The One Max skips the optical image stabilization of the smaller HTC One.

After months of speculation, HTC has announced its fall phablet offering—the One Max. Measuring in at 5.9 inches, the One Max is much larger than HTC's 4.7-inch flagship device, but does it have the specs to lure mobile photographers?

The HTC One's camera earned a solid 7.5 in our review earlier this year, placing it above the Sony Xperia Z but below Samsung's Galaxy S4. For the most part, the One Max has the same camera as the HTC One, except for one major omission—the One Max does not have optical image stabilization. 

What the One Max lacks in hardware, it tries to make up for with some new software tricks. HTC's custom user interface for Android has been updated with some new camera features. Sense 5.5's Dual Capture feature takes photos from both the rear and front-facing cameras simultaneously. HTC's Zoe can now instantly make GIFs out of your mini-videos and the new Scribble app lets you draw on your photos. These features will come standard with every One Max, but will also become available for some other HTC devices when the next system update rolls out.

As an exclusive to the One Max, users can make "mini movies" of any length with Video Highlights—a tool that debuted on the HTC One to combine photos and videos with soundtracks. Unless you were very tricky, Video Highlights were limited to 30 seconds on the HTC One. (Click here for a dry how-to video from HTC.)

Key Photographic / Video Specifications

  • 4MP sensor
  • F2.0 aperture
  • 28mm equivalent focal length
  • 1080p Full HD video on both front and rear cameras
  • HDR video
  • Slow-motion video with variable speed playback
  • HTC Zoe movies 
  • Object Removal, Always Smile and Sequence Shot editing options
  • Dual capture for simultaneous shooting with the front and rear-facing cameras.
  • 88-degree wide-angle, 2.1MP front camera 

Other Specifications

  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor, 1.7 GHz
  • Android 4.3
  • 5.9-inch 1080p screen 
  • 2GB RAM
  • 16/32GB storage (supports memory card up to 64GB)
  • NFC
  • 3300 mAh battery

Read more about the HTC One Max from HTC's press release or check out HTC's promotional video (complete with extremely dramatic soundtrack) below.