HTC One E9 is a phablet with a 5.5-inch QHD display and huge camera areola on the back

Last year HTC introduced the HTC One E8, a slightly more affordable, plastic clad version of their popular HTC One M8. Today, images of an HTC One E9 have surfaced, showing a phablet-sized HTC device headed for Asian markets.

The phone was revealed by China’s telecommunications equipment certification center, otherwise known as TENAA, so it’s pretty official. While it’s tough to make out build materials by the images, it does show HTC’s new 2-tone finish on what is likely to be an all plastic Android device. The back features a rather unsightly camera housing, placed all the way along the top of the phone.

Some basic specs were also revealed, showing a 5.5-inch display, 2,800mAh battery, and measuring in at 7.54mm thin. As for the rest, @upleaks chimed in last week to fill in the missing pieces, claiming the phone (A55) will come with a 2GHz MediaTek MT6795 8-core processor (64-bit), 3GB RAM, WQHD display, 20MP/13MP rear camera with 4MP UltraPixel front facing camera, and BoomSound front facing speakers.

Other colors include white with rose gold (pictured), metallic gray, or brown and gold. Expected launch date is sometimes towards the end of this month, with HTC already sending out invites for a press event in China where the phone is expected to be unveiled at a price point of around 0.

[TENAA | ithome | upleaks]

 

Samsung planned a huge TouchWiz revamp at some point, and it looked awesome [VIDEO]

Last year, @evleaks treated us to leaked concepts of a TouchWiz revamp Samsung purportedly planned to introduce on their latest flagship handsets, but once the Samsung Galaxy S5 launched we were saddened to see the same ol’ TouchWiz. The Samsung Galaxy S6, while a bit better looking, still didn’t look nearly as good as the leaks.

But the leaks were real, and Samsung really did toy around with the possibility of creating this awesome user interface for use on their smartphones. That much was revealed by one of the designers they tasked with dreaming up the concept, Gerald Mark Soto.

Gerald Mark Soto was responsible for engineering the animations, though it was Perception‘s vision he used to create it. Perception is a design firm credited for the futuristic user interfaces seen in films such as Robocop, Iron Man 2, The Avengers, Men in Black and more, and they are indeed listing Samsung as one of the big partners they have worked with (or may still be working with).

You can see their work in the footage above and below. The user interface featured lush graphics and smooth, cool animations that make using a Samsung smartphone seem like the most blissful experience ever.

We’re not sure why Samsung decided not to go through with this project, though there are a couple of possibilities:

• Technology constraints. As good as all this looked, it would demand some pretty good hardware. The TouchWiz of yesteryear already struggled to maintain smoothness throughout usage even on Samsung’s most powerful hardware, so it’s possible Samsung couldn’t replicate the concept without issues. There’s also the issue of how such an involved user interface could impact battery life.


• Differing visions. We’d find it hard to imagine that top brass within Samsung’s ranks wouldn’t like Soto’s work, but it’s possible they simply didn’t feel it was a good fit for their smartphone right now.


• It simply isn’t ready. Stuff like this is bound to take a lot of time, especially if Samsung has to build it from the ground up. The fact that the animator released the concept doesn’t bode well for the chances of this particular version of the concept to ever see the light of day, but that doesn’t mean Samsung isn’t still cooking up something big.

TouchWiz has long been chastised for being too bloated and doing too much to detract from the overall Android experience, but if it looked anything like the concepts above we wouldn’t mind using it on a daily basis. How do you feel about it?