HTC One M8 Eye with improved camera launching October 8th?

In exactly one week, HTC will launch its new One M8 Eye smartphone in New York City, according to the latest online leaks. But what is the HTC One M8 Eye, how is it different from the regular One M8 and when will it likely hit the UK?

Last month, HTC announced another big launch event in New York, just a few weeks on from launching the new Windows Phone version of the One M8. This latest launch looks to be yet another spin-off of the One M8 dubbed the One M8 Eye, this time packing a completely different camera from the original Ultrapixel effort - at least if rumours and leaks like the media image below are to be believed.

The only difference between the new One M8 Eye and the original appears to be the camera tech. To be honest, that suits us fine, as the Ultrapixel camera was the one not-quite-awesome part of the One M8; it was great in low light and produced quality photos most of the time, but our snaps didn't pack nearly enough detail as those taken with rival handsets. That's down to the low-res 4-megapixel sensor.

So, the One M8 Eye will likely sub in a camera packing many more megapixels. We just hope that it's a better effort than the HTC One Mini 2's 13-megapixel snapper, which was sadly mediocre.

It would be nice to see some of the One M8's other specs updated too, to bring the handset bang-up-to-date, perhaps with a Snapdragon 805 processor shoved inside for instance. Rumours point to the other innards remaining the same, sadly, which seems like a wasted opportunity when HTC is bothering to release a new version anyway.

As for when it'll hit the UK, we'd expect the One M8 Eye to arrive before Christmas if it comes at all - there's no guarantee that we'll see it on British shores, especially as there's no UK launch event.

HTC has been bloody busy lately, and not just with a million different One M8 spin-offs. It's also producing the new Google tablet, the Google Nexus 9, which should be launching soon.