HTC One S9 announced, 5-inch FHD display and Helio X10 SoC. Touché!

In the mobile phone world, there are curiously a lot of Ones despite it being such a lonely number. OnePlus has not only its original One but also a One 2 in addition to a mini One that followed the 2 but was basically just a smaller first One. Then there is the original one with the One, HTC, who has had several, though curiously this year no One, just a 10. Add all of these noteworthy numbers up and we’re probably closer to a baker’s dozen or halfway through a season of Friends, but that’s neither here nor there.

See, what matters is not counting, but convention, and with the HTC 10 announced just a few weeks ago, Taiwan’s perennial smartphone OEM seemingly indicated it was breaking that which it holds most cherished. Thankfully just mere weeks after the launch of said flagship, HTCis back on track with another new phone, and this one is…a One! Actually it’s an S9, but it’s also a One. And that means something.

The HTCOne S9 packs a 5-inch FHD Super LCD display with Gorilla Glass, a 2GHz Octa Core MediaTek Helio X10 SoC, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of on-board storage, a 13-megapixel rear camera, a 4-megapixel front camera, BoomSound speakers, a 2,840mAh battery, and ships with Android Marshmallow.

The phone has an official web page in Germany and will retail there for €499, or roughly $561 at the current exchange rate.

2 cents on the new One

Judging by the pictures, it looks as if HTC’s new phone has been liberally inspired by last year’s halo product, the M9. The back of the phone has the same design for the camera and antenna lines, and the side view reveals the two-toned approach has been carried forward as well. The front of the phone is clearly a different story however, and it is here that HTCmay be onto something, or at least trying to evoke a new design language.

Whereas the OEM typically uses front panels that are surrounded by a black bezel, what appears here looks more like Samsung’s new Galaxy J (2016) line or various HUAWEI phones than it does a typical HTC product. This will no doubt please many haters given that there is absolutely no “HTC Black Bar” under the display, but at the same time there is no fingerprint sensor there, either.

As far as the pricing goes however, $560 is seemingly a lot of money to be asking for what is – internally at least – quite similar to the now “old” M9. Of course pricing always depends on region thus should the pone release in other territories, it may very well be offered for a lower asking price.

What do you think? Does HTChave a new winner on its hands or is it time to finally retire the One series?