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HTC M8 leaks in 12 minute hands-on video

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HTC M8 leaked video

While many of you were being distracted by tonight’s Oscars, some online drama of the mobile variety has also been unfolding tonight. Moments ago, the HTC M8 was leaked in a lengthy, 12-minute hands-on video.

The leaker, a young man who technically recorded the video back on the 18th of February, seems to have found the cohones to upload the video tonight. But, after some strong words from HTC’s Online Communications Manager Jeff Gordon, quickly removed the video from his YouTube account. That quick Twitter exchange can be found below.

HTC m8 leak uh oh

Before the video was taken down (and later re-uploaded all over the internets), the IMEI and dates were grabbed, leaving us to wonder about the fate of the individual and/or his parents who we’re sure signed some sort of NDA until the phone was actually made official.

If you’re curious to take a quick tour of the upcoming HTC M8 — as well as Sense 6 with Android 4.4 KitKat — the leaked video can (temporarily) be found below. We don’t imagine it’ll be very long before it gets taken down, so get it while its hot.

Thanks, Tito!

[Google+]

Chris Chavez
I've been obsessed with consumer technology for about as long as I can remember, be it video games, photography, or mobile devices. If you can plug it in, I have to own it. Preparing for the day when Android finally becomes self-aware and I get to welcome our new robot overlords.

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159 Comments

  1. LMAO this guy is such a scrub in every possible way… I feel sorry to the poor guy who’s about to get fired over this.

    There’s two things that really makes me second guess my decision on getting the M8, which are the asymmetrical speakers and that darn HTC logo bezel. I get why they need to have one, which is to accommodate the speaker module… But if you have to keep it, then keep the capacitive buttons, That way at least you’ll get more screen real estate.
    Not sure who decided to make the speakers asymmetrical, because that was a bad design decision.

    But on the upside, Sense 6 and the camera looks really awesome, not to mention the SD card slot. Can’t wait to try this out in person, and see some actual reviews.

    1. Watch, only the ATT version has the SD card slot. :(

      1. Why must phandroids be so pessimistic?

        1. experience.

      2. I know right, stupid Verizon will probably exclude it!

      3. The only one that I could see excluding it would be verizon, and ATT. And obviously ATT didn’t. Remember, Sprint usually had their own version, which always had a microsd.

      4. Why would the AT&T be the only one to have an SD card slot?

    2. I agree wholeheartedly with everything you just said.

  2. Why do the dumb ppl get the latest things? It’s such a waste.

    1. I think some teenager got a little too excited over their parents work phone. He might not be the best reviewer on the planet, but at least we know more than we did before.

      1. +1

        Beats the hell out of blurry-cam photoshops & wet-dream renders.

        Glad he took the time to share with us.

  3. The pop up in the gallery while looking at the picture reads “Edit enhance and apply Duo effects to your photos” Does anybody else think this duo means dual focus?

    1. Maybe bokeh?

    2. Makes sense. Makes a LOT of sense.

  4. I was expecting a lot radical changes with icons for the phone, camera, etc. The green and white work well together and it’s great for HTC’s identity.

    1. Flynn is at it again.

  5. He sounds like the son in breaking bad. I love his off conversational idiosyncracies… made it kind of fun to watch. Not sure what would make him feel like posting it was okay.

    Looks pretty nice. I think they should call it the HTC Two.

    1. Well, he doesn’t sound incredibly bright. But I guess thanks to him we got a slight preview of what to expect.

      1. Hey, wait, love the son in breaking bad! Dude is a boss!

  6. I couldn’t stand the voice over on this.. OMG!
    But big surprise is SD slot! ?

  7. Looks great!

  8. If I were that kids father/mother I’d be shitting bricks right now.

    1. I glad I’m not this kid’s father. This kid is an idiot. Not because he leaked this video, but because he is an overall f***ing moron. Who doesn’t place tape over identifiable information? Kid talks like an idiot and sounds like he’s slow.

  9. This is fucking hilarious. As for the phone, I don’t like the rounded edges, or the bezzle. Looks like I’ll be getting the Z2

    1. Z2 has an equally if not worse bezel.

      1. the reason the z2 looks so much better is because the side bezels are thinner this, but more importantly the SCREEN is centred on the front of the handset.

