There have been a lot of reports on the long rumoured successor of the HTC One, which is expected to be named HTC One 2 or HTC Two, a device that has allegedly been leaked numerous times with the codename M8.
Now, a tweet by the famous tipster @evleaks suggests a mini-variant of the upcoming M8 is in the offing. Although there are no details of the launch, we expect it to come alongside the M8 at Mobile World Congress (MWC 2014). The rumours seem credible, as
HTC had launched the mini-variant of its current flagship smartphone, called the
HTC One mini.
@evleaks on Friday tweeted some of the purported specifications of the alleged HTC M8 mini smartphone (may be called One 2 mini). According to the tipster, the M8 mini will have a 4.5-inch 720p display powered by quad-core 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chipset, coupled with 1GB of RAM. It is said to feature Sense 6.0 UI on top of Android 4.4.2 KitKat.
Further purported specifications of the M8 mini include a 13-megapixel rear camera and 5-megapixel front facing camera. It looks that the smartphone might come in one variant of 16GB inbuilt storage with the microSD card expandability option, while the expansion limit remains unknown but we expect it to be 64GB.
On the connectivity front, the leaked specifications in the tweet doesn't specify connectivity option other than the Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac.
Although the specification on the M8 mini are not very impressive but pricing factor of HTC phones is something what will be interesting to see from here on. Also mentioned by @evleaks, was the inclusion of onscreen buttons.
HTC has said that it
will make cheaper smartphones to return to profit. The Taiwanese phone maker is seeking to reverse a two-year sales slump matched by an 80 percent drop in its share price.
"The problem with us last year was we only concentrated on our flagship. We missed a huge chunk of the mid-tier market," said co-founder and Chairwoman Cher Wang, speaking to Reuters.
Although HTC won't get into the "very, very low-end market", but it will sell products in the $150 to $300 retail price range for both emerging and developed markets, along with high-end phones which can sell for over $600, Chang added.
For its mid-range smartphones,
HTC has started using chipsets from players other than its long-time partner, Qualcomm, to counter competition from affordable handset manufacturers.
HTC in November had launched its three new, mid-range Desire series smartphones running on the ST-Ericsson, Spreadtrum and Broadcom chipsets, instead of the Qualcomm.
Specifically, the HTC Desire 501 is powered by ST-Ericsson's U8520 dual-core processor, the Desire 601 dual-SIM is powered by Broadcom's Java quad-core processor, and the Desire 700 dual-SIM is powered by Spreadtrum's Shark quad-core processor.