HTC One (M8)
The new HTC One (M8) during a launch event in New York.Reuters

Taiwanese company's flagship metal-clad smartphone HTC One M8 has reportedly hit stores across India, almost a week ahead of the official release on 8 May.

Mumbai based smartphone retailer, Manish Khatri took to Twitter to confirm HTC One M8's availability in India with special discount price of ₹48,500 against the MRP of ₹49,900.

NDTV Gadgets independently contacted HTC India executives and confirmed that the flagship device has been made available in local brick-and-mortar stores, as well as the online shops (Flipkart) in India.

This is a welcome surprise for HTC fans considering last year's debacle where in the first-generation HTC One (M7) phone set foot in India around mid-May, nearly three months after the global launch (19 February), owing to supply constraints. This time the firm has released the new HTC One M8 within a month.

HTC One M8 has been already released in North America and European markets. It has garnered a lot of praise for its exuberant use of metal (90-percent) and its zero-gap design language. It flaunts a 5.0-inch super LCD 3 full HD (1920x1080p) display with pixel density of 440 ppi (pixels per inch).

HTC One M8 also ships with the latest Android v4.4.2 KitKat OS with Sense v6.0 UI, 2.5GHz Snapdragon 801 series quad-core CPU, 2GB RAM, 16GB inbuilt memory (expandable up to 128GB), 2600 mAh battery, which can run the  phone for 21 hours talk time and close to 496 hours under standby mode.

Other noteworthy feature of HTC One M8 is its dual-camera on the rearside - one primary 4.0-UltraPixel camera with dual-color LED flash (True Tone), 1/3'' sensor size, 2µm pixel size, HTC ImageChip 2 and another secondary camera to capture the depth of field of the object. And on the front side, the phone houses a 5.0-megapixel camera for video chat and takes good quality selfies, which has become a fad among the youth.

[ED:VS] 

Key Specifications of HTC One (M8):

Model HTC One (M8)
Display 5.0-inch Super LCD 3 full HD (1920x1080p) screen with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protectionPixel density: 440 ppi
OS Android v4.4.2 KitKat OS with HTC Sense v6.0 UI(to get update for next two years)
Processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 series quad-core processor with 2.3GHz CPU speed- chipset: MSM8974AB(some select markets in Asia to be released with 2.5GHz CPU speed, chipset: MSM8974AC)
GPU Adreno 330
RAM 2GB DDR3 RAM
Storage capacity 16GB/32GB, expandable up to 128GB
Camera Main: 4.0-UltraPixel  dual-camera with dual-color LED flash (True Tone), 1/3'' sensor size, 2µm pixel size, HTC ImageChip 2, automatic simultaneous video and image recording, geo-tagging, face and smile detection, HDR, panoramaFront: 5.0-megapixel wide-angle camera, full HD video recording, HDR
Battery 2600 mAh (Li-Po, non-removable battery);Talk time: up to 20 hours (3G)

Standby mode: Close to 496 hours (3G)  
Network 3G & 4G-LTE Category 4 (50Mbps speed)
Add-ons Metallic body (90-percent)Nano-SIM, Bluetooth v4.0 (with A2DP), Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac), NFC, microUSB v2.0, MHL, microSD card slot, BoomSound audio system, Infrared blaster,
Dimensions 146.4 x 70.6 x 9.4 mm
Weight 160 g
Colours Gunmetal Gray, Glacier Silver and Amber Gold
Price [MRP] ₹49,900/-