HTC One M8s Is A Refresh For The Masses

HTC has announced a surprising new addition to its mid-range smartphone family today, the HTC One M8s – a refreshed version of the HTC One M8 flagship announced last March.

Featuring an octa-core 1.7Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, the metal-bodied One M8s is not as powerful as its predecessor, but will instead target those hunting for a fairly powerful mid-range device.

Refreshed

However this isn’t to say that the One M8s isn’t an upgrade from its older brother. Alongside a 5in full HD screen, there’s a more powerful 13 megapixel rear camera (boosted from the 4.1MP Ultrapixel unit found in the M8), a 2,840mAh battery (compared to 2,600mAh) and Android Lollipop 5.0 running out of the box alongside HTC’s Sense 6.0 UI software.

There’s also NFC, Bluetooth 4.1, HTC’s trademark Boomsound front-facing speakers, and the company has included the clever Motion Launch system, which provides some neat interactive tools such as allowing users to answer a call simply by lifting the smartphone to their ear.

“The HTC One M8s combines the quality ergonomics and design of the award-winning HTC One M8 with great sound and photo features to deliver an outstanding user-experience at a premium level,” said Peter Frølund, UK and Ireland vice-president, HTC.

“What really sets the HTC One M8s apart is its design and build. We created the smartphone with comfort in mind – it’s not only a pleasure to look at, but also feels great and fits perfectly into the hand.”

The HTC One M8s will go on sale within the next few weeks from select UK retailers, costing £379.99 SIM-free.

HTC announced its latest flagship device, the One M9, at Mobile World Congress last month, featuring an all-metal build, the One M9 sports a 5in FullHD screen powered by Android Lollipop 5.0 along with Qualcomm’s immense Snapdragon 810 octa-core chipset, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage (which can be upgraded to 128GB via microSD), all of which will make it one of the fastest device on the market today.

This is backed up by a 20 megapixel rear camera which is also able to shoot 4K video, and a 2840mAh battery which should offer all-day battery life.

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