The world knows that the once dominant Taiwanese smartphone maker, HTC, is currently in a world of hurt. Sales are declining each and every quarter, and they need to turn things around in 2014 to survive.
Their new upcoming handset the M8 (HTC One+), just might be the answer they need. The highly-anticipated follow up to last year HTC One, is considered a make or break device for the company, but just what does the new HTC M8 need to truly succeed in a market full of Apple and Samsung?
The HTC One: The near perfect metal phone
To better understand the future, they say you need to understand the past. So let’s first start off with what the current HTC One offers, and what is both good and bad about it.
The Good: The all metal design with slim lines and excellent build, proved best in class design when compared to the plastic flagships from LG and Samsung. The bright 4.7″ 16M-color 1080p Super LCD3 screen offered a clear, crisp display, while the Quad-core 1.7 GHz Krait 300 CPU provided ample power.
The Bad: When you have a powerful phone, you need a powerful battery. Battery life on the HTC One was weak; so weak, I found myself constantly looking for a charger. Apart from the battery, my other gripe was with the camera. The camera was great in low light situations, but the camera really under-performed when compared to the iPhone 5, 5S and the Galaxy S4. HTC’s News Widget, BlinkFeed, and the Sense User Interface were also challenging to work with and I’m still not sure why they even exist. I would have preferred a pure Google experience from the get go, rather than wait for a Google Play Edition down the road.
HTC M8 needs something new and something old
The all aluminum build on the HTC One brought the word premium back to the Android market. I expect the brand to stick with a similar design and build quality since thats what people loved about it. So let’s look at just what the new M8 needs to be my new perfect phone:
HTC M8: It must have this…
- Snapdragon 800 chipset
- 5-inch 1080p screen
- 2GB RAM
- Slimmer aluminum build
- Improved Ultra-pixel camera
- Polished Sense UI
- Bigger battery
- Android KitKat 4.4
- New Blinkfeed features
HTC M8: I hope it has this…
- Snapdragon 805 chipset
- 13MP Camera (No Ultra-pixels)
- 4K video capture
- Google Play Edition at launch
- Beats Audio
- Removable back
- Replaceable battery
The world will be waiting the arrival of the new M8, and it is expected to be revealed at MWC Barcelona in February. As a previous owner of the HTC One, the device was one of the better phones I had used at the time, but like all top dogs, eventually the HTC One fell from the top behind other more powerful and sleeker smartphone offerings from Sony, Apple, LG and Samsung.
I hope that the upcoming HTC M8 will win me over once again, and bring HTC back to the promise land of smartphone superiority. What features will make you buy the new HTC M8 this year?
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