Though HTC earned rave reviews for its One series of Android-powered handsets when it released in March, Samsung's Galaxy S4 and Apple's untouchable iPhone have hurt the company's financial bottom line.
The Taiwanese electronics giant recently announced a deficit of just under $100 million for quarters July - September. Samsung Electronics, however, has recorded profits for the same period.
HTC's follow-up phone is a "phablet-sized" version of its flagship One, dubbed the One Max, putting it in clear competition with Samsung's Galaxy Note 3. An event had been scheduled for the phone's reveal in China, Tuesday, but a media outlet broke information embargo. With that in mind, here are several newly found information on HTC's new handset as it reaches its worldwide release sometime this fall.
Huge Display
The One Max will feature an enormous 5.9-inch display featuring a Full HD display with 368ppi pixel density. In comparison to Samsung's upcoming 5.6-inch and 388ppi display of its Galaxy Note 3, screen mass was clearly given priority over image resolution.
New Processor
Remember a few years ago when duel-core was seen as the future? Interesting, considering that quad-core is the new high-end standard for handsets now. From the looks of things specification-wise, the One Max will use the same Snapdragon 600 1.7 Ghz quad-core processor and 2GB RAM featured on its flagship One. While that may be more than suitable for the smaller 4.7-inch screen on the One, will that suffice for the 5.9-inch behemoth? Its South Korean rival's upcoming Galaxy Note 3 easily slaughters these reported specifications with Snapdragon 800 processor (ranging from 1.9 Ghz Octo-core to 2.3 Ghz quad-core).
Non-removable Battery
Because the 3,300 mAh battery sits directly behind the display as components follow behind that, removable will obviously be a no go. To compensate, HTC will be offering a Power Flip Case for an added 1150 mAh of battery life. The Power Flip Case will snap over the back of HTC's upcoming device and take advantage of the pogo pins on the back.
Fingerprint Scanner
Though a feature making its debut on Motorola's Atrix handset some time ago, Apple made the fingerprint scanner a household name on this year's iPhone 5s. Add HTC into the fray as the handset will feature one located on the devices back underneath the camera. Alongside locking or unlocking the screen, the scanner will be able to launch up to three of a user's applications through assigning each one an individual finger.
Storage
Coming in both 16GB and 32GB flavors of internal storage, the Android 4.3 device (with HTC's new Sense 5.5) will support up to 64GB.
Features Lost
Due to HTC's recent plan to sell its remaining stake in Beats Audio, it loses its subversive ace and will have the One Max utilizing BoomSound stereo speakers. The One Max also retains the 4 ultra-pixel camera from the One but loses optical image stabilization.
