As leaks continue to pour in about different variants of HTC’s latest flagship device – the One M9, the Taiwanese manufacturer has announced a cheaper version of its old bestseller, the One M8. Dubbed as the One M8s, the new handset has the same metal chassis as its older sibling but packs a better battery (2,840 mAh) and a slightly stripped down chipset.
It features the same 5-inch FHD display and BoomSound speakers on the front. In the imagining department, the One M8s sports a 13-megapixel rear camera with f/2.0 aperture in comparison to the 4-Ultrapixel camera of the original M8 that has the similar aperture. Now whether ultrapixels provide better images than megapixels is still under debate, with many considering the term ‘ultrapixel’ a marketing gimmick by HTC. As for the selfie camera, the new device has the same 5-megapixel sensor with f/2.8 aperture, which means slightly poor images than the HTC One M8’s front camera with f/2.0 aperture in low light conditions.
As far as the hardware in concerned, the device packs a 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 615 processor based on Cortex-A53 cores. At a higher clock speed, they should be able to support 1080p video recording from front as well as back camera in addition to fast performance and lag free experience. The CPU is coupled with 2GB of RAM, 16 GB and Adreno 405 GPU.
Connectivity options include LTE Cat 4, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, USB 2.0, NFC.and Bluetooth 4.1 (against Bluetooth 4.0 of the One M8). Also, it runs Android 5.0 Lollipop out-of-the-box.
HTC is launching the One M8s in the UK for £380 ($564), which is not a lot less than the One M8. The new M8 model will be made available in other European nations soon but the date hasn’t been revealed yet. Considering the slight differences in pricing and specifications, which phone would you choose – the One M8 or the One M8s or the new HTC One M9?
I would definitely pick the HTC One M9 if I could afford but right now the M8s looks like a good bargain.