Monday, January 27, 2014

HTC M8 will reportedly don a set of on-screen navigation buttons

Spec details of the HTC M8 have been trickling out of the rumor mill for several months now, and today we’ve got one more feature to add to the list. According to a tweet sent by serial leaker @evleaks, the follow-up to the HTC One will ditch the original model’s capacitive navigation buttons in favor of a set of on-screen keys. If true, the M8 would be the first HTC-made Android phone to feature on-screen navigation buttons.

While Google obviously prefers on-screen navigation buttons in Android, other manufacturers are split. For example, Samsung devices are known for having a physical Home button that’s flanked on either side by capacitive Back and Menu buttons, Sony seems to prefer on-screen keys, HTC typically uses capacitive buttons and LG has been flipping between styles as of late. It’d be pretty interesting to see HTC go on-screen with the M8 after it’s been all about capacitive buttons for so long, but the move could also help the Taiwanese firm to make its One successor a bit smaller than it would be with a set of capacitive keys.

Which type of navigation buttons do you think are best?