HTC has just unveiled its latest Android smartphone, the One.
The HTC One has a full metal body with what the company calls a "zero gap" construction, meaning there's no visible gaps or slits in the case design. The front of the phone is completely flat, but the back is curved and the edges taper inwards. The One is 9.3mm thin and weighs 143g.
The HTC One has dual-stereo speakers that sit above and below the display. The speakers and audio system, called 'BoomSound' name, promise louder and clearer sound and include integrated amplifiers. HTC says the speakers will push out up to 93 decibels of sound. A built-in IR sensor allows the HTC One to act as a universal remote controls for devices around your home.
The HTC One has a 4.7in, super LCD 3 display with a full HD resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. The display is optically bonded to the screen in order to minimise the space between layers. The screen has a pixel density of 468ppi, making it the highest on the market.
HTC has only included two capacitive shortcut buttons below the screen, a back button on the left and a home button on the right. Double tapping the home button will open the multitasking menu and a longer press will open the Google Now assistant.
HTC is banking on two new features to win over consumers. The first is a new camera technology the company calls 'UltraPixel' and also comes with a revamped, tile-based home screen dubbed 'BlinkFeed'.
The phone has a 4-megapixel camera sensor called the 'UltraPixel' camera. The custom image sensor uses enlarged pixels that the company says can absorb up to three times more light than those inside "most leading 13-megapixel phone cameras."
HTC promises that the use of UltraPixels make for an improvement in low-light performance and there's also optical image stabilization (OIS) and an f2.0 aperture. A 2.1-megapixel front facing camera uses an ultra-wide angle lens.
The HTC One introduces a new media called "Zoe". It enables users to capture up to 20 photos and a three second video simultaneously. Users can share the files through YouTube and Facebook, or on HTC's servers for a limit of 180 days.
The second distinctive feature of the One is a redesigned home screen called 'BlinkFeed', which is part of the latest version of HTC's Sense UI. It looks like a cross between Windows Phone 8 and the Flipboard media aggregation app and pulls in content from a variety of pre-selected sources including your social media accounts.
The HTC One is powered by a 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor, has either 32GB or 64GB of internal memory and comes with 2GB of RAM. There is no microSD card slot, which means you can't expand the memory.
The HTC One will initially ship with the 4.1.2 Jelly Bean version of Android but there's been no word of when an update to the latest 4.2 version will be available. The phone comes with a large 2300mAh battery, features NFC connectivity and will be 4G compatible in Australia on the 1800MHz network band.
There's no word yet on an official Australian release date or pricing, but the HTC One is expected to be available Down Under sometime in March.