HTC's Mackenzie says company is taking a different road than Samsung; no HTC One M9 Plus announced

posted by Alan F. / Mar 18, 2015, 12:11 PM

HTC's Mackenzie says company is taking a different road than Samsung; no HTC One M9 Plus announced

For those who were hoping that HTC Americas president Jason Mackenzie would show off an HTC One M9 Plus today, remember not to blame the messenger. Many were disappointed when the Uh-oh webcast signed off without a new handset being introduced by the executive. Mackenzie did say near the end of the webcast that the Uh-oh protection announcement was big enough news for one day.

This doesn't mean that the rumored 5.5-inch phablet (expected to be HTC's first phone to carry a 1440 x 2560 resolution) will never appear. Mackenzie did hint at a future announcement that might include the introduction of a new phone. That new model will certainly not be a Google Play edition of the One M9. The HTC executive revealed that there will not be a stock Android version of the new flagship phone as there was for the HTC One (M8).

As he opened up the webcast, which started a bit after 9am in Seattle where it originated, Mackenzie did take a few seconds to point out how HTC is going in a different direction than an unnamed competitor which was surely Samsung. He mentioned how HTC wanted to continue offering a microSD slot on its new flagship model, something that Samsung has eliminated on the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Samsung Galaxy S6 edge. And unlike Samsung's reduction in battery capacity on its new flagship model, Mackenzie noted that the HTC has increased the capacity of the cell inside the new HTC One M9 by 10% over the HTC One (M8). The executive stated that many HTC owners like to use their device to view entertainment content, which requires plenty of battery life.

This is actually ironic since in past years HTC had been criticized for packing its handsets with cells offering shorter battery life than the competition. But the 2600mAh battery in the HTC One (M8) has been optimized to outperform larger capacity cells in rival handsets.

source: HTC

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Display 5.0" 1080 x 1920 pixels

Camera 20 MP / 4 MP front

Processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 810, Octa-core, 2000 MHz

Storage 32 GB + microSDXC

Battery 2840 mAh(21.7h 3G talk time)

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37 Comments

1. Birds

Posts: 1172; Member since: Nov 21, 2011

I'm kinda sad, but not really sad. I wish I could design the M10 or what ever it's gonna be called... I'd make a sick phone... The stacked pyramid back needs to be here to stay and I hope HTC never gets rid of it. The thing I hate about my 816 is that when ever I drop it, the center of gravity wants to make it fall screen down. On the M9/M8/M7, the center of gravity is on the rear so the device wants to flip on its back when it falls... I think HTC and Moto knew what they were doing with the design.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 12:16 PM 2

8. brar.arsh

Posts: 202; Member since: Sep 12, 2012

Dont be sad, might be in the H2 of this year HTC will announce m9 Plus with better design and processor. BTW HTC's Mackenzie says company is taking a different road than Samsung. THIS IS ACTUALLY TRUE.. Samsung is taking road towards SUCCESS and HTC towards FAILURE.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 12:43 PM 3

11. TyrionLannister unregistered

" I wish I could design the M10 or what ever it's gonna be called... I'd make a sick phone..." LOOOL. There is a difference between designing a concept or sketching a design and making an ACTUAL device with REAL STUFF inside. You need to maximize the room available and balance design and practicality. It's not easy.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 12:48 PM 3

30. Birds

Posts: 1172; Member since: Nov 21, 2011

I'm no expert or anything but I do have stuff like that in mind. Ultimately the phone IMHO needs a face lift and I got into a discussion with a friend about the sacrifices HTC made for the HTC One to be the way it is. He knows much more than I do about designing products that a lot of stuff has to be crammed inside but we came to the same conclusion.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 6:21 PM 2

32. KParks23

Posts: 722; Member since: Oct 13, 2010

Im disappointed but did anyone really expect them to announce a new flagship phone when there other flagship is launching in like 2 weeks? I didn't? I hope this phone does come but im thinking late q2 early q3 but it has to beat the note to market

