Update: a video of what appeared to be the HTC One briefly went live on YouTube. Published by MobileGeeks.de, the video was soon made private, but from the accounts of those who have watched it, this leaked press shot is genuine.

Update:

What you’re looking at below is a press photo of the new HTC One that’s going to be announced in roughly 12 hours. In case you’ve been living a rock, the HTC One will be HTC’s premier Android flagship phone for the first half of 2013. It’s set to have a 4.7 inch 1080p display, quad core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor clocked at 1.7 GHz, 2 GB of RAM, a 13 megapixel camera, and allegedly a teeny tiny 2,300 mAh battery.

The image, which comes from the French website NoWhereElse, looks legitimate. The site has proven to be accurate in the past regarding rumors, so we think this is the real deal. And if it’s a fake … well, we’ll know what the official HTC One looks like in half a day.

While we’re on the subject of the One, it’s important to point out a few of things. Let’s start with the elephant in the room: Samsung. They’re going to hold an event on the 14th of March to unveil the brand spanking new Galaxy S4. That means there’s a good chance that we’ll know everything there is to know about the S4 before HTC even has a chance to bring the One to market. That’s going to hurt sales, a lot.

The next big topic of contention is HTC’s track record. They announced the One X in February 2012, updated it by announcing the One X+ eight months later in October, and then two months after that they unveiled the 1080p Butterfly. That’s three “flagship” phones in the span of one year. How long will the One be the cock of the walk? Six months? Less?

And let’s also not forget about Sense. It’s an Android UI skin that’s extremely polarizing. You either love it or you hate it. This writer falls into the latter camp, and whenever he admits that in public, HTC fanbois come to his front door with baseball bats.

We’re going to be in New York covering the announcement of the One, so make sure you come back here in a few hours. If not, let’s just say we have baseball bats too.