HTC‘s One was one of the Ausdroid team’s favourite handsets of 2013 with its sharp full HD screen, “BoomSound” front-facing speakers and the “Ultrapixel” camera that finally delivered a camera that performed well in low-light situations, albeit 4 MP at a time.
As we approach the end of the year, we’re starting to see information released (or “leaked”, if you prefer) for its successor. AnTuTu is reporting that a device identified as htc_m8-userdebug|4.4|KRT16O has shown up in the AnTuTu database.
The device in question seems to have been turning in some impressive results:
The device specifications, from AnTuTu’s report:
- Snapdragon 800 CPU, Adreno 330 GPU
- 4 MP rear-facing camera, 2.1 MP front
- 1080p Full HD resolution
- 2 GB RAM
- 16 GB storage
- Android 4.4
Some of this isn’t too surprising – the Snapdragon 800 CPU is an obvious step up from the One’s Snapdragon 600 (indeed, some notable devices have already launched with it, and 2 GB of RAM is pretty much a given for most top-end Android devices these days.
Last week, a tweet from @evleaks suggested that the Full HD screen would graduate to 5 inches, a slight increase over the current One’s 4.7 inches. HTC may be looking to pull off the same trick that LG and Samsung have performed over the course of 2013 – a larger screen in the same-size device – if it does some work to reduce the One’s admittedly fairly large bezels that surround its screen. If not, they’ll run the risk of blurring the lines between the just-released One Max and its smaller brethren.
Another point of contention is the camera – today’s leak suggests that the company will use the same camera in its 2014 flagship. While the One’s camera focused on low-light performance with its larger-than-average “Ultrapixels”, I found it disappointing if I needed to zoom into a photo that might not have been perfectly framed, or if I needed to crop something in the distance of a shot. Low-light performance and optical image stabilisation are great, but 4 megapixels is still 4 megapixels. This is a point of contention — HTC believes most users don’t zoom into photos taken on their device. Hopefully they’re still working on the next Ultrapixel camera, and it’s just not in the test device yet – I’d like to see them move this technology forward in 2014.
Finally, we’ve got to wonder what everyone else is wondering but is afraid to ask — what’s the device going to be called? HTC’s used the “One” moniker in various forms over the past couple of years. Maybe it’s time for a new, less-confusing name?
We may not have long to wait to find the answers to these questions – still more rumours point to an early 2014 announcement from HTC.
Are you interested in HTC’s 2014 flagship, whatever it’ll be called? Got any ideas on a name? What would you like to see in the device? Let us know in the comments!
I have both the HTC one and nexus 5 and the camera in the nexus takes better pictures in both greatt light and low light although the HTC camera is a lot faster, IMO the 4mp camera in the one is ordinary
gah! still 4 megapixels! forget whether people zoom in, some people want to view their photos on computer screens,TVs and god forbid, have prints made!
I hope this is an error, 6 or a tad more please!
and either fix the button layout or just go onscreen buttons and shave some bezel off. both the One and the S4 were both excellent phones but had serious flaws to deal with if you opted for them.
You do realise that full HD is 2 megapixels?
yes. 4k TV’s are gonna be great for photos.
Hopefully by then, our phones will have more than 4 megapixels
It will be HTC Two. I think the smartphone market is at the point where specs don’t mean much anymore. That spec is pretty much the same as this year’s phones. My only hope is that they focus more on the battery life ie. 10 HOURS!! screen on time…something like that ^^
clearly it shall be called the HTC One Two.
How about HTC One (2014 Edition)?
The new HTC One
haha you take photos with your phone? that’s cute.
I gotta agree, 4MP just isn’t good enough. Might be great for selfies taken inside, but that doesn’t suit me. I love HTC phones but won’t buy one with the 4MP camera.
The same specs as the 16GB Nexus 5 that you can buy today for $400? Not much of a “flagship” to take HTC through 2014…
Couldn’t agree with you more. Though how nice would it be to have an N5 with forward facing speakers! I’m not an HTC fan (I’ve owned a One XL), but I would kill for forward facing speakers.
Yes, N5 owner here and the only thing I’d like to steal from the HTC One are the speakers. Having said that, I use the speakers very rarely on my phone as it is.
N4 owner here waiting patiently on his N5 to arrive!!
I do agree with you, it’s not often I listen to audio through the speakers these days (BT Headphones, Chromecast etc). But on the odd occasion I’m trying to show somebody a video on my phone, you really miss it!
Bear in mind the Nexus 5’s retail price of $699.
Would be 100% interested (as would have been the case with the One), but I just can’t justify a 4MP shooter, no matter how good those 4 megapixels are. 8MP is a minimum for ‘usable’ photos.
Just pump that camera up to 8. The 4MP didn’t work out.