A French website's premature review of the upcoming mobile device, the HTC One S, has got it into legal trouble with the company. HTC-Hub argues that the device was obtained legally from non-HTC source, and so the embargo didn't apply.

The unboxing video was of HTC One S. The HTC One S releases today (April 2).

HTC has launched a civil suit against HTC-Hub to recover the device. That's despite HTC-Hub arguing that their device arrived early, a week before reviews were scheduled, meaning the embargo didn't apply. Since the site argues that the phone wasn't obtained illegally, and not from the company or its PR agency, they can keep it.

"This sort of behaviour is unfortunately common in the tech space. It's even more disheartening to see swift and unconsidered legal action taken against HTC's most loyal fans - these are the guys that get most excited about the HTC brand, and act as unpaid evangelists for HTC's new hardware," Android Community reports.

HTC One S launches April 2 in Europe: today. Considering the device was so close to launch when the suit was issued, it will almost be rendered void because the device will officially be out.

Meanwhile, TmoNews was tipped off on the release date of the One S for T-Mobile, reporting it as April 22. April 22 is a Sunday. However, T-Mobile has launched devices on Sundays before. "T-Mobile have launched phones on Sunday before, but Wednesday or Friday are typically their go to days," TmoNews says.

The release date comes from an image showing a countdown timer with the device, pitching companies to sell the phone on launch day. The countdown timer shows the launch date as April 22 for T-Mobile.

The HTC One S is being pitched as a mid-range device in the HTC One family, with the One X and the One V making up the high- and low-end devices respectively. The One S has a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED screen, with a resolution of 540 x 960 pixels. The device also features a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor with 16 gigabytes of storage and a gigabyte of RAM. The phone includes an 8-megapixel camera, 1080p video recording and a VGA camera on the front.

The phone debuts with Sense 4.0, HTC's custom Android skin, which is the company's attempt to streamline the experience.

"To HTC's credit, Sense 4.0 is much subtler than previous versions of the user interface. The company has cleared out a lot of unnecessary icons and text found in older versions of Sense," PCWorld reports, from their hands-on with the latest version at MWC.

(reported by Jonathan Charles, edited by Surojit Chatterjee)