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Pic Credit: HTC

The HTC One (M8) is the latest (well) from the tech giant HTC Corp, basically a bettered HTC One launched last year. With this phone, HTC has attempted to correct the things that weren’t ‘perfect’ with its predecessor.

The HTC One (M8) has an extraordinary build – it has a bold, polished metal design (with a body made of 90% metal) as compared to the last model (which had a body of 70% metal). The phone has curved edges, which give it a classy look and a much more comfortable hold. It is also marginally taller than last year’s model, with a 5-inch screen covering a Super LCD 3 panel, complete with 1080p full HD resolution. Text and graphics are smooth, colors are rich and the contrast is impressive.

What HTC is stressing on is the ‘ultrapixel’ – which is just another way to say a “4-megapixel camera with better low-light performance”. So, that’s clearly not the exciting part. What’s worth talking about is the ‘Duo Camera’ – yes, two cameras at the back – which help you to choose which area you’d like to focus on after clicking the picture. They are calling it ‘UFocus’. The M8 also has a dual flash designed to balance skin tones. This however, is something rival Apple already introduced with the iPhone. The real clincher here is a 5-megapixel front camera for some great-looking selfies. Why hadn’t anyone done that already?

With the arrival of the M8, HTC has also introduced Blinkfeed, which replaces the generic Android homepage. It seems heavily inspired by the Windows 8 live tiles, only more posh. The look and feel of Blinkfeed is lot like the news aggregating app, Flipboard. Modification includes a plethora of add-ons: for instance, if you swipe left, your phone launches Blinkfeed, a swipe to the right opens the home screen and a double tap switches it on. However, what sounds a little complicated is the camera; the phone needs to be held in a landscape position before the camera can be launched (ummm?).

The headphone port has moved to the bottom and the phone comes with an added micro SD card slot. What hasn’t changed are the two speakers known to produce fantastic stereo surround sound. With this phone, HTC has tried to improve frequency control in favor of making the sound more louder and fuller. However, the weight and the dimensions of the phone may be a bother to those who don’t like the feeling of something bulky in their pockets.

Compared to last year’s HTC One M7, this phone resolves one of the two problems we’d noticed: Its battery life is longer. The 2600mAh battery, HTC says, will be good for up to 20 hours of 3G talk time. They have also introduced an extreme power saving mode, which actually switches off every application except text and email.

Specs-wise, the HTC One (M8) has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor complete with a 2GB RAM – making the phone one of the fastest and smoothest ones around. It also has a 2.3 GHz quad core processor. It runs on Google’s latest OS, Android 4.2.2, KitKat.

The HTC One (M8) is slated for launch in India in the second week of April and will be available in Gunmetal Gray and Glacial Silver colours. No news of price yet.

Written by Indrani Ganguly and Anish Saha