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All new HTC One 2014 edition (M8) specs, price,release date,, news & rumours

We're still waiting for HTC to make its new flagship smartphone official, but we know that the All New HTC One 2014 edition (m8) is on its way. Following a patent dispute with Nokia late last year, a UK patent judge confirmed that a successor to the HTC One would be arriving in either February or March 2014. With February now gone and an HTC event confirmed for the last week of March, we don't have long to wait to find out what the new handset will be like, but until then we've got plenty of rumour and speculation to get an idea what to expect.

HTC One 2014 Name

With the previous flagship handset being known simply as the One, it was anyone's guess as to what HTC would call its successor. The company was understood to be using the codename M8 to refer to the phone within the company, which seems unlikely to make it all the way to retail, but stranger things have happened. We were always doubtful that the company would launch a product called the HTC One Two - it sounds like you'd need to be a premiership footballer or a Chuckle brother to own one. We expected HTC to use a combination of words and numbers, possibly ending up with the HTC One 2, use superscript (HTC One²) or subscript (HTC One₂) to stylise the name, or copy Apple's iPhone 5s and use a letter instead.
It was also suggested that the phone would be called the HTC One+, which came following news that the handset would be more of an incremental design than a fully-fledged successor.

Three's webpage briefly revealed the HTC One (m8) name

However, recent leaks from Australian carrier Telstra and UK mobile retailer Three have suggested the phone will either be called the All New HTC One, or the HTC One (m8). With HTC still quiet on an official name, a billboard put on display in London's Selfridges store a little early calling it the HTC One 2014 edition, and a series of teaser videos calling it the All New HTC One, we'll have to wait until the official reveal to find out the final name.

HTC One 2014 design

If there's one thing the original One handset garnered near-universal praise for, it was design. The unibody aluminium construction was almost enough to rival the iPhone 5 and made the Galaxy S4 look like a plastic toy. We were convinced that the company won't take a step backwards and use plastic or polycarbonate for the successor, and early leaked photos backed this up.
The pictures, discovered by Unwiredview, show a rear cover for a handset that looks very similar to the One, albeit with an additional hole towards the top (more on this below).
The design incorporates rounded edges which extend further outwards than the rear cover of the HTC One, which Engadget postulates could be a way to avoid the costly zero gap injection method used to build the One's unibody shell.
Although the images appear to show the cover with a blue colour scheme, it's possible this is just a trick of the light - the official blue HTC One is much brighter, so we expect the final result to be more in keeping with the silver aluminium first seen on the original One.

Multiple colours aren't out of the question; HTC typically launches its flagship handsets in a choice of two colours, then adds extra options further down the line. The HTC One currently has silver, black, red, blue and gold models, so we would expect a successor to follow suit eventually - although probably not at launch.
It's possible that the capacitive buttons won't be making a return; according to Android Revolution HD, HTC's next phone will instead use virtual buttons like the Google Nexus 5, potentially making way for a larger display instead.

These early reports were seemingly backed up by more leaked photos from an unofficial Russian HTC Twitter account, which posted an image reportedly showing the outline of the front of the new handset.
Just weeks before an official launch, a 12-minute leaked video seemingly confirmed the All new HTC One 2014 edition (M8) would indeed have a design based on the HTC One, albeit with a larger screen, slightly more rounded shape and twin rear cameras.

HTC One 2014 screen

The HTC One was among the first set of Android smartphones to make the jump to a 1080p display, alongside Samsung's Galaxy S4 and Sony Xperia Z, so we're certain its successor won't be making a step back to 720p. According to an early tweet from @evleaks, the All New HTC One 2014 edition would have the same 4.7in display as the original One, and will stick with a 1080p resolution. However, later reports amended this to a 5in or 5.2in screen.
Although leaked benchmark results suggested the Galaxy S5 would have a 2,560x1,440 resolution screen, Samsung's Unpacked event came and went without a sign of the super high resolution smartphone. Instead, the company stuck with 1080p, so HTC would be on a level playing field when the new handset arrives.
If HTC does increase the size of the screen, it may need to relocate the power button or get rid of the front-facing BoomSound speakers; a top-mounted power button would be even more unwieldy and difficult to reach than it is now on the One.
HTC is almost guaranteed to stick with its Super LCD panel technology too, rather than switch to OLED, as it hasn't used AMOLED technology for several years.

