HTC today announced its new One smartphone at events in New York and London. The phone will see U.S. release at AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile within the first few weeks of April.
But starting today, customers will be able to buy the phone online from all the carriers mentioned, excluding T-Mobile. Verizon will have the phone available in-store starting today.
The new One M8 comes with a 5-inch (440ppi) display, Snapdragon 801 processor and dual rear cameras, with the extra sensor picking up more depth information. During a launch event that was broadcast online, HTC showed off focus-application tricks and foreground-background separation effects available with the dual cameras. HTC is opening the camera API to developers.
Still using UltraPixel technology, the new camera features new modes, extensive manual controls and slow-motion HD video. To go along with its “selfie” mode, the new HTC One features a 5-megapixel front-facing camera.
The M8 has a metal casing on the outside and Android KitKat and the new Sense 6 UI, with added gesture controls, on the inside. The new One offers expandable memory up to 128GB via microSD.
The company announced it was opening up BlinkFeed, its home screen update UI, to developers and revealed that Foursquare and Fitbit were among the first to integrate services more closely in BlinkFeed.
Like the previous One, this new device still rocks BoomSound twin speakers on the front and the company is boasting 25 percent more power. Speaking of more power, HTC says the new One has a much better battery and predicted a full charge would soon be able to last two weeks on standby.
HTC announced that any customer currently using any HTC One phone will be getting an over-the-air update to Sense 6.