        The way HTC have done the One, the actual viewable screen is off-centre when looking down at the handset (sort of like it was on the galaxy s3 – google an image of it).

        It looks terrible. The z2’s clearly going to rule the roost until Apple unveils what it’s been cooking up.

        1. You realize Sony’s aren’t available in the states right.. They aren’t ruling any roost. But they are closing down all shops, and selling their old headquarters for some spare cash.

          1. Sony is available on T-Mobile(Sony Z1S).

    2. the HTC M8 million times better than the S5 and the Z2

      1. No way, Z2 owns it.

  10. Now we need some G3 leaks…

    1. Not the topic at hand.

      1. just updated in specs same design the LG G3 what you expecting. in the end the HTC M8 will be the best phone of 2014 and the HTC MAX M8 to

        1. Doubt it. The G2 is better than the one, and with the new leak of pics taken by the G3 it already looks better than the new one, LG in on to something with their new phones just you watch…

  11. That SD slot is sweet! Camera looks good as well. Can’t wait until March 25th.

  12. What size battery?

  13. i literally got a headache listening to this, i had to mute it… Other than that, this will be my next phone, i miss my original One, cant wait for a better video!

  14. this kid is a dumbass. But not my dumbass!!!! thanx.

  15. HTC is lucky he didn’t specify anything..but still, poor kid, reading his twitter, his parents got fired.

  16. That poor poor amateur child. I feel bad not only for him but also the person he got the phone from. I do thank him tho as now I really can’t wait to find out what that second camera does

    1. Dual cameras are OBVIOUSLY for 3D pictures. Refer to the Nintendo 3DS, dual camera, 3D pictures.

      1. Don’t be so sure of that. Out of all the leaks, not a single one mentions the display to be stereoscopic capable like the HTC Evo 3D or the Nintendo 3DS. Also, I have also yet to see and stereoscopic camera with 2 different lens’ and one angled off to the side like the M8.

        1. Take it from me, 5 years as an electrical engineer.
          1. I didn’t talk about the display, in fact it’s irrelevant.
          2. Dual cameras suggest a very inevitable 3D capturing feature… INEVITABLE as it’s the only logical use for it actually, I’ll even shock my butt with the mains power line of my house if it didn’t happen. Like our eyes are like cameras with separation allows depth perception, separation of two light receptors are the only requirement to allow for depth perception, the angle of which is negligible. Even if the M8 doesn’t have a stereoscopic display the only plausible way is a service or a viewing application similar to how the photosphere feature operates or in the case of HTC, it will be kind of like Zoe.

          1. Did you not see CES? Toshiba had a dual camera on display, it had nothing to do with 3D has more to do with dynamic range and zoom

          2. Whenever there are 2 receptors with separation, it can do 3D (depth perception), it’s a standard rule in optics. And yes the Toshiba camera you just mentioned can do that, relative zoom and focus is allowed also, that could be another use for the M8.

          3. Hmm, I find the display quite relevant to the topic as you referred to 2 devices that have both 3D and stereoscopic displays. You may be right on it being a sort of 3D feature, but deep down inside I highly doubt it. Get those power lines ready :)

  17. M8 as seen on the leak has the worse bezel action, maybe
    ever. I mean look at it, it’s technically a 3-layer bezel on the bottom
    (2-layer in terms of hardware)…!!!THREE LAYERS!!!

    You got the speaker grill, on top of that is the HTC Logo with no function
    whatsoever, and on top of that is the navigation bar (which technically
    is a functional “bezel”), all of that just to get to the screen.

    I mean seriously, 2 layers or barricade is already unacceptable and even
    rare as well, but 3 layers of barricade? Talk about “waste of space”.

    And it’s 2014, why are manufacturers still putting logos in front of their
    devices? What is this the stone age? It’s like they want to shove what
    brand of phone we are using as if branding on the back isn’t enough, but
    no, they still put it in front.

    I really hope this isn’t the final build, and that useless branding layer isn’t there on the final build.

    1. I have to agree with this, I don’t know what they were thinking.. the only thing the HTC One had going for it was the design, now this design just doesn’t make sense, this phone will bomb big time.

