HTC’s next flagship, HTC 10, revealed in renders for the first time

There was quite a bit of nervousness among HTC fans earlier this year regarding the company’s 2016 flagship. While handsets from other manufacturers, who traditionally debut the top of their lines at Mobile World Congress, had already begun to leak — including the Samsung Galaxy S7 and LG G5 — there was hardly a peep out of HTC.

We now know why: HTC decided to eschew MWC for a launch nearly two months later, in mid-April (with a possible early- to mid-May retail release). After a slew of activity today surrounding the device codenamed HTC Perfume, we can confidently report the retail name and examine the very first press renders to appear, including those of a white version of the phone exclusive to VentureBeat.

As I reported earlier — and as leaker Steve Hemmerstoffer seemingly verified in a subsequent tweet — Perfume will not go to market as the HTC One M10, but as simply the HTC 10. The stripped-down branding may give the company a fresh start among consumers, many of whom were jaded by what may well be the last One-branded handset, the One M9.

Start looking for HTC to ramp up its teaser campaign throughout March, following a picture of the sparse outline of the handset, which was posted to social media during MWC. The image was captioned #powerof10.

For a full rundown of the preliminary specs, check out our earlier report.