HTC's flagship M7 smartphone leaks, tempts litigation with iPhone-like design

Separated at birth?: The Apple iPhone 5 and a leaked image of HTC's flagship M7 smartphone

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

HTC's purported flagship smartphone, the M7, has apparently leaked a month before its expected debut at Mobile World Congress. This is a monster 4.7-inch Android smartphone powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 Pro expected to have 32GB of storage and 2GB of RAM, but what really catches one's attention is how similar it looks to Apple's iPhone 5.

While product leaks have become the norm in mobile, specially when hot handsets are involved, it is possible that the M7 leak, which first appeared in Unwiredview.com is nothing more than a design study. At leas for HTC's sake, we hope so.

Jusdging from the leaked image, the M7 departs completely from HTC's recent design cues of curvy, unibody smartphones like the HTC One X+ and the HTC 8X. The M7's tri-sectional rear case looks strikingly similar to the iPhone 5's. The iPhone 5 has two thin glass panels (supposedly housing the various 4G-LTE, Bluetooth and WiFi antennas) surrounding a larger stainless steel panel, likely part of the iPhone 5's unibody enclosure.

The M7 appears to have the same tri-sectional layout although there are vents on the top and bottom sections possibly for those Beats Audio speakers or dual-microphones. 

I still think HTC will prove everyone wrong and release a stunning and original design for the M7, the folks in charge of HTC's industrial design have always prided themselves in innovating in terms of design, materials and execution.

Whatever the case may be, I am sure that HTC's announcements at MWC will be exciting and worth the wait.