Bring your World to Life with the NEW HTC ONE

London, 1st March, 2015 – HTC today unveiled its most personal, beautiful and powerful smartphone yet, the HTC One M9. The newest flagship in the globally acclaimed HTC One family, the HTC One M9 is a classic yet timeless celebration of beauty and elegance that combines high style and performance, enabling you   to get the most from your mobile phone.

 "HTC has built its reputation on challenging expectations in the mobile industry,” said Cher Wang, Chairwoman, HTC. “The HTC One M9 accomplishes this once again with stunning elegance and design, combined with smart features that help bring your world to life, connecting you in a deeper way to the things you consider most important. So much more than just a phone, the HTC One M9 is an extension of who you are”.

A complete celebration of design

Building on a three-year pursuit of excellence, the HTC One M9 melds the best of the award-winning HTC One M7 and HTC One M8 into a stunning, iconic design. Distinct metal edges combine perfectly with graceful curves for a jewellery-grade look. Small and easy to hold, the crafted, all-metal unibody design is highlighted by an exquisite dual-tone silver and rose gold¹ finish that is as distinctive, as it is durable. Mirror-polished gold sides cascade effortlessly into a hairline brushed silver back panel, encasing a bright and vivid display. 

HTC Sense 7: An extension of you

Your phone should make a statement about who you are and the new HTC Sense™ 7 experience puts you in control of everything. Highly customisable and intuitively you, Themes puts you at the centre of the smartphone experience, intelligently analysing your favourite photos to modify the look and feel of your apps, colour scheme and backgrounds.

As your always-on travel companion, your smartphone is perfectly placed to enrich your mobile life. Sense 7 reinvents the home screen to deliver the most useful apps to the homepage based on your location. Whether at home, work, or play, you’re never more than a click away from the features you need with this contextual, customisable widget. A more intelligent HTC BlinkFeed™ also makes it easier to uncover the hidden gems that surround you by using location data to recommend points of interest, news and information. 

Incredible imaging: Helping you create your best memories

With the best camera being the one you carry in your pocket, your smartphone should make it a breeze to take brilliant, creative and fun images. The HTC One M9’s cameras are designed to capture every moment in amazing quality, allowing you to relive those moments again and again. The main camera features an incredible 20 megapixels that accentuate every crisp, intricate detail and a sapphire cover lens that protects from scratches. For vivid video that looks like the latest blockbuster, the camera also shoots movies in 4K resolution. 

The best moments take you by surprise and spontaneity often doesn’t come fully lit. The ultimate companion of the impulsive snapper, the HTC One M9 addresses low-light shots with a powerful UltraPixel™ front-facing camera. Dynamic auto exposure and UltraPixels that capture 300% more light than standard cameras deliver sharper, more natural and balanced self-portraits in any lighting conditions.                                                                                                                    

HTC Sense 7 with HTC’s EYE™ Experience software makes taking creative pictures easy. A host of new editing effects including Shapes, Prismatic, Elements and Bokeh allow you to add a little bit of individual artistry into every shot, with the Zoe™ app automatically editing them, putting them to your choice of music² and letting friends remix the collection with their own shots to create a shared celebration from every moment.

With so many incredible images, quickly showing your friends those brilliant shots could become an issue. Wherever they’re stored, the new One Gallery makes it easy to search through your entire photo library, viewing images saved on the phone, on social media, and on select cloud platforms. The gallery puts your whole image library at your fingertips, searching by date, location, event, album or even the images themselves with Image Match.

Exhilarating audio: Hear the difference

A truly great viewing experience deserves sound that puts you on the front row. The HTC One M9 guarantees a larger-than-life soundtrack courtesy of HTC BoomSound™. The HTC One family’s iconic dual front-facing speakers, now combined with 5.1 channel Dolby® Surround sound3 simulation, get you even closer to the action, delivering extraordinary, cinema-style surround sound. Uniting HTC BoomSound and Dolby Audio™ creates immersion vibrant audio experience, so you can enjoy movies with rich, clear and powerful sound even without connecting headphones or external speakers. Whether listening via the stereo speakers or headphones, even the most discerning music fans will be blown away by the phone’s support for perfect, 24-bit high-definition sound that surpasses even CD quality. HTC’s unique combination of HTC BoomSound, Dolby Audio™, a finely tuned sound profile, and Qualcomm® Immersive Audio gives all of your music and movies an unmistakable HTC One M9 flavour. 

Connecting your world

Smartphones are fast becoming the central hub for home entertainment and HTC Connect™ makes it easy to enjoy your multimedia experience beyond your phone. A three-finger swipe on the screen connects the phone to compatible TVs or external speakers from leading manufacturers including Harman Kardon. HTC Connect’s integration with Qualcomm® AllPlay™ smart media platform and Blackfire Research™ wireless media technology, allows you and your friends to stream high quality content from your smartphones to multiple home entertainment devices around the house. The playlist feature also allows multiple smartphones to share a speaker with Qualcomm AllPlay. For the ultimate connected smartphone-powered TV experience, the HTC One M9 comes exclusively preloaded with the Peel®Smart Remote app. Instantly connecting you to the shows you love, the app even learns from your viewing habits, transforming your phone into a personal TV guide and remote control.

