Following months of extensive leaks and reports that revealed virtually everything beforehand, the new HTC One M8 flagship smartphone for 2014 is now finally official.

HTC took the wraps off its latest flagship during a press conference on Tuesday, March 25, unveiling an utterly impressive smartphones with top-end specs and features. The HTC One M8 is available in both standard and Google Play Edition models.

In terms of design, the brand new HTC One looks very similar to its predecessor, rocking a sleek and elegant aluminum unibody design that looks and feels more premium than many other flagship handsets on the market. The new iteration, however, boasts a larger display, more advanced internals, better software, and is faster, smoother, and better in every way compared to the 2013 HTC One.

HTC One M8 Specs

Core specifications of the new HTC One M8 include a larger 5-inch Super LCD3 display with a full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 and a pixel density of 441 pixels per inch (ppi), as well as Gorilla Glass 3 protection. Under the hood, the new powerhouse packs the latest quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor clocked at 2.3GHz (2.5GHz in Asia), 2GB of RAM, and Adreno 330 graphics. The handset comes in 16GB or 32GB internal storage configurations, but this time it sports a microSD card (something the original HTC One lacks) for additional memory of up to 128GB.

In terms of connectivity, the HTC One M8 will work on any 2G, 3G, or 4G network, and it supports dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0, and NFC. On the camera side, the smartphone boasts a dual camera setup on its rear, with dual-lens "Duo Camera" with UltraPixel technology, dual LED Smart Flash and BSI sensor, and a 5-megapixel front-facing shooter.

The HTC One M8 rocks Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box with HTC's latest Sense 6.0 UI on top, and is powered by a large 2,600 mAh non-removable battery.

Standout Features

Standout features include a revamped BoomSound that comes with better speakers, louder and clearer sound, and improved tuning. HTC Sense 6.0 also boasts a complete redesign with a neat new modern look, new colors, and flatter icons. HTC has tweaked colors, textures, and fonts to make everything look sleeker and better.

The company has also improved the popular BlinkFeed, HTC TV, and other apps, adding new features for a superior user experience.

As for the innovative Duo Camera setup on the rear of the new HTC One M8, the whole system sounds quite interesting. The second rear camera lens is designed to record depth information while the main lens takes a photo, which should result in a better camera performance that takes full advantage of HTC's UltraPixel technology.

Moreover, HTC has also added a new "Sensor Hub" that tracks the user's movements to count steps and enable several motion, tap, and swipe gestures for when the display is off. Double-tapping on the phone's screen, for instance, will wake the HTC One M8 from sleep, while swiping to the right from sleep mode will unlock the phone straight into the BlinkFeed screen.

The new "extreme power saving mode" is also worth mentioning, as it aims to considerably extend the phone's battery life. To do so, this mode will disable background data, allowing access only to voice calling, text messaging, and email. HTC touts that its new extreme power saving mode will keep a phone with only 5% battery left up and running for another 15 hours. A fully charged HTC One M8 will reportedly last for two weeks with this mode enabled.

Lastly, it's also exciting to have the HTC One M8 available immediately after its announcement, in both the standard version and the Google Play Edition. The regular HTC One M8 model is available from HTC on Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon Wireless, starting at $199.99, while the GPE model is on sale for $699 on the Google Play store.