On Aug. 19, HTC will hold an event to officially announce the HTC One M8 for Windows. New press images of the aluminum smartphone have leaked and confirm it will be exclusive to Verizon.
When Apple and Steve Jobs unveiled the original iPhone in 2007, the company would forever change the look of smartphones. The most popular smartphones on the market at the time all had one thing in common; a physical keyboard.
BlackBerry was the king of smartphones in 2007 and had a huge following in both the corporate and consumer market with devices like the mini-sized BlackBerry Pearl, midrange BlackBerry Curve, and flagship BlackBerry 9800.
Palm was another favorite when it came to popular smartphones in 2007. The company's Treo line offered users both Palm OS and Windows Mobile handsets, like the Treo 700p and Treo 700wx. Like BlackBerry, Palm shipped all of its smartphones with built-in physical QWERTY keyboards that made typing fast and easy.
At MacWorld 2007, Steve Jobs made it a mission to chastise BlackBerry, Palm, Nokia, and Motorola for using physical keyboards that "are there whether you need them or not." It was a tactic the CEO used over the years during presentations to show how Apple figured out the best way to do something. The omission of a physical QWERTY keyboard would allow iPhone users to have more screen real estate, since the keyboard would only appear when needed. It was the beginning of the end for physical QWERTY-equipped handsets and almost all smartphones after the iPhone adopted a similar slate design with no physical keyboard.
The design of a smartphone has become even more important in recent years and the poster child for that right now is HTC. The company took Apple's approach of focusing on high-end design and using premium parts like aluminum and glass. The HTC One, released in 2013, began this shift and its current flagship HTC One M8 has only improved upon this. The HTC One M8 has been one of the most-sold Android smartphones this year and we pointed out why in our review.
The company is about to use the same brushed aluminum unibody case and specs of the HTC One M8 and swap out Android for Windows Phone 8.1 when it unveils the HTC One M8 for Windows at its Aug. 19 event. New official press images of the smartphone have just leaked.
Neowin received the above press images from an anonymous source and it pretty much confirms that Verizon will get the exclusive on the HTC One M8 for Windows. The site also posted the smartphone's spec list:
- Windows Phone 8.1
- 2.3 GHz quad-core, Qualcomm Snapdragon 801
- 32 GB internal storage; microSD (up to 128 GB)
- 2 GB of RAM
- 5-inch Full HD, Super LCD3 display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3; 441 ppi
- 2,600 mAh battery
- HTC UltraPixel camera; 5 MP front-facing camera
- Nano SIM
- HTC Boomsound
- U-Focus
- HTC Dot View case support
We'll be covering HTC's Aug. 19 event and will update you on all of the latest news.
