Official: HTC One M9 with Snapdragon 810 SoC and 4MP Ultrapixel Front camera announced

HTC has finally taken the wraps off its next flagship smartphone – the HTC One M9 but there is no word on the long rumoured HTC One M9 Plus.

The HTC One M9 comes with an utterly redesigned body but still looks very similar to the One M8 but it is slimmer and lighter. The smartphone has sapphire glass on the camera lens, scratch resistant body but it is not water or dustproof, HTC has announced it would provide IP68 certified cases for the One M9. The device also keeps the traditional BoomSound speakers on the front which has also been packed with Dolby Sound Technology.

Moving to the specs the HTC One M9 features a 5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Full HD display, powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 SoC (four cortex-A57 @ 2GHz and four cortex-A53 @ 1.5GHz) with Adreno 430 GPU, 3GB of DDR4 RAM with 32GB space of internal storage and a microSD card slot for storage expansion up to 128GB.

The One M9 uses a 20MP sensor made by Toshiba with 1/2.3″ sensor size with f/2.2 aperture, Dual-LED dual tone flash, support for 4K recording but no OIS. The camera’s maximum shooting range is 5376 x 3752 pixels which points to a 10:7 aspect ratio. The front camera is the 4MP Ultrapixel camera combination used on the One M7 and One M8 without auto-focus.

Connectivity options includes – NFC, Wi-fi ac, wired and wireless TV-out, GPS + GLONASS, Bluetooth 4.1, and LTE Cat.6 or Cat.9 (according to different region) with 21 LTE bands support. There is also IR blaster at the top, an MHL 3.0 port at the bottom, which will let you stream 4K footage to your TV with the respective adapter. It is backed by a non-removable 2840mAh battery with fast charging support by default.

Finally, onto the software side – the HTC One M9 runs Android 5.0 Lollipop OS with HTC Sense 7 UI ontop. HTC Blinkfeed is now integrated into the Sense 7; and it comes with theming features which allows you to customise virtually anything on the smartphone.

HTC is releasing the One M9 internationally this month; prices would vary according to different countries and carriers. It is available in Silver model with Rose Gold accent on the frame, Gun metal gray, a complete Gold version and a pink version with Gold accent on the frame.

We expect the HTC One M9 to arrive in Nigeria and Africa too but it is expected to cost around the $600 (upwards) which translate to around N122,000 (upwards) in Naira and R7000 (upwards) in South African Rand.