Are the recently leaked videos of the HTC One M9 just part of an elaborate con by HTC to trick us into being disappointed before blowing us away with a completely redesigned monster smartphone next week? That is what one disappointed Android fan is saying in the wake of Tuesday’s massive leak of HTC’s One M9 promotional videos, which left them feeling that HTC had essentially mailed it in with its upcoming flagship phone.
DON’T MISS: HTC One M9 fully revealed in biggest leak yet
A post that’s become popular over at Reddit’s Android community posits that the videos are just early demonstration videos of older designs that HTC may have let leak out to throw us off the trail of its true intentions.
“If the videos were purposefully made to throw everyone off, it’s genius,” writes the Redditor, who goes by the name of CarterGee. “As HTC dominates headlines with relatively cheap productions, Samsung is spending money like crazy advertising more and more looks of the S6. It would be very smart of HTC, a company without much cash on hand, to share some fake ‘full’ leaks to steal the spotlight back.”
While this take on the leaked One M9 videos seems outlandish, it does share many Android fans’ disappointment with what they’ve seen in leaks so far.
A sampling of highly up-voted comments from both Android Police (“RIP HTC” “If the videos are legit, what is HTC thinking?” “Geez, HTC… you could at least try something new.”) and Droid Life (“That made me feel sad” “So disappointing” “I couldn’t imagine that they’d fail that bad”) show a similarly negative sentiment. And a Droid Life survey from Wednesday morning showed that its readers are leaning toward buying the Galaxy S6 over the One M9 by a two-to-one margin.
Of course, Internet forums tend to breed negativity by their nature so we can’t draw any firm conclusions about how fans will react once HTC unveils the actual device. That said, it’s pretty rare to see fans indulging in elaborate conspiracy theories as a way of compensating for their disappointment in leaked smartphone videos, which suggests this might be a little more than run-of-the-mill griping.
