HTC One M9 release date, news and rumors
Latest update: Feature videos for the HTC One M9 have leaked out showing the phone in full - but it seems not much has changed from the M8. There's a slightly different design and the cameras have been upped to 4MP UltraPixel on the front and 20MP on the rear.
While there's a huge amount of rumors floating around, we don't know anything for sure about the HTC One M9 (other than the fact that it's coming and is codenamed Hima) just yet other than it's going to be a massive deal. Could it be the best Android phone of 2015?
Mooted specs include a QHD display, Snapdragon 810 processor, 3GB of RAM, a waterproof body and more megapixels in the camera, making the One M9 one of the highest-specification phones on the market.
Cut to the chase
- What is it? HTC's next flagship smartphone
- When is it out? Launch event set for March 1
- What will it cost? Likely at least £549 / $649 / AU$849
HTC One M9 release date
HTC sent out invites to an event on March 1 at MWC 2015 in Barcelona, where we're pretty sure the company will reveal its new flagship handset.
The Korean firm has also advertised the "new HTC One" during a UEFA Champions League game alongside the March 1 date once again.
While the announcement is nailed down, there's no news just yet on the HTC One M9 release date.
The One M8 was available right after the announcement, but we don't expect the same thing to happen this year, it'll likely be a month or maybe even a little longer until it's available to the public.
HTC One M9 design and screen
Expect another full metal uni-body on the HTC One M9, after near universal praise for the One M8's distinctive design. The design was one of the key reasons we voted it TechRadar's Phone of the Year 2014.
According to @upleaks the One M9 will feature with a 5-inch 1080p display set inside a body with 144.3 x 69.4 x 9.56mm dimensions. That'd make it a little shorter than the One M8 but also a little fatter.
It's a strange move considering handsets are generally getting thinner and thinner with each iteration, but the bezels are heavily rumored to be knocked down a notch as well.
A prototype showing off this design was sent to Nowherelse.fr and the images you see below show it doesn't stray far from the One M8 design. These shots also fall in the line with a number of other leaked images claiming to be the One M9, providing further evidence this could indeed be the real deal.
And here's the back of that leaked prototype from NoWhereElse.
The images look pretty legit from where we're standing - plus it suggests there will be a gold edition this time around.
HTC One M9 rivals
HTC's big flagship has some stiff competition. The iPhone 6 is a big rival for the handset and has already staked its claims as one of the best looking and strongest performing mobile phones ever.
The Samsung Galaxy S6 is heavily rumored to launch with a metal uni-body, making it even more similar to the HTC One range than ever before. Expect some similar level specs but quite a different design when both are announced.
Then there's also the likes of the LG G3 and the Sony Xperia Z3. Both phones have been on the market for over six months now but it's going to be a little way off until we finally see the next iterations of both handsets meaning these will be some of the main competition for the One M9 for quite a while.
HTC One M9 camera and battery
A number of sources including a leaked HTC promo video, LlabTooFeR and @upleaks have all suggested there will be a 20MP camera set up on the One M9.
If it turns out to be true it'll be a big change from the largely misunderstood dual 4MP UltraPixel camera set up on the HTC One M8. It also looks like the front snapper will be getting an upgrade too, with a 4MP UltraPixel camera mooted for the M9.
LlabTooFeR also took the opportunity to share more details on the battery pack in the One M9 that will be upgraded to a 2840mAh battery.
The One M8 had a 2600mAh cell inside that did exceptionally well in our extensive battery testing so hopefully this time around it'll prove just as good.
HTC One M9 OS and power
HTC is bound to launch the One M9 running Android 5.0 Lollipop with its own Sense 7.0 UI interface over the top.
As for powering the beast, the most recent rumor is the HTC One M9 will have an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chipset at its heart, according to recent benchmarks - which saw it score 64.5% better results compared to the previous Snapdragon 805 chipset.
This dovetails with rumors from leaker @upleaks, saying the new HTC phone will have 3GB of RAM and an octa-core 64-bit Snapdragon 810 processor, with four cores running at 2.0GHz and four at 1.5GHz, allowing it to switch between them depending on what it's doing, using the slower cores to conserve battery when the extra power isn't needed.
HTC One M9 other features
According to LlabTooFeR the HTC One M9 will use a Broadcom BCM4356 wireless module, which is the same as is used by the Nexus 6 and supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth 4.1, theoretically giving it improved Wi-Fi performance over the One M8.
Rumors point toward both 32GB and 64GB internal storage options accompanied by a microSD card slot but it isn't sure just yet what size it'll be.
There will also be some HTC One M9 related accessories including a DotView 2 case as well as a clear protective case, that can be turned into a stand for watching media and a waterproof cover with an IP68 rating.
HTC One M9 cost
There's no official information on the price of the HTC One M9 but it'll likely be £549 / $649 / AU$849 upward.
