Would you be prepared to ditch the superb HTC One M8’s aluminium unibody shell in favour of a plastic one if it meant you’d be able to keep a few more readies in your wallet? If you answered yes to that question, you may soon get a chance to follow through on it — HTC is said to be preparing the HTC One M8, a cut-price version of its latest flagship.
Teased by none other than premier phone leaker @evleaks, the HTC One M8 Ace (pictured in an inexplicably blurry shot above, apparently), would sport a plastic case and specs almost identical to that of the Samsung Galaxy S5. It would squeeze in a 5-inch 1080p display and a 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 SoC. However, whereas Samsung charges top-dollar for its plastic-encased flagship, HTC is thought to be planning to massively undercut the Galaxy S5 with the One M8 Ace (at around $US480/£285), putting significant pressure on Samsung’s latest seeing as the handsets will be sporting very similar specs. It’s not yet clear as to whether the HTC One M8’s Duo Camera system will be onboard, but it would be another tempting addition for fence sitters to consider when picking between the M8 Ace and S5 if it was included.
Like some sort of game of spec chasing tennis however, Samsung is said to be preparing a metal-bodied version of its Galaxy S5 called the Galaxy S5 Prime. It would feature a high-resolution QHD, 1440 x 2560 display too. Just as HTC’s One M8 Ace would drive down its flagship pricing, the Prime would likely push Samsung’s flagship’s cost up, while answering some of the criticism levelled at the current edition. [EvLeaks via Engadget]
