While competitors such as Samsung have seen significant success with their larger smartphone-tablet hybrids, HTC has avoided that particular segment of the market, sticking to traditional size devices such as the HTC One and HTC One mini. With the rumored HTC One Max that's set to change; today we got the first glance at what the 5.9-inch device will look like.
Unsurprisingly the phone is styled similar to the other phones in HTC's One line, stretched to accommodate the larger display. In terms of build materials it appears to be closer to the One mini which uses a combination of plastic and aluminium in its design, as opposed to the essentially all-aluminium design of the One.
Taiwanese site ePrice leaked the above image of the HTC One Max and claims that the device will have the same display resolution as the HTC One (1920 x 1080), which at 5.9-inches would roughly equate to a density of 373 PPI. The phablet will also come with a sizable 3,300 mAh battery and Qualcomm's most powerful 2.3 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 chip alongside 2 GB of RAM.
The site claims a dual-SIM version of the One Max is being tested in China, and the design features a removable back cover where the two SIM card slots and a microSD card slot are hidden behind. The phone is said to come with storage options between 16 and 64 GB, and if the single-SIM version also features a microSD card this would be a bonus for customers.
HTC is expected to reveal the device at Berlin's IFA trade show in September, where Samsung will also likely unveil a third-generation Galaxy Note phablet to compete against it.