HTC unveils One M8 smartphone with larger screen, depth-sensing rear camera

Shawn Knight

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htc introduces m8 smartphone today htc smartphone m8

The oft-leaked HTC One (M8) is now official as the company took the wraps off their latest flagship smartphone on Tuesday. The new HTC One features a 5-inch Super LCD3 display operating at 1,920 x 1,080 that’s good for 441 pixels per inch – all covered by Gorilla Glass 3. Under the hood is a 2.3GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC with Adreno 330 graphics, 2GB of system memory and your choice of either 16GB or 32GB of flash storage.

Around back is a 4-megapixel, f/2.0 UltraPixel camera with a 28mm lens. It’s certainly not going to win any awards in terms of sheer pixel count but the combination of a one-third-inch BSI sensor with 2µm pixels capable of absorbing 330 percent more photons equates to a shooter that isn’t half bad – so long as you don’t need to zoom in on anything.

htc introduces m8 smartphone today htc smartphone m8

It may look like there are two rear cameras on the new One but you’d be incorrect. The aforementioned camera is flanked by the dual LED flash and what you see above it is actually a depth sensor. This sensor works in tandem with the phone’s camera to offer up some pretty nifty post-production effects.

Love it or hate it, selfies are trendy among those with a flair for social media. HTC is one of the first smartphone makers that I’m aware of to recognize the trend as evident by the 5-megapixel, f/2.0, BSI, wide-angle front-facing shooter on the new One.

htc introduces m8 smartphone today htc smartphone m8

Elsewhere, the M8 features dual-band, 802.11a/ac/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 with AptX, NFC, a 2,600mAh non-removable battery and Android 4.4.2 with a Sense 6.0 overlay.

Pricing is set at $199 for the 16GB version and $249 for the larger 32GB variety with a standard two-year service agreement. Those wanting to purchase the handset outright can do so sans agreement for $649 – or in other words, typical pricing for a smartphone of this caliber.

It’s being offered online via AT&T, Sprint and Verizon as of writing; T-Mobile customers will have to wait until next month, we’re hearing. All said and done, the phone will be available through 230 carriers in more than 100 countries around the globe.

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Except for camera (which should have been bumped to at least 8mp with OIS imho) it seems to be a very good package. Construction materials wise HTC has been light years ahead of plasticky rubbish of Samsung. And I think One is still the best looking phone amongst all the droid crowd.
 
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Anybody got any info on the dual-sim variant of the M8 yet?
Will it support 4G? (The original HTC One did not)
 
It's a nice blower but I really can't tell the difference between this and the outgoing model in terms of looks. Then again the Samsung GS3 to the GS5 look like triplets to me and that's probably not a bad thing for most people, myself included.
 
Except for camera (which should have been bumped to at least 8mp with OIS imho) it seems to be a very good package. Construction materials wise HTC has been light years ahead of plasticky rubbish of Samsung. And I think One is still the best looking phone amongst all the droid crowd.

I agree, I wish they had bumped it up to 8MP. Crappy zoom is my only complaint of the One's camera. However, it would come at the sacrifice of low-light pictures and hardly ever having to use a flash is pretty nice.

They asked HTC why OIS wasn't included and they said it wouldn't have fit in there with the 2nd camera/depth sensor on the back, and they said it's less needed now with the depth sensor. From the quick reviews out so far no one has complained about it missing. As usual I won't believe everything I read and won't make any big speculation until Anandtech comes out with a full review.

One of the things that sounded most attractive to me was the battery life. Reviewers claimed it was hard to kill the battery in one day.
 
What I really don't like in this phone and others similar - their pathetic attempts to produce and show off an edge-to-edge screen, while in reality just covering the thick frame with black plastic to make it look as if part of the screen.

I think LG came much closer to the edge-to-edge design these days, and I hope iPhone 6 will show the real edge-to-edge screen at last.
 
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