Google Play Edition treatment available for HTC One (M8)

HTC One M8 was announced a few weeks ago. It comes with a really beautiful aluminum unibody shell, Snapdragon 801 chipset and dual-camera setup. Naturally, it runs on the latest Android 4.4.2 KitKat OS plus HTC's latest Sense 6.0 user interface.

HTC One M8 Google Play Edition was made official on the announcement event too. It is more expensive than the regular One M8, it costs even more than the unlocked One M8 Developer Edition. However, if you don't want to pay $700 for the dedicated GPe, or you are limited by your contract with your carrier to stick with a regular One M8 - don't worry. There is now a way to convert your HTC One M8 to Google Play Edition!

There are a few things you should know before you proceed. First, you will need to erase the entire internal storage (NAND). To do so, you'll have to bypass HTC's security with a special tool. Then you must unlock the bootloader in order to flash a custom ROM. There is a step-by-step guide for the entire process, but it is not easy, and there is a chance you brick your HTC One M8. So, if you are not familiar with some of the tools, maybe you should stay away from such conversion.

You can opt for a rooted version of the vanilla Android ROM too. The ROMs and the guide are available over the source links below.

Source 1 | Source 2