HTC M8’s on screen buttons revealed?


htc-m8-on-screen-buttons

The HTC One successor, codenamed M8, is all set to be released to the market in a couple of months, as the Taiwanese company plans to repeat its predecessor’s success. One interesting rumour that had persisted all this while was that HTC was finally going for on screen buttons instead of the weird capacitive ones on the HTC One and other devices. According to a leak from one Seina Weibo user, the HTC M8’s one screen buttons, the one you see in the image above, might just have been revealed. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus was one of the first devices to incorporate on-screen buttons after the introduction of Android 4.0 for phones and tablets and then the trend caught up with other OEMs like Sony, but HTC curiously avoided it, which might change with the M8.

The move to on screen buttons will introduce considerable amount of changes to HTC’s thinking of the Sense UI, as there will be lesser space to work with than before, and accidental touches might have to be taken into account too. But Android apps generally have already worked around that with responsive UIs so it wouldn’t be a problem for HTC to lose some screen space. This might also be seen as a move to streamline design of their phones as the capacitive buttons on the One have been widely panned by users and critics, while other HTC devices still stuck with the older combination, as was seen in the One X. The M8 has been previously rumoured to pack a 5 inch 1080p display, Snapdragon 800 and Android 4.4 KitKat with Sense 6.

All said, this also ties in with earlier rumours that some OEMs(including HTC) may start offering dual boot options with Windows Phone 8, as the latter is gaining support for on screen buttons in its next update. We’ll be letting you know if more leaks come our way, but until then, let us know your thoughts, in the comments section below.

Source Weibo via HTC Source


Author: Bharadwaj Chandramouli

Bharadwaj is a content creator who has been obsessed with technology since the early days of smartphones. He loves talking about tech, is a fan of good design and photography. You can follow him on Twitter @gadgetbuff_ to know what he's upto!