HTC recently launched the HTC One M9, but apparently, the company wants to follow Apple's strategy and release a bigger model as well. HTC will release the larger HTC One M9+ in China for now, but the company doesn't plan to launch it in Europe or North America.
What's different between the HTC One M9 and the HTC One M9+? For one, the M9+ comes with a slightly larger 5.2" screen, as opposed to the 5" screen from the M9. If you thought the 1080p resolution was already too low for a 5" flagship screen in 2015, then you won't be disappointed to hear that the HTC One M9's 5.2" screen has a 2560 x 1440 resolution (the same as the Galaxy S6 and the LG G3).
There have been many reports that the Snapdragon 810 in the HTC One M9 and other devices overheats, which is why it seems HTC went with Mediatek's latest flagship chip, the Helio X10 (Mediatek MT6795T). This chip is based on the 64-bit ARMv8 architecture and comes with eight Cortex-A53 cores with a frequency of 2.2 GHz.
The chip should be roughly as powerful as the Snapdragon 810, but it should also be much more efficient. That means the Mediatek MT6795T should throttle much less as well, allowing for higher sustained performance. Two of its unique features are support for 480 fps slow-motion video recording and 120 Hz screen refresh rates, which is twice as much as what other chips on the market support currently.
Of course, HTC also loaded this with its "BoomSound" speakers that are paired with Dolby Audio for quality surround sound simulation.
On the back, the HTC One M9+ has a 20 MP "Duo Camera" to give that extra depth in pictures (the second camera is 2.1MP), while on the front it comes with a 4MP "UltraPixel" camera that performs well even in low-light environments.
One disappointing aspect about the HTC One M9 was that it didn't have a fingerprint sensor, even though its main competitors, the Galaxy S6 and the iPhone 6, do. Although fingerprint authentication is not perfect, if done right and if the fingerprints (or hashes of the fingerprints) never leave your device, it should be a much more secure alternative to using no password at all or using weak "1234" PINs.
Fortunately, the HTC One M9+ does seem to come with a fingerprint reader, although of course it remains to be seen just how well it will work. Most fingerprint readers so far haven't had great accuracy, which has led to bad user experiences and therefore low adoption among users.
The device will come with Android Lollipop (likely version 5.0.2, just like the M9) on board along with HTC's Sense 7 customizations, which include HTC Themes and the Blinkfeed feature (news and social media posts). HTC hasn't announced a launch date or what it will cost when it arrives in China.
More on the HTC One M9:
HTC One M9 Debuts, Flashes Style, Promises Performance
HTC One M9, Hands-On At MWC 2015
HTC One M9 Available Tonight, Latest Flagship Goes Toe-To-Toe With Samsung
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