Accessories and availability

For a standout look, the HTC One M9 will be available with a range of unique and customisable accessories including the second generation HTC Dot View case, which adds more retro personalisation thanks to a host of new features and colour options. A transparent back keeps your smartphone pristine without hiding it from the world with the case injecting fun into even the most tedious commute by transforming into a mini games arcade. The new HTC Dot View case won’t even get in the way of apps such as Instagram, Snapchat and Badoo with through-the-case notifications alerting you to the latest photos, messages and check-ins. 

Life has no limits, and when your adventurous side takes you into the unknown, an IP68 water resistant Active Case and Active Headset means that your phone can boldly follow wherever the action takes you, keeping up with the pace of the most epic adventures.

The HTC One M9 will be available in dual-tone silver and rose gold, single-tone gunmetal grey and single-tone gold in the UK.  Handsets will be available to pre-order on select partner websites from 9th March and available to buy in-store across all listed partners from 31st March*, as well as at htc.com. Unlocked and Developer Editions of the HTC One M9 will also be available from via htc.com.

HTC Do Not Support the Re Camera

I was excited about the Re Camera when it was announced. Yes, I had my concerns and yes it does need some work, but HTC tried something new, which is always good in this fast paced tech world that we live in. 

My first experience with the Re Camera will be shared with you on the Geekanoids Channel later today. However, I would like to share my second experience here and my dismay at the TOTAL LACK OF SUPPORT offered by HTC. I will let the screenshots below tell the story and welcome your comments. Please click the images to expand to readable size.

Chat Support Window

HTC Re Camera Chat Support Page

The first screenshot is of my chat transcript, where I was in a state of amazement at the responses. The second screenshot shows the HTC Re support page from where I accessed the chat support window.

HTC, Samsung release open source files for Google Play edition phones; KitKat OTAs should follow soon

Ten days ago, HTC announced it delivered the KitKat code for the HTC One Google Play edition, and that it was up to Google to push out the OTA release to users.

Now it appears that the OTA is on its way, as both HTC and Samsung have published the kernel source code and framework support files for the HTC One GPe and Galaxy S4 GPe, respectively. The files contain the open source component of the ROMs for the two devices, that HTC and Samsung have to release to the public, as per their GPL licensing....

Read the full story here... Source: Android Authority

Mysterious HTC Zara to arrive alongside HTC One Max?

As Samsung prepares for the release of its Note 3, HTC is also getting ready to unleash two new devices of its own. The first of the handsets is known as the HTC One Max and is designed to compete directly against the Note series. The second is a previously unheard of handset by the name of Zara.

We’ll start by talking about the One Max, which we already know a great deal about.

For starters, the phone will feature a premium metal-body design similar to the HTC One. The handset is also said to have a 5.9-inch FullHD display, a 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 CPU, UltraPixel camera and Android 4.3 Jelly Bean.

What about the HTC Zara? The latest report from China Times suggests that the handset will arrive in September alongside the One Max. Unlike the One Max, the HTC Zara trades in the premium metal body for a plastic design that is probably more akin to Samsung devices.

Unfortunately, beyond its plastic shell, next to nothing is known about the Zara. We can’t say what markets it is being aimed at, its pricing or even what kind of hardware or screen size the phone might possess.

What we do know is that September is shaping up to be an interesting month. Not only will we see Samsung’s latest Note, but now we have two interesting HTC devices to look forward to as well.

With HTC’s push towards higher-end metal bodies, would you still consider a plastic-bodied HTC handset if the specs were right for the money?

Source: Android Authority

HTC One is actually easy to open with a special tool, says HTC lead designer

Back in March, iFixit went to work on taking the HTC One apart to give us all a better look at the phone’s insides and determine how easy (or hard) the phone would be to repair. The verdict? Just 1/10 – with 1 being ultra hard and 10 being easy as pie.

The reason for the low score is that the HTC One is very hard to open without damaging the rear case. The good news is that the phone might be hard for everyday users to take apart, but HTC does have a special method for prying open the handset in the event that the phone needs servicing under warranty.

According to HTC’s senior manager of the One design team, Justin Huang:

“During the development [of the One], there was another team inside HTC who looked at the repair process.“ “So every phone sent to HTC, they have a special tool to disassemble the back cover, to let us have the ability to access all the components inside.”

In other words, you might not be able to self-repair or send it in to a third party for cheap and easy repairs, but at least you can rest assured that you can send it in directly to HTC. Unfortunately for those looking to get their phones repaired cheaply, this isn’t exactly great news.

On the plus side, if a tool like this really does exist, it is probably just a matter of time before a Chinese knock-off tool becomes available online. What do you think, does the HTC One’s low repairability score matter to you or not?

