Last week, HTC CEO Peter Chou was seen chanting “M7″ over and over when referring to and teasing the company’s upcoming flagship Android smartphone at a year-end party. At the beginning of this week, we saw the same handset listed as the “M7″ on a distribution document from independent retailer Phone House. As a result, there’s been some discussion that HTC may promote the “M7” codename to the phone’s finalized retail brand name. However, today, serial tipster evleaks is now claiming the HTC M7 is actually “coming to market as simply the HTC One.”
In a way, the HTC One moniker makes a lot of sense, but it’s also a bit confusing. HTC has been using “One” as the base for many of their phones released over the past year: One X, One X+, One XL, One S, and One V. Launching a device under the One brand without attaching another element to the name essentially tells consumers that it trumps the aforementioned phones as the “father” of the whole series. Maybe this is HTC’s plan though.
Could HTC be signaling a strategy shift in which the company releases an updated model under the same brand name every year? Maybe the next iteration will be labeled “HTC One 2nd generation,” followed by “HTC One 3rd generation” and so on. We could be on board with something like that as long as HTC doesn’t adopt Samsung’s method of adding roman numerals – imagine HTC One II or One III. All jokes aside, it would be wise for HTC to build upon a single brand throughout the years rather than start over each season. Apple and Samsung have obviously done quite well with their iPhone and Galaxy S lines.
The good news is we’re only about 10 days away from the official unveiling on February 19, so we’ll likely find out whether this rumor is true or not in the coming week. Which do you prefer, HTC M7 or HTC One?