HTC raises the curtain on its new flagship One M9 phone

BARCELONA, Spain — The Taiwanese phone maker HTC finally raised the curtain on its much-hyped One M9 smartphone here at Mobile World Congress Sunday.

The first thing you notice about the M9 is the metal shell, which HTC describes as having a “two-tone, silver and rose gold metal finish.” The seamless piece of metal surrounds the the whole phone, outside the screen.

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The phone is powered by a new Qualcomm Snapdragon chip. The LTE modem is capable of 450 megabits per second download speeds.

The announcement took place in a large auditorium full of perhaps 1,000 phone geeks from all over the world.

The M9 phone gets a new 20-megapixel camera on the rear, which will soon be the norm in premium phones. The front camera also gets an upgrade for “better selfies in low light.” The camera also shoots 4K video.

The M9’s front-facing camera uses dynamic auto exposure to deal with low-light shots. HTC says the camera captures 300 percent more light than standard cameras.

A new HTC Sense Home widget places apps on the desktop dynamically, based on usage frequency or time of day or the location of the phone. HTC Sense is a software overlay designed to add new interface features and run on top of stock Android.

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Another Sense feature, called BlinkFeed, gives you suggested food ideas based on the time of day.

The new phone also has Dolby surround sound built in, and  louder dual speakers that project sound from the front of the phone. HTC says the phones have 5.1 channel Dolby Surround sound simulation, delivering cinema style sound.

Another new Sense feature called HTC Connect lets you three-finger swipe to stream music (and possibly video) to other audio/video hardware in the room.

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The new HTC One will be available in the U.S. on AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon early Spring. It will also be available through HTC.com, Amazon, Best Buy, Best Buy Mobile specialty stores, Costco Wholesale and Target. An unlocked version will be available on www.htc.com.

Full specs:

SIZE: 144.6 x 69.7 x 9.61 mm

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WEIGHT: 157g

DISPLAY: 5.0 inch, Full HD 1080p

PLATFORM: Android 5.0 (Lollipop) with HTC Sense

PROCESSOR: Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 octa-core

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CPU: 4 x 2GHz + 4 x 1.5GHz 64-bit processing

MEMORY: Total storage: 32GB, available capacity varies

RAM: 3GB Expandable: microSD expansion

SENSORS: Ambient light, proximity, accelerometer, compass, gyroscope

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Bluetooth 4.1 w

Wi-Fi: 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 & 5 GHz)

Micro-USB 2.0 (5-pin) port

NFC

CAMERA: Main camera — 20MP with 27.8mm sapphire cover lens, 4K video recording; Front camera — 26.8mm lens, 1080p video recording