This time of year the rumor mill is in high-gear with CES having just happened and MWC looming on the horizon. Of course, there are always going to be a couple of manufacturers that be the subject of the rumor mill more than anything and that’s HTC and Samsung. We all know that rumors surrounding the Galaxy S IV will be coming thick and fast but it’s HTC that a lot of us are waiting on, to see if they can announce the phone that will help them back to success.
We’ve seen a couple of leaks surrounding this mysterious “M7” surface already, ranging from leaked screenshots that could possibly be Sense 5 and supposed renders of the device. Now, there is another render that has been sent to Pocketnow that looks a lot like it could be what’s on show in Barcelona next year. As you can see from the image above it looks like HTC are refining the look that surfaced with the One X and carried on with the Droid DNA. There are the same three buttons at the bottom of the display that could look like they are in fact onscreen controls. It seems like the M7 could well have a lot in common with HTC’s recent Windows Phone 8 devices and seems to borrow some design cues from Sony’s monolithic design on the Xperia Z.
Specs wise the M7 is said to be packing a 1080p display and a Quad-Core 1.5 Ghz Snapdragon S4 Pro. Whether or not the amplifier present in the Droid DNA will make it to the M7 is uncertain but, it’d certainly help the phone stand out from all the other 1080p high-end smartphones we’ll be seeing this year.
Sense 5 is something that’s going to be important for HTC as well, as not many – including myself – have warmed to Sense over the years and even Sense 4, which was pinned to be a redesign and major improvement, did little to boost HTC’s reputation for the software side of things. Updates still take a long time to reach HTC’s devices. From the render, Sense 5 looks to borrow some of the flat, digital styling from Android’s Holo theme – could this be a blend of Holo and Sense?
For the most part, this render does look a lot like HTC press shots from the past and we wouldn’t be surprised if this was the real deal or, at least a prototype render of the device. After all, HTC are not a company to introduce wholesale radical change in their devices and instead prefer to refine and iterate on what they already consider to be successful.
Is this the upcoming HTC device we’ll be seeing in February in Barcelona?
[Source: Pocketnow]