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 9:33 PM 0

2. TyrionLannister unregistered

I'm a bit skeptical about M9's battery life. Here are a few results I gathered using Geekbench battery test: This is the best: http://browser.primatelabs.com/battery3/36161 2nd best: http://browser.primatelabs.com/battery3/37787 And this is the best Galaxy S6 manages: http://browser.primatelabs.com/battery3/36087 2nd best from S6: http://browser.primatelabs.com/battery3/36270 Note that this is the battery life under high CPU load and the softwares are pre-release. The usage will differ with changing workload. For example, the M9 will certainly have more calling time due to bigger battery capacity and the S6 will last longer while watching videos due to AMOLED.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 12:19 PM 6

3. Kakarotto

Posts: 255; Member since: Dec 07, 2010

M9 sucks hard. Even M8 is better than this s**t. It has no start to these year's flagships. The battery, the screen, the snapdragon 810, all of that is shit. Even camera despite that 20MP is not good enough. Utter crap.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 12:29 PM 3

6. Awalker

Posts: 1967; Member since: Aug 15, 2013

Nothing is a substitute for real would usage. I want the opinion of those who actually use the phone for a few days.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 12:35 PM 5

12. TyrionLannister unregistered

Well I'm waiting for that as well. But until reviews come, that was the best I could find.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 12:49 PM 2

27. AppleCultist

Posts: 335; Member since: Feb 18, 2015

The results of M9's battery life are already out, actually. Tweakers.net, a very reputable Dutch tech website, already has the figures available. http://tweakers.net/reviews/3921/6/htc-one-m9-waar-zijn-de-verbeteringen-accuduur-wisselvallig.html HTC tried to get this review taken offline.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 5:15 PM 0

33. TyrionLannister unregistered

I saw that review but I won't judge battery life on pre production software. Yes, I'm worried about that too.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 10:09 PM 0

4. mrej201

Posts: 226; Member since: Feb 04, 2015

with 128 gb samsung phone who needs sd card dummy

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 12:31 PM 1

13. gersont1000

Posts: 473; Member since: Mar 13, 2012

People who actually can do elementary school level math and realize that instead of paying around $100 (based on the Canadian prices equivalent in US dollars) to increase from 32GB to 64GB memory which will only be valid for that phone, you can buy a 64GB class 10 UHS3 card for around $40 or less. You will have 96GB storage in total, for 1/3 to 1/2 the price, and you will be able to use the 64GB in your next phone.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 1:11 PM 6

16. mrej201

Posts: 226; Member since: Feb 04, 2015

people who care about transfer speed etc would care like me... I own the note 4 and the 128 gb and the 64gb memory card speed are slow... is not the same speed as the phone.. I really hope the galaxy note 5 comes with 128gb

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 1:26 PM 0

22. gersont1000

Posts: 473; Member since: Mar 13, 2012

I guess you've used slow memory cards then. There's a reason why in my comment I stated the speed of the memory card. And besides, the difference (small difference) in transferring a large amount of data from your PC to your phone with built-in memory as opposed to a phone with a memory card might be a couple of minutes, and I'm not going to pay so much more just for that. Also, your transfer speed will be bottlenecked by the USB cable transfer rate no matter how fast the phone's memory is. And my final point in this comment is that the difference in speed might only matter when shooting 4k video (maybe) or rapid fire photos. And when this is the case the phone can automatically save to your phone memory even if your settings are set to automatically save your photos and video to your memory card, as the Z3 does. I was really thinking of selling my Z3 to get the S6 because it's beautiful and has great features, but upon further thinking about it I realized that I would be losing features while gaining some and that I would be losing money for basically having an iSheep mentality (pay $100's of dollars to get a new phone for negligible improvement just because it's pretty). I've actually even come to appreciate my Z3 more and will be happy to keep it for another 1 1/2 years until I can get a much nicer phone (maybe the S7 or S8 with memory card hopefully).

