After years of ramping processing power, camera and display quality up on phones it still doesn’t seem like the spec wars are anywhere near over. As a general consensus it seems like people are caring less and less about actual processing power and are now moving towards more convenience related specs like waterproofing and wireless charging. Samsung has done a pretty good job of pushing the envelope when it comes to these sorts of convenience type specs, with last year’s Galaxy S5 featuring IP67 water and dust resistance out of the box. This year’s Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge will be forgoing this water and dust resistance rating in favor of wireless charging out of the box, and some retailers will even be offering a free wireless charger with pre-order of the phone.
This is great and all but what if you’re an HTC fan and are looking forward to HTC’s One M9 instead of Samsung’s latest? Unfortunately there’s no wireless charging option at all, as was given with the original HTC One M7 when custom ordered from HTC. This doesn’t mean that HTC is abandoning the idea of wireless charging though as CTimes was able to sit down with Howard Lee, HTC’s Senior Director at the Project Management & Electrical Structure, and have a chat about the future of HTC’s development ideas. One particularly interesting topic that came up was of course charging and the question about Samsung’s latest flagships featuring wireless charging out of the box came up. Lee responded that HTC had used wireless charging in the past but it wasn’t very much in demand so they abandoned the idea for a time until it took hold.
Now that wireless charging will be included in what will likely be the biggest selling two phones this year HTC is responding in a big way. While it’s far too late to include wireless charging on the HTC One M9, as that phone has already undergone production, HTC’s next flagship will in fact include wireless charging for sure. There’s no confirmation here of this being the One M10 or if it’s going to be another flagship, and of course we don’t know if it’ll be on all of the flagship phones shipped or just as an option the way it was on the One M7. Regardless this is a fantastic standard being pushed and something that’s important, especially for phones that are completely sealed as the Galaxy S6, S6 edge and HTC One series are.