'Google Edition' HTC One will be announced next week?

On Thursday, we told you that despite denials from all concerned, a 'Google Edition' of the HTC One with stock Android would be announced sometime in the next two weeks. Friday's rumor mill has boiled it down even further as a published report has the Sense-less HTC One getting unveiled some time next week.

Buyers get a sleek, sexy device running stock Android and benefit from quicker updates to the Android OS. HTC gets a bigger profit margin since they won't have to pay licensing fees on Sense-related content. One insider said that in exchange for receiving the new Android code early, both HTC and Samsung will have a deadline by which each update must be pushed out.

One problem that might need to be corrected with a change to the hardware is the question of the on-screen menu key that the HTC One uses. Google does not want the Taiwan based manufacturer to hide the menu button, so we could see a long-press of the back button become the solution there. Obviously BlinkFeed would be gone as well as Beats Audio and some functionality could be removed from the UltraPixel camera.

So far, the Samsung Galaxy S4 has outsold the HTC One by a 2 to 1 margin in the marketplace. It will be interesting to see if that ratio remains with the 'Google Edition' of both handsets.

source: AndroidCentral