In 2012 HTC launched its flagship Android device, the HTC One X (read the review here). It never got the sales HTC was desperately after, and had another disappointing year. The slightly changed follow-ups, the One XL and the One X+ couldn’t hit the mark either. It makes sense, then, why the company opted for a fresh start and simply called its newest flagship the HTC One.

It was announced in New York and London on the 19^th of February to much fanfare. It has an all-around premium look, with two aluminium bands separated by a 4.7-inch 1080 Super LCD 3 display with a whopping 468 ppi. It does look somewhat like the Blackberry Z10, but better in our opinion. The back is the familiar polycarbonate cover we have seen HTC use of late. There you will also find the UltraPixel camera, HTC’s answer to the brilliant PureView cameras used on the latest Nokia Lumias.

The HTC One is powered by Qualcomm’s new quad-core 1.7QHz Snapdragon 600 processor, paired with 2GB of RAM and 32/64GB of storage. All the other modern goodies are included, like LTE, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC etc.

The device will ship with Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, but will be upgradable to Android 4.2 weeks after release. The new Sense 5 software HTC uses with Android sees a massive overhaul, and speaks the simplistic language it was never fluent in. We can’t wait to give it a go.

The HTC One will be available internationally from the 15^th of March, whereas SA is expected to see the device some time in April. Seeing as the HTC One X was one of our favourite Android devices of 2012, the HTC One might very well be the device to challenge the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4 if early impressions from the launch are anything to go by.

What do you think of HTC’s newest flagship?