If you found the substantial charms of the HTC One M9 somewhat lackluster at its reveal at MWC, fret not as HTC has done something unprecedented by going back to the drawing board and making an entirely new variant of the M9 for selected markets that don’t have Cat 6 LTE. While our neighbours down south will get the HTC One M9, we’ll instead get its sexier and upgunned sibling the HTC One M9 Plus.
Externally, the phone looks and feels similar with the characteristic machined aluminium unibody casing. Where it primarily differs is that it doesn’t have Cat 6 LTE, instead going for a more practical Cat 4 LTE for local networks as well as toting a rear 20-MP Duo Camera which has a depth sensor for bokeh shots, a step up over the M9.
The M9 Plus feels almost exactly like an M9 and looks the part too unless you flip it over and spot the aforementioned rear Duo Camera. The camera itself comes with an f/2.2 27.8mm sapphire lens along with a bevy of shot modes including HDR mode and, later down the line as an optional download, the ability to shoot in raw.
The display is a 5.2-inch WQHD Super LCD display sheathed in Gorilla glass for resilience. The M9 Plus’ quad HD display kicks out a whopping 564ppi and has a 16:9 aspect ratio, making movie watching quite a treat. The M9 Plus runs the latest Android Lollipop and the latest iteration of their Sense 7 UI on a 2.2GHz MediaTek Helios 64-bit octacore processor paired with 3GB RAM and 32GB of onboard expandable storage. The front also has HTC’s Ultrapixel camera with an f/2.0 lens for selfies along with their front facing Boomsound speakers for added aural punch. Rounding up its sundry charms is a fingerprint sensor at the base of the display that works every which way for easy unlocking.
Like the M9, the M9 Plus has a tweakable theme option that creates a theme based on the dominant colours of a picture that you snap or select. Once that’s sorted out you can finetune your theme with icons, special sounds and the like. If you’re not up for it, you can download additional themes for free too.
Other sundry charms that the M9 Plus offers is seamless multi-room wireless speaker support with the phone supporting all the major players – Qualcomm Airplay, DLNA and, eventually near the end of the year Apple too.
The M9 plus ships in a silver finish with gold trim as well as a gunmetal grey. An all gold on gold variant will arrive sometime later this year. Also bundled with the M9 Plus is a high quality pair of audio headphones that are better than the mainstream high street stuff. More news when it launches this evening on the 28th May.
