HTC One Max joins the phablet fray

-HTC has entered phablet territory. I'm Jessica Dolcourt with CNET. This is your first look at the HTC One Max. The issue says One Max is undoubtedly part of the One family of phones, except that it has an enormous 5.9-inch display. 1080p HD quality on that so it's gonna look clear and bright. Won't be quite as pixel densed as the HTC One. There are some differences with this phone other than the size. For one, the power button moves over here to the side. There's still the IR blaster up top though. And another move, the back cover is removable. There's a little sliding lock on the left spine that will help you unlock the back of the phone. The battery is still embedded. It's a 3300 milliamp battery in here, but you will get access to the micro-sim card slot and to the micro-SD card slot beneath. You'll have up to 64 gigabytes of external storage to play with. One of the most interesting new features is a fingerprint scanner on the back of the phone. That's what this black box is, right below the camera module. It will support up to 3 fingers, either yours or somebody else's. There will also be a backup PIN required when you use the fingerprint scanner so if the scanner does not work, you will still be able to get into your phone. The Max runs Android 4.3 Jelly Bean and is the first phone to ship with Sense 5.5. You get a few extra additions with this version of Sense, including customizations to BlinkFeed, including being able to turn it off. Like the HTC One that came before, there is a 4 megapixel-- ultrapixel camera on the back with flash, and there is a 2.1 megapixel front-facing camera as well. Under the hood, you've got the same processor that's in the HTC One, in other words, a 1.7 GHz quadcore Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 chipset. I don't have pricing for this bad boy yet, but it should be coming to Verizon and Sprint in the US in time for the holiday season. I'm Jessica Dolcourt for CNET. You can learn much more about the HTC One Max at CNET.com.