Source: Android Authority

 

HTC One stock Android edition could be “announced within two weeks”

A launch of a HTC One stock Android edition in the U.S. is “imminent”, according to sources quoted by the same writer that mentioned the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Edition before its release.

Normally, this could be treated like yet another HTC One stock Android rumor, but this time the information comes from Geek.com's Russell Holly, a man known for not being a fan of baseless rumors, and, most importantly, the man that broke the news about the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Edition being launched at Google I/O.

Quoting “multiple sources,” Holly says that the “senseless” edition of the HTC One will be a reality very soon – it should be announced sometime during the next two weeks. The possible release date of the device, which would be running Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, is said to be at some point during the summer.

The HTC One stock edition would be available in the U.S. at the beginning, which makes Holly think that it's possible for Google to sell it itself, through the Google Play Store.

The reason for HTC's decision to make the device available would be that, while the HTC One is clearly a very good handset, with encouraging sales (despite delays that even caused the company to apologize to users by sending them Play Store gift cards), HTC was impressed by the way the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Edition has been welcomed with.

While this is all as unofficial as can be, since the announcement is said to arrive “within the next two weeks,” we won't have to wait too long in order to get a confirmation (or not). On the other hand, this report seems to shed a totally new light on HTC employee Leigh Momii's tweet, posted after the Samsung Galaxy S4 running vanilla Android was announced.

While HTC has denied preparing an HTC One running stock Android, it might have changed its mind since. Or it could have just decided to wait a while longer before making the announcement.

Would you want to buy an HTC One running stock Android or would you prefer the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Edition?

Source: Android Authority

AT&T to Discontinue 'Facebook Phone' HTC First?

AT&T is planning to discontinue the HTC First, better known as the "Facebook Phone," reports BGR. Released on April 12, the HTC First was touted as the first device to come with Facebook Home preinstalled, a feature that has not enticed buyers to purchase the phone.

When contacted, an AT&T spokesperson gave MacRumors the following statement in regards to BGR's report: "As mentioned previously, we do pricing promotions all the time and have made no decisions on future plans." 

The Facebook Home software, which can be installed on a number of Android devices, has also proven to be unpopular with Android users. The app has a two star rating in the Google Play store and has seen just a million downloads since it was released last month...

Read the full story here. Source: Mac Rumours

The HTC First is Official

HTC has officially unveiled the HTC First at today’s Facebook Home announcement. The company says this is the best social experience you’ll find, with Facebook’s new Home experience pre-loaded and optimized onto the phone right out of the box. It’s clearly aimed at the younger crowd, but more clearly the Facebook fanatic.

Just as we saw leaked earlier this week, the device will come in multiple colors, including red, light blue, white and black, covering a nice little spectrum for users who want more choices. HTC First will be available on April 12 for $99. Right now, neither HTC or Facebook has talked up specs, so we’ll look out for those to hit soon.

[Source: TechnoBuffalo]

Facebook Phone Coming on Thursday With New Android App

Backing up the Wall Street Journal’s report from last week, Android Police has allegedly received a complete system dump of Facebook’s upcoming BlinkFeed-like Android software. Basically, the social network’s new home on Android will act as your constant connection to your News Feed, always there when you unlock your device. It sounds and looks like theWSJ’s sources were spot on.

The prospect of a Facebook phone built, planned and commissioned by Mark Zuckerberg always seemed like a strange proposition, but it’s been one of those rumors that just won’t die. However, with much of Facebook’s userbase going mobile, the company has very candidly announced its intention to focus on the mobile market. An actual (probably cheap) Facebook phone will definitely appeal to the younger first-time teenage buyer, and further encourage use in the mobile space.

The file Android Police acquired doesn’t allow for much digging because they couldn’t login, but it did unveil what kind of device the ROM is designed for. HTC’s oft-leaked Myst device, which appears to be heading to AT&T, is name dropped with a 4.3-inch 720p display, a 5-megapixel camera, 1GB of RAM and a dual-core MSM8960 chip. Those specs aren’t revolutionary, but the biggest spec will likely be price; we’d expect it to fall below $100.

The Facebook Home aspect is essentially a specially designed app, and it sounds like the plan is to make it available in the Google Play store. “Imagine if the regular Facebook appmutated an extra ‘home screen’ limb,” Android Police explained. The app itself will boot as soon as your phone starts, with other Android permissions such as changing Wi-Fi, changing system settings and more. If that app exists, though, there needs to be a reason for consumers to buy the phone instead of simply downloading it on the phone of their choice.

Since Android Police couldn’t login, the site couldn’t take the actual experience itself for a spin. An actual physical mid-range Facebook device appears to be on the way, though, with a tweaked Facebook app and not an outright Android skin.

Facebook has an event planned for Thursday, April 4, so we’ll find out more information then. For a more in-depth look at the full Facebook Home and a breakdown of the file, head on over to the source.

[Source: TechnoBuffalo]