The road to an HTC One release with the United States’ largest carrier has been a confusing one, that’s for certain. But with a few pointed bits of analysis and a brief chat with notorious tipster insider @evleaks, SlashGear has come to understand the obviousness of the truth. The Verizon HTC One is real, and there’s more than one good reason why it hasn’t appeared on store shelves yet.
The HTC One is finally reaching a point at which its production is at full steam, HTC having at first faced some supply problems at manufacturing plants overseas. If HTC were to have worked with Verizon to release the device any sooner than now, their supply problems might only have multiplied.
According to @evleaks, Verizon’s preference for keeping phones stocked for close to a year – where possible – remains solid. Because of this, it would be essentially against policy, so to speak, to dump the DROID DNA just six months after its initial debut – it was first introduced back in November of 2012, mind you. It’s also true that the longer a phone remains in production, the cheaper it gets to manufacture: this is another reason why the one hero phone model works so well.
So will Verizon wait until November 13th, 2013 to put out another HTC phone? Probably not.
The image you’re seeing here comes from Evleaks, sourced from someone “that needs advance knowledge of upcoming devices.” Likely someone in advertising, public relations, or accessory manufacturing, that is. Here you’ll see all of the HTC devices that’ve been carried by Verizon over the past couple of years alongside the “One”.
It would appear that the device tipped yesterday – the T6 – isn’t quite locked in to this manifest as of yet.
While nothing in the way of release dates is confirmed as of yet, our discussion today suggested an “early summer” release for the HTC One, likely before July, with the HTC “T6″ being picked up by Verizon in the fall. The T6 will fully replace the DROID DNA while the HTC One will allow for a transition point between the two.
Now here’s the burning question: are you willing to wait a few more weeks for the HTC One on Verizon’s 4G LTE network? Or is this your breaking point?
BONUS: As you may have figured out from the listings of HTC devices by code, the M7_WL is the model coming to Verizon. The HTC One is called “M7″ in code while the “WL” always works with GSM/WCDMA/CDMA2000/LTE radio bands. The same is true of the T6, it appearing as the T6_WL “Crater” earlier this week.
The T6 (that, again, being the enlarged HTC One closer in size to the DROID DNA), has also appeared in these forms via HTC Soku :
T6_UL : cassiopeia : GSM/WCDMA/LTE
T6_U : columba : GSM/WCDMA
T6_ULA : delphinus : GSM/WCDMA/LTE
T6_WL : crater : GSM/WCDMA/CDMA2000/LTE
T6_WHL : eridanus : GSM/WCDMA/CDMA2000/LTE
This doesn’t necessarily guarantee the device for each of the main carriers here in the USA, but it’s definitely encouraging!
Verizon HTC One reconfirmed: likely out before July is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
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