A day earlier than planned, mobile phone manufacturer HTC has announced its latest handset, following information about the phone being leaked on the net.
The Android-based One Max, which includes a fingerprint scanner and a 5.9 inch screen, had been scheduled to be unveiled at a press conference in China on Tuesday 15th October.
The handset is a ‘phablet’ version of HTC’s flagship model.
Earlier this month, HTC posted its first ever quarterly loss, largely due to the original One handset being outsold by Samsung’s Galaxy S4.
The Taiwanese firm announced a deficit of just under 3bn Taiwan dollars ($100m; £62m) for its July-to-September quarter.
In contrast, Samsung Electronics has forecast record profits for the same period.
HTC said it decided to abandon the restrictions it had placed on information about the One Max after a member of the media broke a Tuesday embargo placed on its specifications. A spokeswoman for the firm said she was unable to name the publication responsible.
The introduction of a fingerprint scanner makes the HTC One Max the first and only Android mobile to do so since the launch of the iPhone 5S in September.
"The fingerprint scanner allows users to lock or unlock the screen and quickly launch up to three favourite applications by assigning an individual finger to each," HTC said in a statement.
In regards to security concerns surrounding fingerprint technology on mobile phones, HTC said: "The fingerprint data is encrypted and stored in local memory and can’t be readily accessed or copied. The fingerprint data cannot be easily converted into any other form or used by a third party."
This mirrors Apple’s line on the matter.
However, one security expert suggested the firm still needed to provide more detail.
"The obvious question is: What kind of encryption is the company using?" said Alan Woodward, chief technology officer at the consultancy Charteris.
"The bottom line is that whenever your biometric data is being stored for security purposes it could potentially be misused.
"So, consumers will always want to be sure it is stored in such a way that if you lose the phone, it is hacked into or there’s some other kind of unauthorised access, that it can’t be readily obtained."
