After months of leaks — some from the usual suspects, others from HTC themselves — the latest One-series flagship is here, except, there’s no ‘One’ in the name. The HTC 10 has been officially announced, and it looks to compete directly spec-wise with the best phones around, and packs its high-end components in to a hefty, solid piece of aluminum.
HTC will finally unveil its next metal-bodied flagship during an online event tomorrow, but, a couple of last minute leaks have seemingly confirmed past speculation. Perhaps most revealing is a video on YouKu (China’s version of YouTube).
We are just a little over a week away from the official unveiling of HTC‘s last flagship smartphone, the so-called “10“, and despite the enormous amount of leaks regarding design, performance and even the phone’s wallpapers, the company seems confident in its new product, keeping us teased with various information about the device.
In a tweeted video released today, HTC addressed its commitment towards “tuning the highest-quality sound possible”, in order to deliver what it describes as “the best BoomSound yet”…
While its April 12 launch date is fast approaching, leaks for the HTC 10 won’t stop coming. Just as a tweet from HTC itself gives us a glimpse – or, rather, an ulterior confirmation – of the device’s front design, the highlighted word, ‘performance’, hints at a smartphone with great capabilities.
If anything, the Taiwanese company’s flagships have always been decent performers on the Android spectrum, and a GFXBench benchmark from this morning would all but confirm that…
Update: LlabTooFeR has posted 10 new wallpapers from HTC’s upcoming device. Grab them in the new gallery below.
HTC said a few days ago that its upcoming flagship HTC 10 (HTC M10?) handset will be announced by way of an online-only event set to take place on April 12th, but why wait until the 12th to start getting the HTC 10 experience? If the phone’s wallpapers are what you’re after, you can grab them now below thanks to some leaks on Twitter from the well-known LlabTooFeR…
Further images of the HTC 10 have emerged online with perhaps the best detail we’ve seen so far. They come just a few days after the first prototype images crept up online, and further corroborate rumors of a One A9-like front panel and solid metal unibody chassis.
While we do know that LG will likely not be joining Google to build the very next Nexus, which is expected to come towards the end of the year, a sketchy rumor coming from Chinese website MyDrivers suggests that HTC might have been given the green light for a three-year long partnership with Mountain View. Directed towards bringing Nexus devices to the market, the deeply troubled Taiwanese phone maker could be part of Google’s plan to take more control over its hardware offerings…
In the somewhat troubled downhill path it entered a couple of years ago, HTC decided to change things up towards the end of last year, introducing a somewhat controversial new mid-range phone, the A9. Despite the lack of its signature front-facing speakers, the phone stood out. With a new, heavily iPhone-inspired design but a nonetheless solid build and decent specs, the Taiwanese company seemed to be onto something. There was even a promise of out of the box compatibility with AT&T and T-Mobile as well as Sprint.
HTC went a step further, however, saying that it would do everything in its power to provide support for Verizon, too, with a future software update. Unfortunately, as the company announced today, plans to make the device compatible with the Big Red’s network have been abandoned after a long period of testing…
Display technologies have experienced numerous improvements over the years, from mere augmentations in terms of resolution to more advanced processes dedicated to lamination of the panels getting closer to the actual glass, enhancements in color reproduction and all sorts of works devoted to power efficiency, brightness and the likes. Most recently, a few companies, namely Samsung and now Xiaomi, have worked on ‘2.5D’ screens that curve around the edges, but the general operating principles in regards to software have remained largely unchanged.
With the introduction of the iPhone 6s last fall, however, Apple decided to borrow the ‘Force Touch‘ technology from its own Watch and bring it to the iPhone under the name “3D Touch”, thus introducing an entirely new dimension with the Z-axis effectively becoming part of the UX; a bold move that other manufacturers, primarily in China, may see as an opportunity, and something they are apparently already working on.
A somewhat sketchy report from an industry insider on Weibo, in fact, claims that Xiaomi, Meizu, OPPO and Vivo – as well as HTC – are all hard at work to bring their pressure-sensitive panels to life…
HTC has never been shy about how serious it takes its smartphone design. When the HTC One M7 launched a few years ago, it was easily the best-looking and best-made Android smartphone available. Since then, it’s spent its time slowly improving on that original form factor. Some might say too slowly. While the M9 featured the same dedication to craftsmanship, its spec list wasn’t anywhere near close to competing with last year’s flagships. This year, that is rumored to be changing.
