Tuesday 14 April 2015

No M9 for India, HTC launches One M9+ with One E9+, Desire 326G

HTC One M9+ has been launched in India. (Source: Nandagopal Rajan) It wasn’t the M9 after all. HTC pulled a surprise out of the bag and launched the One M9+ in India instead of the HTC One M9 which it showcased at the Mobile World Congress last month. Th One M9+ will be priced Rs 52,500 and will be available in India early May.

The HTC One M9+ will feature a 5.2-inch 2K display and will be powered by a Mediatek processor. It will also bring back a 20Mp dual camera like in the M8 which the M9 had discarded. There is also a fingerprint scanner.

The other features are similar to the HTC One M9. It has 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage (up to 128Gb expandable) and the HTC’s trademark BoomSound with Dolby Audio.The 20MP rear camera has a Sapphire cover lens (4K recording supported) and the front camera is the HTC UltraPixel one. The HTC One M9+ runs Android 5.0 (Lollipop) with HTC Sense 7. It has a 2840 mAh battery. HTC is also offering Myntra vouchers worth Rs 15,000 with the smartphone and has also suggested a easy EMI scheme.

It seems HTC is trying to take on Samsung by offering a larger screen along with the full metal body at a price very similar to the entry-level version of the Samsung Galaxy S6.

The surprise was pre-planned if HTC south Asia president Faisal Siddiqui is to believed. “We had decided to launch this model in China and India,” he said, adding that they will decide later on whether to roll out this model for other markets. He confirmed that the HTC One M9 will not be coming to India.

The M9+ will be the costliest phone running a MediaTek processor in India. “We do not think that will be an issue with customers. The response to our other Mediatek phones has been very good,” Siddiqui said.

MediaTek processors are generally associated with affordable phones. However, of late the company has been giving top chipmakers a run for their money with processors with unprecedented benchmarking scores and superior media capabilities.

HTC has also launched the One E9+, a larger upgrade of the E8, as well as the HTC Desire 326G dual sim, a more affordable version of the Desire 526G.

The HTC One E9+ has a 5.5-inch 2K display and a 20 megapixel rear camera with 4K recording as well. It is a dual-sim smartphone that comes with 3GB of RAM and 16GB storage and an expandable memory of up to 2TB on microSDXC card slot. It has MediaTek’s flagship processor, the HelioX10 processor which is a 64-bit 2GHz octa-core chipset.

HTC One E9+ will be available in Meteor Grey, Gold Sopia and Rose Gold with all major retailers from the second half of May. No price has been announced for this phone.

The HTC Desire 326G dual-sim has a 4.5-inch screen with 1GB RAM and 8GB storage and expandable memory up to 32GB microSD storage. It has a 2000mAh battery which is also removable. The smartphone has an 8 megapixel rear facing camera and a 2 megapixel BSI front facing camera.

HTC Desire 326G dual-sim will be available in White Birch and Black Onyx with all major retailers from the second half of May.

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