HTC reportedly planning plastic ‘M8 Ace’ to compete with Galaxy S5

Earlier this month, @evleaks tweeted an image of a mysterious device dubbed the HTC M8 Ace. At the time, very few details about it were known. Engadget, however, is now reporting that the HTC M8 Ace will essentially be HTC’s answer to the Galaxy S5, but cheaper.

Much like the Galaxy S5, the M8 Ace will feature an all-plastic design. The specs will also be nearly identical, with the M8 Ace packing a 5-inch 1080p display and a 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor.

The biggest selling point of the M8 Ace, however, will apparently be its price. Engadget reports that it will come in for a significantly lower price than Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S5. This is certainly plausible, seeing that the original M8 and Galaxy S5 are already nearly equal in price and the M8 is using much higher-quality materials than the S5. If HTC were to switch to the cheaper plastic, which it’s apparently planning to do with the Ace, we should expect a significant price drop.

The question, though, is how cheap will it be? According to one post out of the Chinese site TMTpost, it could launch next month for as low as $480 unsubsidized, though Engadget could not confirm this.