HTC shows off new phone for 'One' line - Economic Times

LONDON: Taiwan's HTC Corp has unveiled the new smartphone that it hopes will set it apart from the crowd of Google Android devices on the market and help it to make up ground lost to Samsung. The HTC One is powered by Google's software, but the company has distinguished it from rivals by using new software to replace icons on the home screen with a personalised stream of news articles, social networking updates, photos and video. Chief executive Peter Chou told reporters in London that the BlinkFeed feature would reinvigorate the smartphone experience. "BlinkFeed transforms your home screen into a live feed of information that matters to you," he said. HTC was an early, and successful, maker of smartphones based on Android, but it has been eclipsed by the increasing dominance of Samsung in the Android market. Android is widening its lead in smartphone operating systems, with devices running the software capturing nearly 70 percent of the market in the fourth quarter, Gartner said last week. Apple is in second place with 21 percent, while Blackberry and Windows Phone, which Nokia is pinning its hopes on, trailed with 3.5 percent and 3 percent respectively. HTC, however, has failed to capitalise on Android's dominance. Its share of mobile phone sales fell to 1.8 percent of the market last year, down from 2.4 percent in 2011, according to Gartner, and reported a 91 percent plunge in fourth-quarter net profit last month. The company, which started as a contract manufacturer, has been outgunned in the marketing stakes by both Samsung, which Gartner said made more than 42 percent of Android smartphones in the fourth quarter, and Apple. HTC launched its new device, which features a 4.7 inch screen and quad-core processor, days before the mobile phone industry's biggest gathering in Barcelona. Analyst Julian Jest, of Informa Telecoms and Media, said that the new smartphone would help HTC to differentiate its brand from the typical Android offering. "The introduction of HTC One has come at an ideal time - iPhone sales are slowing down and advanced users are now desperately looking for more innovative devices to satisfy their appetite to explore the new technology horizons," he said. HTC said the device would be availa ble in more than 80 countries from March.HTC Corp., the struggling Taiwanese maker of smartphones, is taking a page from longtime partner Microsoft Corp. as it launches a new phone under the One brand. The phone runs Google Inc.'s Android software, but HTC is grafting its own home screen on the phone, one that's similar to that of Microsoft's Windows Phone software. HTC Corp.'s BlinkFeed interface consists of large tiles that update automatically with information and photos from news sites and social networks. The phone will go on sale in late March. HTC says U.S. partners will include AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile, but specific availability dat es and prices were not announced. The new HTC One has a 4.7-inch (12-centimeter) screen, making it larger than the iPhone but smaller than some other Android phones, including HTC's own 5-inch (12.5-centimeter) Droid DNA, which launched in November. The HTC One has the same screen resolution as the larger phone, at 1920 by 1080 pixels. At a press event in New York, HTC's design director Jonah Becker emphasized precision machining that goes into making the virtually all-metal body of the phone. In a design reminiscent of the iPhone 5, HTC has eliminated all the little gaps between different parts, giving the phone a smooth, tight feel in the hand. HTC One features two speakers, at the top and bottom of the screen, producing a stereo effect when the phone is turned on its side for movie viewing. Another unusual feature is an infrared diode that lets the phone serve as a universal remote for a TV or media center. HTC sold 32 million smartphones last year according to research firm Gartner, giving it about 4 percent of the worldwide market. Unit sales were down 26 percent from HTC's peak in 2011. HTC has unveiled the new smartphone that it hopes will set it apart from the crowd of Google Android devices on the market and help it to make up ground lost to Samsung. via Technology - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNH_HtH88P79013xcML1VlxyFxBmCQ&url=http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/hardware/htc-shows-off-new-phone-for-one-line/articleshow/18579990.cms

Put the internet to work for you. via Personal Recipe 2598265