HTC One M9 Release Date March 1? Report Suggests New Flagship Announcement At WMC

HTC Corp. has big plans for 2015, with a new connected devices branding strategy it hopes will expand consumer focus beyond smartphones. But the Taiwanese manufacturer is not giving up its smartphone business. In fact, its upcoming 2015 flagship could be announced as early as March 1. “We are definitely continuing our flagship line,” Jeff Gattis, HTC's executive director of global marketing said in an interview.

HTC sent out invitations Friday for its March 1 press event at the World Mobile Congress. The company shared no details about what could be expected; however, the HTC One (M9) smartphone could be the product showcased at the event, Bloomberg reported Monday.

HTC has hinted it has a lot of surprises in store for WMC. “Historically, we have refreshed our flagship around the Mobile World Congress timeframe,” Gattis said.

But just because the new HTC flagship launches in the “WMC timeframe” doesn’t necessarily mean it will launch at WMC. The HTC One (M8) launched at a press event in New York March 25, about a month after WMC while the HTC One (M7) launched Feb. 19, 2013, about a week before WMC.

Additionally, HTC has at least four other products it plans to release under its connected devices brand, two it says it should release during the first half of the year. The company says it may give details about these devices at WMC.

Regardless of when the 2015 HTC flagship launches, the device is expected to be camera focused. Bloomberg says the standout feature on the HTC One (M9) may be a 20-megapixel main camera, coupled with an HTC UltraPixel sensor for the front-camera. HTC has marketed its UltraPixel sensor for the main camera on several of its smartphones, but the feature, which provides a smaller number of larger pixels -- intended to shoot clearer images in lower light -- was not popular with consumers.

HTC has put a big focus on cameras in the last year, having launched the HTC Desire Eye smartphone, which features 13-megapixel lenses for both its front and back cameras, without its UltraPixel technology. The manufacturer also launched its Re Camera, a periscope-shaped, high-definition camera.

An unnamed source also told the publication the HTC One (M9) might include the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chip and HTC’s Sense UI on top of Google’s latest Android operating system. The HTC One (M9) may also feature a 5-inch Full HD 1080p display, the Adreno 430 GPU 3GB of RAM a 2,840mAh battery.

HTC’s 2014 flagship, the HTC One (M8) was considered one of the best-designed smartphones on the market, featuring a unibody frame made of 90 percent metal. While most design details about M9 remain unknown, the device is expected to come in the same gray, gold and silver color options as the M8, suggesting that the metal unibody should make it to at least one more generation of the One line. “We think there’s plenty of room for innovation. Whether that’s more metal or other things, time will tell,” Gattis said.