      1. The original HTC One had the same amount of bezels. This phone is the same ‘bezel – wise’.

        1. Nope… read what YTTAPH posted? explains it pretty well.

        2. Actually the bezels on the side look a little slimmer, similar to the bezels on the One Max

        3. Yea but the original ones bezel was put to use, this bezel has NO USE, at least other OEM with that large bezel decided to water proof there phone. Z2

          1. sweep to wake.

          2. Do you mean swipe the black bar, because if so, I said on one article before, but I’m sure if that was a feature, I think lil buddy woulda showed that in this leak

    2. Is that all you people can ever talk about?

      Every single comment on Phandroid is about bezels, and it’s obnoxious. This bezel is perfectly fine.

      1. Also those days people have no ideal about engineering. Bezel protect the screen, not Rim, the bezel are like a chassis of the a car.

        1. It’s…. Super Bezel Defender. Ngo is taiwanese, right? You work for ’em?

          1. No am Vietnamese, Ngo is not a Chinese last name, and I defending large bezel, I am just not dumb, you know basis physics then you would know when you drop a phone larger the area the shockwaves have to travel the more kinetic energy it low. So the screen will be more likely to survive. It is pretty simple.

      2. (Facepalm). No. Just no.

      3. Really? So you think it’s acceptable for the dock bar to set 25% up the phone???????

        1. 25% dude you need to learn some math, there is no way this is anywhere close to 25%

          1. Look at the picture below. It is divided up into fourths The bottom of the phone, to the top of the dock is 1/4, or 25%. If you don’t see that, you need to see your optometrist : )

          2. Hahaaaaaa, you must not know math dude, I got 20/20 and I can tell you, that ain’t 27% now if you include the speaker grill heck you still won’t get 25%. I hope you atleast got a G.E.D or I hope you still a kid lol

          3. The speaker is part of the bezel, of course I’m including the speakers. The dock is 27% up the phone. If you can’t see that from the picture, get a ruler. I measured it. Do I need to post that for you as well?

          4. Dude that measurement may apply to the original one, given the fact it has a 4.7 inch screen, the new one has like a 5.0 or 5.1, so no way is ur math by any means correct even when you include the speaker, plus no one is complaining about functional components. On the original one the speaker served a purpose and the black bar served a purpose. On the the new one the speaker serves a purpose the black bar does not, so if your gonna do screen estate lost, please only measure non functional components, and I mean top and bottom non functional bezel,

          5. Dude, from the bottom of the phone to the top of the dock is 27% of the front of the phone. I posted a picture. I have measured it. Without measuring, you can tell that the dock is abnormally high on the phone. Having a speaker grill, useless black bar, and on screen buttons…will do that. It is bad design. Stop arguing and start measuring. You can’t tell me that it’s not 27%, when I have measured it.

          6. I just measured it precisely. It’s actually 27%. Now what?

    3. Honestly the only reason why it looks bad is because of the front facing speakers. Simply remove the bottom front facing speaker and that bottom bezel would be the smallest bottom bezel compared to any other phone.

      1. Why would you take away a speaker, and not the black bar. Sorry dude I had to down vote that comment, wish I could do it again

    4. 2 layers of bezel ‘barricade’ is even rare. . . . . Are you sure, so you are saying that phones exist that actually have no bezel at all then. Considering you count the onscreen buttons as a layer.

      1. The buttons are bezek. Look how high on the phone the dock bar is…

  18. omg it has an sd cawd…and a great camwa

    1. Swallow your coffee before you text.

    2. why u mek phun of speecth impedddimint?

  19. I couldn’t watch the whole thing, the kid is so annoying. Not to mention, did he seriously think he could fool HTC by tweeting it’s a fake phone? How do morons like this get stuff early? Proves it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

    As far as the new M8 goes, the new camera looks good, and love the SD card slot. The menu buttons on screen confuse me a bit, I’ll have to wait for the official unveil to get a better feel for it.

