Sketchy HTC 10 render leak shows off four colors as April 19th launch date predicted

Last week we saw our first hands-on images of the HTC 10, as well as our first high-res press render. These showed a device which retains the solid, curved metal unibody design from previous One M-series smartphones, but with a front panel which looked more like the One A9.

Since then, another collection of renders have shown up with the devices in four fashionable metal colors. While we have doubts about the authenticity of the images, they do show options which are — at the very least — likely to be included in the range.

The renders showed up courtesy of Weibo-user, @upleaks, and have gold, dark gray, and aluminum metallic finishes. If the leak is accurate, it could indicate that HTC is also planning to launch versions with both black and white front panels for the first time, with the aforementioned combinations of anodized aluminum bodies.

I have several reasons to believe the leak is sketchy, most of them to do with the small details in the images. The first thing I noticed was on phone screens. A couple of them show a Google search widget featuring Google’s old logo which hasn’t been used anywhere for months. Secondly, the front facing camera sitting next to the earpiece in the black models is nowhere near as large as the one shown in Evan Blass’ leak from last week.

Lastly, the date shown on one of the renders doesn’t appear to match the April 19th date indicated in the previous render leak. This could be key and — as Blass states in the tweet below — and has more than likely been chosen as the launch date for the HTC 10.

Of course, there’s a chance I’m being ultra-picky and HTC has worked on several pre-release renders for internal purposes without paying too much attention to detail. And frankly, I’d be surprised if we didn’t see gray, gold and aluminum versions of the ’10’.

In case it wasn’t obvious, I’d say that Tuesday, April 19th — the date on the screen — is nearly a lock for HTC 10 launch.

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) March 5, 2016

HTC is banking on its next flagship to deliver a new sense of excitement in the smartphone market, and to bring a much needed boost to its revenues. That’s perhaps why it makes sense to ditch the previous ‘One M’ naming strategy, instead, opting for a single number brand name, to better distinguish it from the other One-branded phones in its product lineup. This could be a smart move, as could launching it with some distance between it and the LG G5 announcement, Galaxy S7 release, and before Google I/O and WWDC.

Spec-wise, we’re expecting a phone with a 5.15-inch QHD AMOLED display, Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB RAM and a 12MP high-end Sony camera sensor on the back. It’s also claimed the HTC 10 will run Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow out of the box.