HTC mystery device the rumoured 5″ phablet?

We brought you news of some sketchy photos taken of a mystery HTC device last week, and the update when some more photos were uncovered.

Well it should come as no surprise now that this mystery HTC phone has made another appearance, this time with a much better quality photo and a better aspect. The team over at AndroidAndMe have taken matters into their own hands to see if they could find a way to measure the size of the screen, hoping it would match up with the 5-inch HTC phablet rumors floating around.

THe latest image, being of higher quality and almost directly front on, gave the guys the perfect angle to do some investigative work. Since the image is a straight-on picture of the device, they were able to pull it into Photoshop and align it with a handful of other HTC phones.

Examination of the devices revealed that HTC’s capacitive buttons below the screen are the same size across all devices, regardless of screen size. With this knowledge, the guys took an image of the HTC EVO 4G LTE and sized it down so that its capacitive buttons were as close in size to the capacitive buttons on the mystery device. Next, they measured the size of the screens and used the size of the 4.7-inch display on the EVO as a yard stick.

While the methodology may be somewhat crude, they managed to confirm that the device has a 5″ screen, leading them to conclude that the pictured device is directly related to the HTC 6435 5-inch phablet that’s heading to Verizon.

Not the most incredible news for an Australian audience, until you consider that the pictured device is free of Verizon branding, which is typically found on other Verizon handsets. This means one of two things. One, it’s a development model and the branding hasn’t yet been applied, or, perhaps more interesting, is the possibility this is an un-branded international GSM variety which could end up on Australian shores.

Here’s hoping. Are you interested in seeing a 5″ phablet from HTC? Let us know in the comments.