14 DAY TRIAL // Bad news for HTC fans in India, as the handset maker has just confirmed that the new One M8 will not arrive in the country until later April.
According to AndroidOS, the HTC One M8 will be available for purchase in India in the third week of April. There’s no word on how much it will cost yet, but judging by the previous pricing for HTC flagship smartphones, the One M8 will probably go on sale for around Rs 45,000 ($745 / €540) outright.
HTC India has also confirmed that the One M8 will be available in both Gunmetal Gray and Glacial Silver at launch, but an Amber Gold version will arrive in India later on.
It appears that there won’t be any differences between the international version of HTC One M8 and the model that will be launched in India next month.
This means that Indian customers will be offered the same Android 4.4.2 KitKat experience combined with HTC’s Sense 6.0 UI, which brings lots of improvements and new features over the previous version.
We suspect that HTC India will only bring the 16GB model of One M8 in the country, but we shouldn’t rule out the possibility of Indian customers being able to purchase the 32GB variant as well, later this year.
The HTC Sense 6.0 UI will be ported to other HTC smartphones in the coming weeks, but the One M8 is the first to ship with this new user interface onboard.
Aside from the new software features and functionalities announced by HTC, the One M8 also comes packed with powerful and innovative hardware.
For example, the smartphone is equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chipset that accommodates a 2.3GHz quad-core processor and an Adreno 330 graphics processing unit.
In addition, the HTC One M8 features either 16GB of 32GB of internal memory, which can be further expanded up to 128GB via microSD memory card.
Still, one of the most innovative aspects about the HTC One M8 is the dual 4-UltraPixel camera on the back, which features autofocus, dual-LED flash and full HD (1080p) video recording.
The smartphone also boasts an impressive 5-megapixel camera in the front, which should be perfect for selfies and video calls.
The One M8 is a considerable improvement over the previous One model, so expect the former to come with a larger 5-inch Super LCD3 capacitive touchscreen display that supports full HD (1080p) resolution.
Design-wise, HTC took the best-looking smartphone of 2013 and made it even more appealing. While the HTC One features a metal chassis for 75% of its body, the One M8 is almost entirely made of aluminum (90%). This should give it an even more pretentious, premium look and it might also protect it better from scratches.