HTC One Camera

HTC was the first manufacturer to use larger pixel camera sensors with the Ultrapixel camera in the HTC One, so it was widely expected the company would continue to use the technology in its new handset. This would give it fewer overall megapixels than competing smartphones, but the ability to capture more detail in low light.
Of all the leaked images seen so far, the biggest surprise was the one suggesting the All New HTC One 2014 Edition may ship with two rear camera sensors. This would either give the handset Lytro-like refocussing abilities, allowing you to change the point of focus after you've taken a photo for more creative shots, or improve low light performance even further than Ultrapixels alone. Toshiba has a smartphone light field camera sensor which suggests this could be a possibility, but with no further details it's unknown who is supplying HTC with the camera modules it is using in the new phone.
The twin LED flash could also use different coloured LEDs for more accurate low-light images, much like Apple's iPhone 5s, although they could simply provide brighter illumination when shooting in the dark.

HTC One 2 specifications

According to very early leaks from @evleaks, the HTC M8 was expected to use a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 system-on-chip (SoC). This was seemingly backed up by a benchmark result for an unnamed HTC handset, which produced near identical scores to a Sony Xperia Z1 and LG's Snapdragon 800-equipped G2 smartphone. This would suggest it has a similar amount of memory to these two handsets (2GB), although no firm figures have been discovered to verify the fact. There was a possibility that HTC was hoping to include Qualcomm's Snapdragon 805 instead of the 800, with one round of rumours suggesting the company was awaiting drivers from the manufacturer before they could proceed with the swap.
That plan appears to have changed, as the latest leaked specifications have amended this to the newer Snapdragon 801 running at 2.3GHz. It will apparently be paired with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage.
Other specifications mentioned in the leak include a larger 2,600mAh battery, up from 2,300mAh in the HTC One, and a microSD card slot. This is only a little surprising, as clearly there was enough demand for expandable storage that HTC brought its previously Asia-only HTC One DualSim to the UK earlier this year.

HTC One 2014 Android

HTC doesn't have the greatest track record when it comes to updating its devices with the latest version of Android - just look at the company's update tracker to see how many handsets are still languishing on Android 4.2 or even 4.1. By the time the All New HTC One 2014 Edition arrives, it will hopefully be running 4.4 KitKat, most likely with a new HTC Sense 6.0 custom user interface on top. We got an early look at Sense 6.0 when a leaked ROM was filmed running on a previous generation HTC One - it appears to have a redesigned look, complete with new motion gestures and a tap-to-wake function similar to the one seen in LG's G2 smartphone.

HTC One 2014 fingerprint sensor

HTC took a leaf out of Apple's book when it added a fingerprint sensor to the HTC One Max - just a few months after the iPhone 5s introduced TouchID. It's currently one of the only Android handsets with biometric security, although it was at one point thought there a good chance the All New HTC One 2014 Edition could join its ranks.
Based on the leaked rear cover photos seen above, a third cutout above the camera sensor and flash could indicate presence of a fingerprint reader. Moving it above the camera, rather than below it like on the One Max, would better suit a smaller handset as your index finger naturally rests toward the top of the handset. It would be easier to reach and you'd be less likely to wipe your finger over the camera sensor.
Unfortunately for the security conscious, it looks as if the third cutout will in fact be for a secondary camera sensor, rather than a fingerprint reader.

HTC One 2014 Wi-Fi

The new handset has now been Wi-Fi certified and appears in the Wi-Fi Alliance certification database, as PhoneArena.com reports. As we'd expect from the latest smartphone, the All New HTC One 2014 Edition supports both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. We'd have been shocked if this phone wasn't a dual-band model. The certificate lists the handset has being 802.11ac certified. In our tests we've seen laptops with 802.11ac manage transfer rates of near-on 300Mbit/s, so prospective HTC One 2 owners can expect faster speeds than regular 802.11n if they have a compatible router.
While the type of Wi-Fi in the phone is interesting, the fact that the handset has been certified means something more important: the All New HTC One 2014 Edition (M8) is due for release very soon.