Be sure to check back on March 1 when the handset officially launches for all the official news and our hands-on verdict of the new device. Head on over to the next page for what we'd like to see from the HTC One M9.
HTC One M9: What we want to see
Two day battery life
We were pretty impressed by the battery life of the HTC One M8, but the Samsung Galaxy S5 and the Sony Xperia Z2 had it beat, while it looks like the Sony Xperia Z3 and the Xperia Z3 Compact might well widen the gap even further.
So we'd love for the HTC One M9 to have more juice. We don't think two days of battery life should be unrealistic, after all the HTC One M8 and a number of other phones can already comfortably make it into a second day, they just need a bit of a boost to make it to the end of the day.
If HTC can deliver even more than that then great, but we'd be happy with two days, at least until the M10 comes around.
A better camera
The HTC One M8 is great in low light as its lens lets more light in than competing smartphone cameras, but when you're trying to take photos in bright conditions all the extra light it takes in actually seems to work against it, causing the image to over-expose.
On top of that it's only got a 4MP sensor, which is fine when you're just viewing shots on your phone, but blow them up and there'll be noticeable noise.
So ideally we want more megapixels and a sensor which is as adept in bright light as low light. It almost seems like HTC itself might be moving away from UltraPixels, given that the HTC One Mini 2 and the HTC One E8 both have 13MP snappers, so we might well see a big change to the camera in the HTC One M9.
A QHD display
The HTC One M8 has a gorgeous screen, but it's very much an early 2014 screen, as the LG G3 and the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 are now bringing QHD (1440 x 2560) displays to the mainstream.
All those extra pixels don't make a huge difference but it is a noticeable one and if the HTC One M9 doesn't have a QHD display then it risks being overlooked, because you can be almost certain that the competition will.
A sapphire screen
Since we're talking about the screen, how about making it with sapphire crystal glass? The HTC One M9 is bound to be expensive, so many people are going to want to put it in a case to keep it protected, but it's also bound to be a thing of beauty so it would be a shame to cover it up.
The more durable it is the less necessary that becomes and a sapphire crystal screen would help a lot. The iPhone 6 didn't have one in the end, so if the HTC One M9 does it could also be the first mainstream smartphone to do so, which would surely be a big selling point.
Water and dust resistance
Another way to keep it protected is with dust and water resistance. We don't need to be able to take it swimming, but knowing that it could survive a spill or a bit of rain would certainly be reassuring and now that Samsung and Sony are both water and dust proofing their phones there's little excuse for HTC not to do the same.
HTC One M9: More of what we want to see
More of a health and fitness focus
The world is going health and fitness mad, or at least that's what many of the latest smartphones and smartwatches would lead you to believe. HTC though doesn't seem so interested and we can't help but feel that it's missing a trick, especially if the market for fitness focused tech continues to grow.
Sure a heart rate monitor and UV sensor are hardly essential components of a smartphone, but we wouldn't say no to them and we'd also be quite happy to see more of a focus on fitness software from HTC, rather than it relying on third party solutions, as HTC has done with the M8 by simply including the Fitbit app. Apple has Health, Samsung has S Health, HTC needs something.
Lots of power
It's reached the point where almost every high end phone and a fair few lower end ones feel fast and powerful, so we don't really need a lot more power in the HTC One M9.
But specs sell and while HTC's flagships are always powerful they're not always quite as powerful as the competition, at least on paper. So next year we hope that changes. Impress us HTC, put in an octa-core Snapdragon 810 with 6GB of RAM, or at least make sure your phone is a match for the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Sony Xperia Z4.
An even better design and build
Design is one of the things HTC has done best in recent years, with the One M8 rivalling even Apple's products, but it could still be better.
There's that black bar below the screen for example. On the original HTC One that housed some capacitive buttons, but they've gone from the HTC One M8 so it no longer serves any visible purpose. There may well be some internal reasons for it but we'd love it if HTC could find a way to remove it.
HTC could also improve the buttons, which feel a little plastic on the M8 and we'd rather have the headphone port on the top than the bottom.
More storage
HTC wisely added a microSD card slot to the M8, but we'd still love more internal storage. Apple now offers 128GB iPhones, so why can't an Android phone do the same? And more specifically why can't HTC?
Do that while still including microSD support and we could be looking at a phone with 256GB of combined storage, which is far more than most people are ever likely to need, but we'd rather have too much than too little.
Category 6 LTE
4G is taking off in a big way, but while current phones are equipped to support the fastest speeds we're likely to get in most places right now, they're not particularly future-proofed. That's why we'd like to see HTC put Category 6 LTE support in the HTC One M9.
That would theoretically allow it to reach download speeds of around 300Mbps, which is double what most current handsets can manage and should make it a viable handset right up until 5G arrives.
- Can't decide between the M8 and the Mini 2? Here's how they stack up.
from TechRadar