    1. HTC threatening him publicly on twitter like that was incredibly classless and bully-like

      1. Not very professional

        1. Kids need some scaring once in a while

      2. He just posted a video of a phone that’s yet to be released. What else do you expect a company to do?

        1. Let’s sing to Alicia Keys

          His…dad…is so fiyeeeeeerd
          His…dad is so fiyeeee-e-e-errrr-eeerrrrd

      3. No, it was good they did. Sends a message to all potential leakers. Who knows how many more leaks could have transpired between then and when news breaks of how this one is handled.

        1. what is realistically going to happen to the kid? Absolutely nothing.

          1. No, but the Parents are in a world of hurt.

        2. No, and in fact they could have messed up any potential legal proceedings in the future. Civil disagreements SHOULD be private initially. Even if they did want to make it public, something like:

          “Releasing that video is a violation of our contractual agreement. Please remove the video to avoid blah blah whatever.”

          Not:

          LOL UR GONNA HAVE A BAD DAY BRAH

      4. i don’t think it’s real, someone of that position speaking out like that? can’t be real

      5. nothing classless or bully-like about it. Contracts are made and if one breaks a contract and posts a video for millions to see, an example needs to be made. Handling it privately just means another leak will happen next year.

    2. The father of the child got it early, not the kid. The father is the tester of the phone, but apparently the kid got his hands on it.

  20. Can you say “CONTROLLED LEAK?” The kid hardly tweets, has very few Youtube videos… all in the last couple of months. I think he was hired by HTC and the whole thing is a publicity stunt to get people talking about their new phone… and it seems to be working.

    1. exactly what I’m thinking, plus who would take it upon themselves and represent HTC via twitter. not buying it

    2. So this hired kid also uses the F-bomb on twitter when twitting with the person that made the video viral with a mirror…I don’t think so…Who in their right mind would have this kid do it. I mean get someone who can formulate a proper sentence!

    3. Souds accurate, but you never know, the kid genuinely seems clueless on what he is doing.

  21. This new HTC is coming with specs which phones had last year. No way in hell is this gonna stand close to the Z2 or S5. No chance at all. Probably even do worse commercially than last year’s joker from htc. 5mp camera? Insulting in this day and age.

    1. Isn’t the Z2 and the S5 coming out with specs which phones had last year?

      1. Pretty sure the specs are more or less identical. So its up to, plastic turd, glass and bezels, or marvelous engineering feat. I’m gonna go with the marvelous engineering, and HTC.

        1. HTC is king of bezel and horrible cameras. Oh…and their batteries…yuck.

          1. The bezel I agree. But the camera and battery are substantially Good. The 4um(4mp) on the one was great, besides not being able to zoom in a picture and see fine detail, but images look crisp and clear on the one. HTC butterfly s proved that HTC can indeed make a phone with great battery life.

      2. S5, yes. Z2, no.

        1. Beside the 3 gig of Ram there is nothing that new about the Z2. It has the same camera as the Z1 which is not good.

          1. Z2 actually has a 20mp camera, and the z1 has a 13mp camera.

          2. Nope The Z and Z1 are different phone, Sony has the Z which is the S4 pro then they release the Z1 which was the S800 abd 20 mp. Thank you try again.

        2. 801 just got released.

        3. They both have the same processor

      3. No. They both have the 801, that just got announced.

    2. I agree. The phone will probably do worse. HTC had its chance and blew it. They are not mainstream enough to recycle models like Apple/Samsung and still excel in sales.

      1. Samsung doesn’t recycle models. They bump up specs and features every model whether you appreciate the add-ons or not.

    3. This guy right here is what Samsung want as a consumers clueless. All the phone have similar spec. The 5 mp is for the front we don’t know what. the mp of the two back are if they are dual 5 mp then the image will be similar to a full 13 mp. People like you who are just clueless, let the growth up do the talking okay?

      1. You can’t call someone else clueless when you are uninformed yourself.

        The Galaxy S5 will have a 16 megapixel back-facing camera and 2.1 front-facing camera.

        1. Did you not read? I said nothing about the Samsung camera I was talking to roeshank as in my post. Do you see the arrow to roeshank? Was he not talking about about a 5mp cameras? Now who is clueless?

  22. OMG! He leaked a video on a phone coming out in a few week. A PHONE!!! AHHHH…lets sentence him …how could he! What has the world come to???