HTC One 2014 accessories

HTC appears to have at least one official cover lined up for the All New HTC One 2014 edition - a perforated flip cover with Lite-Brite styled illumination to display important information such as the time and weather. A leaked image showed four potential colours.
However, if HTC is planning to stick with LCD screen technology rather than AMOLED, it seems unlikely the flip cover will always be on. Whereas AMOLED doesn't use any battery power to display black, meaning a flip-cover like the one seen here would create a minimal battery drain, LCD technology uses backlights that would use much more power. We imagine that you'll need to press the power button to get the display to light up for a few seconds, which would be less demanding on battery power.

HTC One 2014 Mini

With almost every manufacturer now making a smaller version of its flagship handset, it should come as no surprise that HTC is expected to do the same with its new smartphone. Another leak from @EVleaks suggests that the HTC One 2 Mini is on the way, potentially with a 1.4GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor in place of the dual-core model found in the HTC One mini. With the One 2's screen size still up in the air, but expected to arrive at between 4.7in and 5in, the One 2 Mini could see a 4.5in, 720p resolution screen. It should also ship with Android 4.4 KitKat, along with HTC's Sense UI in its 6.0 incarnation.
If the HTC One 2/M8 dumps capacitive buttons for on-screen ones, we would expect the One 2 Mini to do the same. Also rumoured for inclusion are a 13-megapixel camera (no ultra pixels here, it seems), 1GB of RAM, 16GB of storage and microSD expansion.
With few details and no leaked images to date, the One 2 Mini could be further away than the One 2. We won't know until HTC makes it official (see below).

HTC One 2014 release date

Even before a release window was revealed during a patent dispute with Nokia in early December, the common consensus was that HTC would release its next flagship handset on the one year anniversary of the introduction of the One. That was February 2013, so the One 2 is very likely to arrive in February or March 2014. When lawyers representing Nokia presented evidence to the UK court as part of a patent battle with HTC suggesting the Taiwanese company would release its next flagship in either February or March, HTC's own lawyers didn't deny it. Although not an outright confirmation, it was a firm indication.

We know know exactly when HTC will make the handset official: the 25th of March. The company sent out media invites to two simultaneous briefings in New York and London, confirming that the phone won't be making an appearance at February's Mobile World Congress trade show after all.

HTC One 2014 price

When it first went on sale, the HTC One cost around £500 SIM-free and was available for £40 on a monthly contract. These prices quickly fell, and after just a few weeks you could get a contract handset for under £30 or a pay-as-you-go model for £350. We would expect the All New HTC One 2014 Edition to follow a similar patten, starting at the top end of smartphone prices and sticking there until a worthy competitor arrives. The HTC One was a 4G handset, so we would naturally expect its successor to be the same - meaning it will appear on all of the major 4G networks, including EE, Vodafone, O2 and Three.
Until HTC makes the phone official this is of course still very speculative, so we'll update our story as we get more information.

Review: LG G Pad 8.3

Gizmag reviews the LG G Pad 8.3, one of the most comfortable tablets we've held
Image Gallery (11 images)

When you talk about tablets, it's easy to think of the iPads, Galaxy tablets, and Kindle Fires of the world. But what about LG? Though the company's mobile devices may not be household names, we've seen some top-notch hardware from the South Korean electronics giant. Is the LG G Pad 8.3 part of that club? Read on, as we review LG's answer to the iPad mini.

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Hardware

The G Pad 8.3 has, as you might guess, an 8.3-in screen. It's right in that not-too-big, not-too-small sweet spot that many tablet-makers have been gunning for of late. Need a point of reference? Well, if you've used an iPad mini, then the G Pad 8.3 gives you five percent more screen area. Some of that is cancelled out by the G Pad's onscreen navigation buttons (which the iPad mini doesn't need), but the G Pad's usable area should still be a little bigger.
Physically, I think the G Pad 8.3 is one of the most well-designed tablets I've used. It sports an aluminum finish (with some plastic accents around the edges) and is contoured just right for the human hand. In terms of using it comfortably with one hand, I think the G Pad is right on the money.
You can chalk part of that up to the fact that it's also very light, weighing just 338 g (two percent heavier than the iPad mini with Retina Display). It's also pretty thin, at 8.3 mm (0.33-in), though I do think razor-thin builds may be a bit overrated in tablets. The G Pad's 11 percent thicker build is a big part of why I prefer holding it over the Retina iPad mini: it rests a bit more naturally in the gap between my thumb and index finger.