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 2:53 PM 1

25. TAMARETTE

Posts: 182; Member since: Jun 15, 2014

UFS 2.0 is about 30 times faster than ANY micro SD card. So in answer to your statement "I guess you've used slow memory cards then".. all SD cards are slow and according to some very telling research, can actually slow down the phone itself by as much as 1000 percent. As I've said ad nauseum, if ANY phone in the world is justified for excluding a micro SD, it's the Samsung S6.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 4:34 PM 0

26. brrunopt

Posts: 742; Member since: Aug 15, 2013

Wrong ... http://www.toshiba.com/taec/news/press_releases/2014/memy_14_708.jsp Thats fastest than any current smartphone memory . And even comparing to the new UFS 2.0 on the S6 it has only a bit inferior read speed and higher write speeds...

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 4:43 PM 1

29. TAMARETTE

Posts: 182; Member since: Jun 15, 2014

Oh lovely, where can I buy one of these? Oh wait, here's one! http://www.amazon.com/LWW-Toshiba-Exceria-SDHC-R260W240/dp/B00QYFORWW/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1426719627&sr=8-7&keywords=Toshiba+SD+CARD+uhs-II You would have a hard time getting one of those into a phone however. And about 4 of them would get you a lovely 128gb and cost you 1400.00 dollars. Oh and the phone, if it could use them, would still be half duplex. As for power, Im not sure but here are Toshiba's power charts for the MICRO SD, which does not exist as far as I can tell. hPower Supply Voltage VDD1=2.7~3.6V, VDD2=1.7V~1.95V Compliant Standard SD Memory Card Standard Ver. 4.20 A little knowledge goes far, towards making you look like an idiot. Like I said, there is NOTHING on the market that can compare to UFS 2.0. Next!

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 6:05 PM 0

34. brrunopt

Posts: 742; Member since: Aug 15, 2013

Something you can buy right now ? - SanDisk Extreme PRO MicroSD Read Up to 95MB/s ; Write Up to 90MB/s Read : 317/95 = 3.3x Write: 120/90 = 1.3x So your "teory" of "any microSD card is 30x slower" , makes you look like an idiot

posted on Mar 19, 2015, 4:11 AM 0

35. Phooey506

Posts: 85; Member since: Sep 24, 2014

What about UFS 2.1? it'll be in devices within 3 months. There is NOTHING on the market that can compare to UFS 2.0, but UFS 2.0 will be outdated before my next birthday. I think I'll wait.

posted on Mar 19, 2015, 9:32 AM 0

28. Awesoman64

Posts: 292; Member since: Mar 18, 2015

Ok, so what if your precious luxurious phone gets a blow and you wouldnt be able to recover your data? SD cards are also necessary to ensure the survival of data. P.S. UFS 2.0 is still, by far, a gimmick. *waits for a reply*

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 5:23 PM 0

21. carh79 unregistered

Try using an mini-USB SD card reader?

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 2:48 PM 0

23. gersont1000

Posts: 473; Member since: Mar 13, 2012

I've thought about this too, and if there were no phones available that have a microSD card slot I would do that. Especially if I can get a reader that's thin enough to fit in between my phone and case. However, I can buy a phone now that has the memory card feature and is very capable so since I have the option, I will get that option in another phone.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 2:59 PM 0

24. j2001m

Posts: 3061; Member since: Apr 28, 2014

So but you just wrong, I got a note edge and the sd card slows the phone down big time then using it without, also they are offering the free 100gb cloud, so just keep what you not using on that, on a small note I have now removed my sd card from my note over this, also all your other phones if you mean ones with 64 bit support this year will, have 810 and crap battery life and overheating problems or lag problems, and even more so with your sd card, good look, you going to need it.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 3:17 PM 0

19. JakLee

Posts: 16; Member since: Jan 19, 2015

why would a computer ever need more than 4kb ram? ................. Seriously though, the more options the better. If I can have 128gb phone plus 128gb sd card why WOULDN"T I do so?