We’re just days away from HTC’s big reveal and so far plenty of blurry leaks have seemingly confirmed that a new flagship phone is on the way, but we’ve seen little in the way of good, clear shots of the phone, until now.
This afternoon we’ve got our first proper glimpse of the new HTC One for 2014 thanks to – you guessed it – @evleaks. Finished in gold, the new model appears in one of HTC’s trademark press images which stacks the phone three ways to show the front, back and side clearly. At a glance it’s definitely an evolution of the current HTC One, but there are subtle differences and hopefully improvements to be found.
In terms of design, HTC looks to have rounded the corners much more and there’s a lot more curve to the sides and back. To us, the HTC One is one of the easiest of the large Android phones to hold, but from this picture the new model looks even more palm-friendly. The whole thing looks as smooth as a pebble – a pebble crafted from metal, that is.
Up front we have the familiar dual speaker arrangement either side of the display, but the back and home touch buttons have now moved from the bezel onto the display and are joined by a multitasking option on the right. As a HTC One user myself, the need to double tap the home button rather than a single tap of a dedicated multitasking button is annoying, so this is certainly going to be a welcome change. Finally, we have the front facing camera in almost the same location, with what looks to be a proximity sensor situated to the left.
A few things can also be taken from the homescreen shown – Sense 6.0 will combine with Android 4.4 KitKat and that’s the new look we can see here. The capacitive buttons are now on the screen, with the tray icons now floating above the new-look BlinkFeed layout with a clear background. It all looks very neat, if you ask us.
Around the back are where things are really interesting, with the rumoured dual rear cameras shown off. Leaks have previously suggested that the new HTC One will feature two rear cameras and this new press image suggests the same, although there is still the idea that the black circle above the regular rear camera will in fact be a fingerprint sensor.
HTC tweeted yesterday to confirm that a big announcement will take place on March 25th, teasing that “the best is about to get better” – a sure-fire way to say that its flagship phone is about to get a sequel.