HTC to unveil new flagship on March 25: Here's all we know about the next-gen One

The next-gen HTC One known by the codename M8 will be announced next month. Through its Twitter account, the company has announced an event to be held on March 25 in London and New York. The “Save the date” tweet was followed by the company sending out invites to several outlets. The Verge reports that HTC says the phone will be the primary flagship for 2014.

As you see, the tweet doesn’t really mention any device except for the 25, 03 and 14 in the background. While HTC is tight lipped about the upcoming flagship, quite a lot of details are out through rumours and leaks. Here’s what we know about the next HTC flagship, so far.

Name After the popularity of its Desire series, HTC went through a slump period. The brand then reinvented itself with the One series. After putting in so much thought and resources in building the “One” brand, the company surely wouldn’t want to move away from it. Now M8 is the codename of the device, and hopefully won’t be the marketing name. On the other hand, the rumoured HTC One 2 nomenclature also sounds quite silly. If HTC is to name its next flagship One 2, the company would definitely be a butt of jokes in the future. More likely is the option that HTC will go with the same name i.e One for the 2014 flagship. Noted tipster Evleaks claims the name will be the All New One , which sounds quite a mouthful to us.

Display The HTC flagship is expected to get a display around 5 inches, which is bigger than the 4.7-nch display we saw on the HTC One. The display will come with full resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution. The display type is most likely to be SuperLCD, as we’ve seen in previous HTC devices. Whether it is a new panel i.e SLCD4 or the fantastic SLCD3 from the HTC One, is as yet unknown.

User interface The HTC flagship should run on nothing less than the Android 4.4 KitKat version of the OS. Obviously, it will get a layer of the HTC Sense UI on top of it, and all UI refreshments that it brings along. A leaked image had earlier shown the completely revamped HTC Sense 6 UI running on the M8. The UI showed KitKat-style translucent system bars and white icons. Interestingly, the screenshot displayed software navigation keys, indicating that HTC is all set to replace the capacitive buttons seen on its previous phones.

Processor One of the disappointments of the flagship HTC One was its Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor. This time around, HTC  is rumoured to power the new flagship with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 805 processor and 2 GB of RAM. However, it could be too early to employ Snapdragon 805 that will be available later during the first half of the year. It most likely could get a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset. It should be noted that most manufacturers are moving towards octa-core processors, we hope HTC doesn’t have a lot of catching up to do this time around as well.

Camera Some earlier reports at hinted that the 4-megapixel UltraPixel camera and a 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera will be retained in the new One. However, going by the latest rumours, it is also said to have dual rear cameras with 6-megapixel and 8-megapixel sensors, to aid in low-light photography and refocusing after the image has been taken.

Storage and battery On the storage front, HTC will mostly offer 16GB and 32GB options. Some reports also say that HTC will follow the cues from the HTC One Max and the dual-SIM HTC One with a microSD card slot. Going by the latest trend, HTC may bundle in some cloud storage too with a tie-up with a specific service. It is also rumoured to get a decent-sounding 2900 mAh battery, though we cannot confirm this detail yet.

Fingerprint scanner Looks like, fingerprint scanner trend sparked by Apple’s latest iPhone 5s is slowly gripping flagships from all manufacturers. The HTC One 2 is also rumoured to get fingerprint scanner, just like the upcoming Galaxy S5 and LG premium phones. It would rather be easier for HTC as the company has already launched its 5.7-inch HTC One Max phablet with a fingerprint scanner.

Miscellaneous Though nothing much is known about the design yet, it is likely to be an all-aluminum device. We have seen some images of the alleged next-gen flagship that show more rounded corners. Evleaks says the One will be available in grey, silver and gold. On the connectivity front, it should most likely get all the usual suspects and more including 3G, LTE, Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth, GPS/A-GPS, GLONASS and NFC, as well as an IR port like last year’s One. Read our review of the HTC One and HTC One mini to find out what HTC will be building upon this year.