Wheeling back around to that display, it's not just a great size, but it's also very sharp. At 273 pixels per inch, text and images are all crisp and clear. There are sharper tablets out there, but I don't think the G Pad gives you any worries whatsoever in that department.
The G Pad's screen doesn't, however, have the best brightness or color accuracy. I usually have to set it to 90 percent or higher brightness for it to look light enough during the daytime. And if you place it next to an iPad Air or a Nexus 5 smartphone, you'll see a slight yellowish tone to the G Pad's screen. It probably isn't something that will be noticeable or bothersome in regular use, but it is a minor downside to what's otherwise a very good display.

The G Pad 8.3 gives you good – but not amazing – battery life. In our standard test, where we stream video over Wi-Fi, the G Pad lasted six hours and 40 minutes. The iPad Air and Retina iPad mini chugged along for over nine and ten hours, respectively, in the same test, so the G Pad is a ways behind their record-setting paces. Still, with standard use, you should usually get a full day out of it.
In other miscellaneous hardware areas, sound from the G Pad's speakers is serviceable, but pretty underwhelming. Its 5-megapixel rear camera is about all you need from a tablet camera (solid enough, but nothing more). One nice touch with the G Pad is that it has a vibration motor, which I'd like to see more of in tablets. I find that haptic feedback makes touch typing much easier, as it helps to simulate physical keys.

Stock LG vs. Google Play Edition

We handled the LG retail version of the G Pad 8.3, which runs Android 4.2 skinned with LG's custom UI. Despite having a very fast processor under the hood (Qualcomm's quad core Snapdragon 600), I ran into some occasional performance lag and hiccups. Things like pages not turning instantly in Flipboard, jittery scrolling, and a general feeling that something was bogging the UI down a little bit.
I chalk this up to LG's bloated software skin. It gives you some nifty features, like Knock-On (which lets you turn your display on or off by tapping twice on it). But, much like Samsung's TouchWiz, LG's UI looks like it's trying way too hard to differentiate itself from other Android devices. It puts a lot of unnecessary features in between you and your content.
LG's UI gives you not just one, but two extraneous takes on multitasking (Slide Aside and QSlide), in addition to Android's already rock-solid version. You have LG features for capturing screenshots of entire webpages, jotting memos, copying and pasting multiple items into a slide-up clipboard, and even an LG Siri knockoff. You may find some of these features handy (or not), but my problem is that they simply get in the way. They clutter and overcomplicate the UI, and bog down what should be buttery-smooth performance.

Fortunately there are a couple of alternatives. Google now sells a Google Play Edition of the G Pad 8.3, available exclusively from the Play Store. Ringing up for the same US$350 as the standard LG version, it basically turns the G Pad into a Nexus device, running the latest version of stock Android (4.4 KitKat). We didn't handle the Google Play Edition long enough to consider this an official review of it, but we can tell you that it's the one we recommend buying. Its software is leaner and more focused, and its performance is right where you'd expect a Snapdragon 600-running tablet to be: fast, smooth, and without hiccups.
Another alternative is to buy the standard LG version (currently on sale for $300 at Best Buy in the US), root it, and install stock Android-based firmware on it – more or less creating your own Google Play Edition on the cheap. Rooting and flashing ROMs isn't for the faint of heart, and unless you're already familiar with such tinkering, you're better off buying the official version from Google. But once I installed a nightly build of Cyanogenmod 11 on this puppy, a device that had been handicapped by a bloated and laggy UI transformed into one of the better tablets I've used.

