HTC One M8 smartphone announced, will sell in Australia for $899

Smartphone maker HTC has announced the release of a new flagship smartphone, the HTC One M8, with the new device now available for pre-order for $899 outright.

The new device, which will compete head-to-head against Samsung’s Galaxy S5 smartphone, is a 4G Android smartphone running HTC’s proprietary Sense interface.

The new device is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor, and includes NFC, 2 gigabytes of RAM, along with 16 or 32 gigabytes of storage, which is expandable to 128 gigabytes through a microSD card.

As an introductory offer, HTC is also offering 65 gigabytes of cloud storage on Google Drive free for two years.

The device also includes a 5-inch full-HD display, with a resolution of 1080p, a 5-megapixel rear camera with a second camera to capture depth information, and a 5-megapixel front camera.

The device also supports DLNA wireless streaming media, and includes a micro-USB 2.0 (5-pin) port with mobile high-definition video link (MHL), which allows for HDMI video output with a special cable.

Aside from outright purchase, it is available for pre-order from Optus, Telstra and Vodafone, with Optus promising delivery from April 1.

Optus is offering the device for $23 per month on a $35 plan, Vodafone is offering it for $10 per month on a $65 plan, while Telstra is offering it starting from $81 per month.

However, the new device comes at a difficult time for the Taiwanese tech company.

As SmartCompany reported, the company reported monthly revenues in February of just $NT7.225 billion ($A266m), down a massive 36.45% from $NT11.37 billion a year earlier.

February’s result represents a 25.29% month-on-month fall from January, when the company reported $NT9.6 billion in sales.

The company’s January result, in turn, was down 37.75% year-on-year from $NT15.5 billion a year earlier.

Meanwhile, in October of last year, reports surfaced the Android smartphone maker had halted one of its four production lines amid a cash flow crunch.

The closed production line accounts for around one-fifth of the company’s total manufacturing capacity, representing a million devices per month out of its total production capacity of 4.5 million devices per month.