sensors are different from most sensors of other cameras, anc capture significantly more light than typical smartphone camera sensors.

The dual-camera setup seen on the new One is not a 3D setup. There are two camps of speculation for the cameras – one theory is that HTC divvied up the low-light and regular light shooting duties to each of the cameras. Another is that the two cameras make it possible to refocus a picture after it is taken.

Like our piece on the Galaxy S5, all of the information we presented above are pretty much rumors at this point. There’s nothing confirmed as of yet – the only way we’ll find out for sure is when HTC pulls the curtains on March 25.