HTC One M9 sports familiar design, new camera in alleged photo leak

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This alleged One M9 has a completely redesigned rear-facing camera. Photo: NowhereElse

The HTC One M8 was certainly one of the most beautiful Android-powered devices of 2014, and it seems its successor will be just as pretty. In fact, if these leaked photos are genuine, the One M9 will look almost identical to its predecessor, but its rear-facing camera will be redesigned to accommodate its larger sensor.

From the front, the device in these photos obtained by French website NowhereElse, looks just like the silver One M8. But if you flip it over, you’ll notice the second rear-facing camera sensor — which made for some cool focusing effects on the One M8 — is gone, and a larger sensor replaces the main UltraPixel camera.

This lines up with recent rumors that have claimed HTC is ditching its Duo Camera setup in favor of a more traditional 20.7-megapixel shooter — and that’s great news for fans of the series. While the 4-megapixel UltraPixel camera in the last two One handsets was impressive in low light, it was all but disappointing for everything else.

This could be the front of the One M9. Photo: NowhereElse

This could be the front of the One M9. Photo: NowhereElse

By improving that rear-facing camera, HTC will be addressing one of the One’s few complaints. The company is also expected to make the device faster by introducing Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 810 processor and 3GB of RAM, but its display could maintain the same 1080p resolution as the One M8’s.

While I was a huge fan of the One M8’s design, one improvement I was hoping for with the One M9 was concealed BoomSound speakers. HTC has managed to avoid those speaker grills above and below its displays on more recent handsets, and I was half expecting it to do the same for this year’s flagship.

HTC will unveil the One M9 at an event in Barcelona on March 1. The device will likely be its first to run Android 5.0 Lollipop and Sense 7 out of the box.