This year’s Mobile rld Congress is going to be a big one for HTC: The company is set to release its first smartwatch a refresh to the HTC One. On Monday, Bloomberg issued a report detailing rumored specs on the expected HTC One M9, following a press invite teasing the phone that HTC sent out on Friday.
HTC released the One M8 in April 2014.
Based on Bloomberg’s report, the M9 will pack a 20-megapixel rear-facing camera an HTC Ultraxel front-facing camera. The new smartphone will also have Qualcomm’s dual quad-core Snapdragon 810, Dolby 5.1 audio, HTC Sense 7, a new version of the company’s Android overlay. The M9 will look similar to the current HTC One–the M8– come in the same colors: gold, gray, silver.
The story behind the story: Bloomberg’s reported specs don’t add a whole lot in the way of the new information. ‘ve already heard about the Snapdragon 810 20Mcamera, for example. The one issue Bloomberg doesn’t address is what size of display we can expect on the new phone–not to mention its resolution. Nevertheless, it’s yet another report that appears to confirm expectations for HTC’s plans.
About that wearable
To hear Bloomberg tell it, HTC will also release its long-awaited smartwatch at M, which runs h 2-5 in Barcelona, Spain. The report doesn’t offer a whole lot of information other than the notion that the watch will connect to UA Record, the fitness tracking service from Under Armour. At CES earlier this month, HTC Under Armour announced a partnership where the gadget maker would create devices that integrate with UA Record.
Bloomberg’s report that HTC will produce a smartwatch is the latest volley of an ongoing “yes-we-will,” “no-we-won’t” back–forth in the press. In December, HTC told VentureBeat it had a wearable planned for CES, but it wouldn’t be a smartwatch. That wearable never materialized.
ior to that, in October, HTC admitted it was building a wearable, but it decided not to launch the product in late 2014 because “it wasn’t ready.”
Going back a little further into September, CNET reported that HTC was planning a smartwatch for early 2015.
And before all of that, Bloomberg last February said HTC would demo three smartwatches during M 2014, but only in closed-door meetings with carriers.
HTC’s smartwatch has had a long history of rumors, it’s clear HTC is working on some kind of wearable. Given previous reports on HTC’s wearables, whether we’ll actually see something materialize in Barcelona this h is anybody’s guess.