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As conferences go, MWC felt relatively subdued this year, at least from an Android perspective. Huawei decided to sit this year out and launch a Windows tablet, Sony had a quiet event and HTC just sent out a press release for its new Desire series. While press events weren’t jam-packed in to a crazy schedule, there was still some exciting and fun stuff happening in Barcelona this week.
A day after their Twitter tease of what is presumably the One M10, HTC executives sat down with CNET for a wide-ranging talk. In the interview, CEO Cher Wang and CFO Chialin Chang said that the company’s next phone will have a better camera while noting the importance of the new Vive VR.
Here at MWC in Barcelona this year, HTC decided to quietly launch a couple of new budget friendly devices. One of them is the new, low end Desire 530. Design-wise, it’s very similar to most previous Desire phones, although with a new colorful, speckled rear shell.
HTC’s MWC 2016 announcements were limited to new mid-range Desire devices and pricing details about the Vive VR headset. Not wanting to miss out on flagship season, a tease on Twitter of what is presumably the HTC One M10 confirms a previously leaked image.
One of the main reasons why so many people love Android is its famous customisability. Google’s OS is notoriously flexible, and despite being already available in a variety of different forms thanks to the OEMs’ re-skinning, the hundreds of apps present on the Play Store allow for further personalization in almost every corner of the system. Toggles, widgets, icon packs and entire lock screen replacements are just a few of the categories of things Android can be user-modified with.
However, particularly after Material Design‘s introduction and a general push towards cohesiveness and consistency across the system, the diverse adaptations of the OS have started to look more and more similar; be it thanks to whiter, more card-based menus, the use of similar toggle icons or the widely adopted carousel-like task switcher, among others, Android has finally started to look and feel instantly recognizable, even when buried deep underneath the oft-poor design decisions made by third parties…
Along with announcing new mid-range devices at MWC 2016, HTC has announced the price for the Vive Consumer Edition and an early April ship date, with pre-orders beginning on February 29. The final headset features better ergonomics, improved controllers, and smartphone pairing.
At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, HTC today has unveiled four new mid-range Android devices. Three of the devices carry the company’s mid-range Desire branding, while the fourth is a global version of the One X9, which was previously available only in Asia.
Don’t get too excited. While HTC does have an “A” line of HTC One smartphones, the above leaked handset renders (via Evan Blass) are actually a refresh of the company’s mid-range Desire line. That’s according to famed leaker LlabTooFeR who told us just a couple of weeks ago that there are two new Desire handsets scheduled to be released before HTC comes out with the “Perfume” HTC One M10 sometime after Mobile World Congress. According to Evan, the above images are of the Desire phone codenamed A16, making it a Desire 5xx phone…
Earlier this month, the first leaked picture of the HTC One M10 confirmed that the device will take many design cues from the One A9. Another picture from Evleaks shows off a white model of the device and gives a better look at the fingerprint sensor.
Verizon’s LG G3 and G4 will be joining the HTC One M9 in getting Marshmallow today. The carrier has announced that OTA updates for those devices are rolling out now. HTC announced Android 6.0 last week and the LG G4 on AT&T and T-Mobile have already gotten their updates in the past weeks.
A couple weeks ago, Evan Blass came out to unveil pretty much all of the upcoming HTC One M10’s specs, saying that — among other details — the phone is going to ship with a 5.1-inch display. Now, famed Android leaker LlabTooFeR has come out on Twitter to challenge Evan’s great track record. Apparently, the M10 is going to ship with a display not 5.1-inches in size, but 5.2-inches.
Back in early 2013, HTC surprised the smartphone world when the original One (codenamed M7) was revealed in all its shiny aluminum unibody glory. It wasn’t just a well-built and incredibly nicely designed phone: it had the invaluable pro of coming at the right time.
Save for Sony, whose Xperia Z lineup was maturing into an interesting — albeit already a tad repetitive — concept, all the major Android manufacturers were struggling to deliver a compelling product that ticked the aesthetics box as well as those regarding functionality.
Samsung, perhaps too focussed on cramming the latest and greatest specs into its devices, was often heavily dispraised for its poor use of plastic, a criticism that would endure for another two years, while LG’s G line of flagship smartphones certainly couldn’t raise a flag of uniqueness either, more or less tumbling in the same mud…
HTC is keeping up its promise to update the One A9 within 15 days of Nexus devices getting updates. This OTA update for the struggling Taiwanese company‘s most recent handset includes January’s security update along with other bug fixes.
