HTC has unveiled the One (M8) smartphone, the follow up to its biggest selling model last year, as the Taiwanese firm looks to rival Samsung and Apple in the high-end smartphone market.
The HTC One (M8) features a new larger display, powerful reworked internal components and new Sense software on top of the Android operating system.
The phone also includes revamped BoomSoundit with better speakers, louder sound and improved tuning. Meanwhile, a depth sensor to let owners change what appears in focus in photos after they are taken.
Also new in Sense 6 is “extreme power saving mode,” which works like Samsung’s ultra power saving mode to dramatically extend the phone’s battery life by disabling background data and only providing access to voice calling, text messaging and email.
According to HTC, a phone with 5% charge remaining will last for 15 hours with extreme power saving mode enabled. A phone with a full charge will last for two weeks.
Uphill struggle for HTC
The company said the device should turn around recent weak earnings and help it recover market share.
But experts said Samsung and Apple’s bigger marketing budgets would continue to put HTC at a disadvantage.
The Taiwanese company only shipped 6.4 million units of the original HTC One model last year, according to the research firm IDC.
That compares with 43.3 million shipped copies of Samsung’s Galaxy S4 and 39.5 million shipped units of Apple’s iPhone 5S, which also launched in 2013.
Across its portfolio as a whole, HTC actually sold fewer handsets in 2013 than 2012 despite growth in the wider market.
