Last year’s HTC One wowed critics and serious Android smartphone users the world over with its impeccable design and fast internals, even if it couldn’t quite beat the market dominance of Samsung’s Galaxy S4. The Taiwanese company hasn’t given up by a long shot, however, as they’ve announced the impending release of the new HTC One, which previously was given the codename M8 (last year’s one was codenamed M7).
The screen is a little bit bigger at 5 inches with 1080p resolution, and the chassis is a little heavier at 160g, due to the new One being made of 90% aluminium as opposed to last year’s model with its 70% metal unibody. The One runs on the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core chip, the fastest in the industry (for now) with 2GB of RAM, and features not one, but two rear cameras with the same Ultrapixel technology introduced last year – plus a Lytro-like UFocus feature which lets you decide which part of your photos to focus on after you’ve taken it. The new One sports improved dual front Boomsound speakers, packing more punch than last year’s model. It also features a massive battery capable of lasting 30 hours with moderate use, and a microSIM slot for expanding the internal 32GB of storage by up to 128GB more.
The new HTC One also sports a few improvements under the hood. Running Android 4.4.2 KitKat as its base, the manufacturer has engineered the latest version of its Sense user interface, called Sixth Sense – because how else would you capitalise on the sixth version of your UI? Sixth Sense features an improved Blinkfeed, a Flipboard-like news and social aggregator integrated into the home screen, and overhauled interfaces for its image gallery and camera apps, the ability to turn on the screen by tapping on it twice, one-swipe voice dialing, and the ability to pick up a phone call by, well, just picking up the phone. For Android purists, HTC has announced that it will also be shipping out Google Play Experience versions of the new One with a more stock UI experience, just like it did for last year’s One.
HTC Malaysia reps told Lowyat.net that they’re hoping for the HTC One to get to Malaysian shores by the end of April, pitting it once more against Samsung’s impending flagship, the Galaxy S5.
Will you be upgrading to what seems to be the new contender for Android phone of the year?
See Also: Samsung unleashes the Galaxy S5 at MWC
