Formerly owning a reputation of poor operating system announcing and upgrade delivery, HTC has been much better in the past few months. Proving that once again, just this week they announced that the Android 4.3 Jelly Bean operating system update would be headed to AT&T smartphones. They even went as far as to say the over the air transfer would begin taking place to HTC One 4G handsets in the United States “early next week.” That came straight from HTC president Jason Mackenzie, tweeting the news to HTC and AT&T followers.
The HTC One 4G is available for a reduced sale price now starting at $119.
Supposedly the AT&T 4.3 Android update for the HTC One smartphone passed the last bit of certification that it needed on October 4, but we have not seen any other specifics beyond Mackenzie’s most recent OS update announcement. If you own an HTC One 4G smartphone on AT&T in the US, we recommend you start looking through your notifications Monday morning, October 7, and check them throughout the week. If you do receive an update notification, ensure that your handset has a full battery charge and reliable Wi-Fi connectivity before proceeding.
For those in the US and Canada, the HTC One Developer edition has already begun to receive Android’s 4.3, further proof that the necessary testing has been done for compatibility. And in other smartphone news, there are significant rumors which point to Microsoft courting HTC about providing their flagship handset for the Windows Phone Operating system. But this is more than just rumor. Terry Myerson is Microsoft’s operating systems chief, and he began the discussion by contacting HTC about a possible Windows Phone HTC One last month.
Microsoft already receives licensing fees from HTC for every Android phone they sell, so we could see a fee reduction or elimination as part of a potential deal maker between the two companies. You may recall that HTC has offered Windows Phone access on Android handsets in the past, such as the Windows Phone 8X. However, it is rumored that Microsoft would like HTC to design handsets which would run either Windows Phone or Android at the same time. HTC just recently posted its first quarterly loss since 2008, so they may be open to discussions from any possible partners.
While the HTC One is obviously not the newest phone on the market, it still ranks with the Galaxy S4 and iPhone 5 as the three bestsellers of the year. The 4.70 inch Full HD 1,080P display is one of the biggest and clearest in the entire mobile marketplace, and it’s 468 ppi pixel density is an industry leader. The HTC one is powered by a Snapdragon 600 quad core chip, delivering up to 40% more power than the Snapdragon S4 Pro. The handset is also slim at only 0.37 inches (9.3 mm) in thickness, and provides up to 16.0 hours of talk time from a full battery charge.
The HTC One 4G can be purchased at a discounted price tag now starting at $119.
