BARCELONA: HTC has launched its One M9 smartphone, which will go toe-to-toe with the new Galaxy S6, Samsung has also just revealed at Mobile World Congress.
The One M9 sticks with a 5in full HD 1080p display, and runs with the Snapdragon 810 octa-core processor (quad 2GHz + quad 1.5GHz), backed up with 3GB of RAM. To be fair, that combination pushing just a 1080p resolution should ensure a blazingly fast phone.
Other specs include 32GB of storage (with microSD for expansion, unlike the S6 which dropped this option), and as predicted the camera is a 20 megapixel shooter, with a sapphire cover f/2.2 27.8mm lens, and the front-facer is an HTC Ultrapixel affair with an f/2.0 26.8mm lens. HTC boasts about the excellent low-light performance of the latter when it comes to selfies, with dynamic auto-exposure in the mix to help the quality of shots in lesser light.
The battery is a 2840 mAh unit, and the dimensions of the One M9 are 144.6 x 69.7 x 9.61 mm – so again, it’s considerably thicker than the S6 (which is 6.8mm, almost a full 3mm thinner).
Audio is, like the M8, delivered by dual front-facing speakers, but this year’s flagship sees the introduction of 5.1 channel Dolby Surround simulation for even more depth and immersion when watching films on the 5in display.
Android Lollipop is here, of course, with HTC Sense 7 overlaid on top, with a new home screen system that ensures the most relevant apps are presented to the user, depending on their location (home, work, the pub quiz, etc).
The design is still the metal unibody, with distinct metal edges for what HTC calls a “jewellery-grade look” (and slightly better grip than the M8, handily).
