HTC M8 smashes benchmark as most powerful HTC yet

HTC M8 smashes benchmark as most powerful HTC yet
HTC steps things up a notch

News on the successor to the five star, flagship HTC One is rife with new leaks suggesting the follow up M8 handset will be the Taiwanese firm's most powerful to date.

The HTC M8 moniker is widely believed to be a codename for next-gen smartphone (the One was known as M7 during development) and while we'd be surprised if it launch as the HTC One Two, it's currently the most common name in circulation.

Confusion over the name aside, after yesterday's brief outing the folks over at AnTuTu benchmark reckon they've uncovered a gem in their Android app - with a phone carrying the HTC M8 name posting some rather impressive information.

Feel the power

It's not clear how accurate the information is, but with a punchy 2.26GHz Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM it would put the HTC M8 up there with (and ahead of) the LG G2, Google Nexus 5 and Sony Xperia Z1.

HTC M8 - LEAK

That's a significant boost from the HTC One, which packs a 1.7GHz Snapdragon 600 chip - so not only will there be more power, but hopefully better battery life from Qualcomm's efficient 800 SoC.

In terms of operating system the HTC One Two is tipped to launch with the latest version of Google's mobile platform - Android 4.4 KitKat. While the One Two may well have KitKat at its heart, HTC will almost certainly stick its Sense overlay on top.

There's no mention of which version of Sense will adorn the HTC M8, but we could well see the new 6.0 overlay, following on from 5.5 which resides on the One Max.

Storage hunters

So what else might we expect from the HTC One Two? Sadly it looks like there won't be any advances in the camera department, with the same 4MP (likely to be Ultrapixel tech) and 2.1MP lenses quoted for the rear and front of the device.

Something else which strikes fear into us is the quoted level of internal storage - just 16GB. Considering the One doesn't come with an expandable memory option and the OS takes up 8GB there could be serious storage issues here.

As we've already mentioned, these specs are certainly not set in stone and we'd be surprised if HTC didn't go down the 32GB and 64GB route for the One Two.

Unsurprisingly this handset wipes the floor with its predecessor in all the benchmark tests on Antutu so, while you should take this with a generous dosage of salt, it's looking good over at HTC.

Word on a HTC One Two release date is still relatively sparse, but it's thought the handset will make an appearance early on in 2014 - we can't wait.

John McCann
Global Managing Editor

John joined TechRadar over a decade ago as Staff Writer for Phones, and over the years has built up a vast knowledge of the tech industry. He's interviewed CEOs from some of the world's biggest tech firms, visited their HQs and has appeared on live TV and radio, including Sky News, BBC News, BBC World News, Al Jazeera, LBC and BBC Radio 4. Originally specializing in phones, tablets and wearables, John is now TechRadar's resident automotive expert, reviewing the latest and greatest EVs and PHEVs on the market. John also looks after the day-to-day running of the site.