HTC has launched the HTC One M9 Prime Camera Edition, which looks very much like its previous flagship smartphone, the HTC One M9, but with a few tweaks to its specifications.
First surfacing in Poland, the HTC One M9 Prime Camera Edition features a 13MP rear-facing camera with optical image stabilization technology, compared to the 20MP rear-facing camera of the HTC One M9, and is powered by the MediaTek Helio X10 processor instead of the HTC One M9's Qualcomm Snapdragon 810. RAM and base expandable storage, however, have been cut to 2 GB and 16 GB, respectively, from 3 GB and 32 GB.
For those who have been paying attention to the variants that HTC has released of its previous flagship smartphone, the HTC One M9 Prime Camera Edition is actually just a renamed HTC One M9s, which was introduced in November 2015 to the company's home country of Taiwan.
Some of the specifications retained in the HTC One M9 Prime Camera Edition and the HTC One M9s are the 5-inch 1080p touchscreen display, the UltraPixel front-facing camera and the 2,840 mAh battery.
It is not clear why HTC decided to change the name of the HTC One M9s. The smartphone was first spotted in Poland, but it has since been listed in each of the country websites of HTC for Europe, signaling a widespread release.
In Poland, the smartphone is being offered by the country's Play carrier for 1 Polish zloty (26 cents, 23 eurocents) for a monthly contract of 99.99 zloty ($25.78, €22.70). This makes the HTC One M9 Prime Camera Edition very much affordable as a mid-range smartphone, similar to how the HTC One M9s was marketed in Taiwan.
The release of the renamed smartphone in Europe comes just as preorders for the new flagship smartphone of HTC, the HTC 10, have started to ship in the United States. The units being shipped are the unlocked versions that customers preorder directly from the HTC website. For customers who preordered the smartphone from carriers, the wait continues.