I understand why Android hardware manufacturers are determined to skin Google's software with their own custom UIs. They want to differentiate their hardware through software, so they can market long lists of features that are "exclusive" to their line of devices. I also suspect that no-name white-box Android devices, which are very popular in Asia, are another big factor. Sold for dirt-cheap, they typically run stock Android – sometimes even with unlicensed Google apps and services thrown in. It makes perfect sense that huge companies like LG and Samsung would want to give their Asian customers perceived value that these generic phones and tablets can't match.
But in my experience, the resulting custom UIs rarely add anything but bloat. The G Pad 8.3 is a prime example. Once you put stock Android on it, it's faster, leaner, and much more of an all-around pleasure to use. I'd love to see Android OEMs cut the bloat and move in that direction – at least in the West, where those generic white-box devices don't pose much of a threat.

Worth the investment?

So should you buy the LG G Pad 8.3? Well, let's start by looking at your best alternatives. You have Apple's Retina iPad mini, which gives you a similar build and screen size. It has a bigger and better tablet app selection, but it also costs $50 extra. Your decision here may come down to whether you're already invested in either the iOS or Android ecosystem.
Until Samsung releases its slick Galaxy TabPRO 8.4, the G Pad's biggest rival on the Android side of the aisle might be the 2013 Nexus 7. It costs $120 less, but it also only gives you 71 percent as much screen real estate as the G Pad. For my money, 7-inch slates like the Nexus 7 are a bit too small, while 8-inchers like the G Pad and iPad mini are just about ideal.
So we'd say the Google Play Edition of the G Pad 8.3 is easily worth putting on your short list. It gives you an outstanding build with a sharp screen that hits a really sweet spot for size. It delivers smooth performance with Google's latest and greatest software. At $350, it might not be an amazing value, but that's still a very reasonable price for what might be the best Android tablet around.
As for the standard LG edition? Well, unless you're going to root it and replace its firmware, it's more likely to be a "pass." Even if you snag it for a discounted $300, it places too many unnecessary obstacles between you and a seamless experience. Sure, you get a few "exclusive features," but most of those can be approximated with third-party Play Store apps anyway.
Both versions of the LG G Pad 8.3 are available now, for a suggested $350. You can read more at either of the two product pages below.

NASA calls for commercial partners on robotic lunar lander initiative

NASA is seeking commercial partners to develop robotic lunar landers (Image: NASA)

With China successfully landing a robotic rover on the Moon, there’s been speculation in some circles as to whether or not a new space race between China and the United States will start soon. That’s as maybe, but if Space Race Mk II does happen, the American landing craft might be owned and operated by a private firm. Lending strength to this argument is NASA's recent announcement of its Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown (Lunar CATALYST) initiative, which aims at kickstarting private development of commercial lunar transports through partnerships with the space agency.
NASA partnerships aren’t a new idea. In fact, in recent years it’s been the agency’s preferred way of getting around shrinking budgets or lack of government interest in various programs. The most prominent of these has been Commercial Crew Program (CCP), where NASA called on private industry to come up with a replacement for the Space Shuttle to carry crews and cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). The result is the recent visits by the Dragon and Cygnus space freighters to the station, with more to follow as NASA concentrates on manned deep space missions.
With Lunar CATALYST, NASA is soliciting proposals from potential partners to develop a reliable and cost-effective commercial robotic lunar lander for carrying cargo to the lunar surface. The idea is that these landers would be used for commercial purposes, such as mining helium-3, cryogenic manufacturing, solar power generation or spacecraft refueling, while helping out NASA and other researchers on scientific missions, such as sample returns, prospecting, and technology demonstrations.
"In recent years, lunar orbiting missions, such as NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, have revealed evidence of water and other volatiles, but to understand the extent and accessibility of these resources, we need to reach the surface and explore up close," says Jason Crusan, director of Advanced Exploration Systems at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Commercial lunar landing capabilities could help prospect for and utilize these resources."
NASA’s contribution is one or more of what it calls a “no-funds exchanged Space Act Agreements.” That means the space agency will provide technical help, access to NASA test facilities, equipment, and software, but no money.
NASA sees the first landers from the partnership to be capable of landing payloads weighing 66 to 220 lb (30 to 100 kg) or up to 551 to 1,102 lb (250 to 500 kg) while using technologies developed by NASA’s lander programs, such as new propulsion systems and autonomous operations.
NASA says that it will hold a pre-proposal teleconference on January 27. Proposals will be due on March 17 and selections are scheduled for April.