While carrier branding is obviously a great way for carriers to market themselves, it can be quite ugly at times and could even diminish the retail value of the phone when trying to sell it second hand. Now the good news is that if you’re really fussy about that sort of thing, it seems that if you’re planning to get the HTC One, you might want to think about getting Sprint’s version of the phone as it will not be featuring the carrier’s branding on the device. This was discovered by the folks at PocketNow who received their review unit from Sprint and discovered that the carrier’s brand was missing from the device. Sprint’s Director of Product Marketing has since issued a statement regarding the branding:
The movement has less to do with de-emphasizing our brand and more to do with the flexibility that it provides us in our multi-brand strategy. Increasingly, we are launching similar devices on both our Sprint brand and our no contract brands, Virgin Mobile and Boost. Removing the carrier brand gives us manufacturing and logistical economies in the event that we launch the same device on multiple brands. Also there is a difference between hardware branding and software branding. Sprint is still very focused on software branding which can be dynamic in nature.
Sounds like fancy marketing speak, but we guess we can appreciate the effort nonetheless. So for those thinking about going with Sprint for the device, the HTC One for Sprint has been discounted to $99 with a two-year contract, and be sure to check out our review of the handset before making a decision!
Filed in . Read more about HTC, HTC One (M7) and Sprint.