London and New York releases see HTC hit right back at Samsung Galaxy S5.

HTC has launched its HTC One M8 smartphone today at two glamourous launch events held in London and New York.

Much like its predecessor, the HTC One, the HTC One M8 features a high-quality, brushed aluminium chassis, which is 90% metal.

"We polish the metal to a mirror finish & then apply an elegant brushed texture," said Jonah Becker, AVP at HTC.

Hot on the tails of the Samsung Galaxy S5, it boasts a 5in Full HD (Super LCD 3) 1,920 x 1080 screen, which is 440ppi.

The HTC One M8 also runs on HTC’s brand new Android-based interfact, Sense 6.0, which sits over Android 4.4 KitKat. The smartphone also adds more content to Blinkfeed, HTC’s news, messaging and social media home screen.

The phone is the first in the world to feature a dual rear camera setup, which allows the user to work on refocusing images after the picture has been taken.

"For the first time on a smartphone, this dual camera captures true depth information in your photos," said Chou during the New York launch event.

"We went the extra mile to do this the right way at the hardware level. It is an integrated part of our camera, so you don’t have to fumble with a clumsy mode or app."

Underneath the bonnet, the HTC One M8 has a Snapdragon 801 CPU working overtime at 2.5GHz, with 2GB of RAM. The 2,900mAh battery also gives the device a decent battery life, with storage options of 32GB expandable to 64GB.

The HTC One M8 weighs just 160g, and is 9.35mm thick.

Carphone Warehouse has announced that it is immediately stocking the phone from today in selected London stores, which include Westfield Stratford, Oxford Circus, and Tottenham Court Road.