    Get a grip guys. Its not a big deal or a government secret.

    1. He signed a contract with a company regarding a product that likely cost tens of miliions of dollars to create and promote. I’d say its a pretty big deal.

      1. Tens of millions to re-release a phone from 2 years ago and make it gold. cool.

        You think this kid signed a contract with HTC? You think it was intended for him to have the phone? You obviously haven’t watched the video.

        1. How is it two year when the HTC one was last year? You know even if you rerelease it still take time and money.

        2. robjackson81 is correct the kid may of thought as harmless reviewing but he knew it was a developer’s edition with full intention. Then he bad mouthed the camera… come on. That kid got what he deserve’s but it’s also the parent’s fault for being so loose with such a sensitive device. Lock that phone in a safe and never tell anyone my goodness. Yes I am aware their were already leak press photo’s from evleaks but this does not help HTC. The kid put their brand on the line and could easily cost them million’s.

      2. Haha this kid don’t sign anything with HTC. You have to hear him….

    2. It wouldn’t be such a big deal if he wasn’t the WORST REVIEWER IN THE HISTORY OF TIME!!! Did he even know the camera was on for 11 minutes of that video?
      I wanted an M8 but am now second guessing the entire company for letting someone like this get their hands on it. It is the worst leak I have ever seen and should be used as an anti-advertising campaign for HTC. The entire HTC supply chain is in question now and the kid should be locked up, not for the leak but his horrible review skils. :P

      1. lol @ that last line.

    3. Laws are laws.

  23. Oh htc you must be so proud of yourself. You finally were able to put a micro sd slot on your flagship. Out of boy!! Best announcing video ever released btw. Ugh.

    1. SD slot ?? .. Meh .. who needs one anyway. I’ve not used an SD card in a phone for 4 years …

      So here we go again … something happens in the opposition camp and the trolls just ooze out of their pits spontaneously … it’s all so boringly predictable .. the phone, the leak, and the trolling … same old story, different manufacturer, different trolls … don’t worry about my choosing you, even though your previous posts mark you out as a rabid Samsung Note 3 fan …

      You ain’t special … you were just nearest to the top of the crap pile when I looked.

      1. Let him be remembered when the spec for the one leak and all the Samsung fanboy say the spec of the HTC one was bad. But when the S5 was announced the spec was similar to the this one, they did a 180 and say that is a good phone? I hate Fanboy like him. Why would they care what phone I am using?

        1. The One has a 4 MP camera…no excuse for that

        2. Cause it’s fun to mock stupid people.

      2. I have 6000 songs, 14000 pics and some many movies and games on my phone, so do the math.

        1. You have over 20,000 worth of media!? Your indexing must take like half your battery life. LoL!!

          I think it’s time for some spring cleaning, and I’m not kidding. Move some of that stuff over to a computer or something.

          It’s that MP count. Them megapixels be addin’ up, dude. Learned that quickly on my Samsung Memoir. That phone had an 8MP camera. I lost space fast. =.[

          Oppo will have you taking 10MB pictures with it’s 50MP camera. Dude, that would mean you would of had 140GB worth of pictures, alone. =.O

          1. LOL, the 14000 pics are pretty much all the pics I’ve taken since 2002. I use the phone as a back up device plus it is nice to have them with me all the time. The older the pics are, the smaller their file sizes are (cause big MP cameras came later)… plus, even though I have a 13MP camera phone now, I only take pics with 3MP cause I really dont think I need more than that… As far as songs, yes, ive been collecting them since around 2002 as well so thats why I have so many, its always been pretty easy to get music out there without paying big bucks for it (or any)… anyway, I am really glad that they just came out with the 128GB SD Card, now I finally can have all the files I want on my phone, without any compromises.

  24. i think this is a marketing ploy. I find it hard to believe that HTC’s Online Communications Manager Jeff Gordon would tweet that directly to a possible HTC customer. So yes, i think the “leak” was fake as well as the tweet back. He could’ve easily just DM’d him and been just as effective, why let people see? smh

    1. So if it was a marketing ploy…you are saying HTC would let this kid do the video?! They would ok this?! There is no way…I know this is prob a developer phone but the camera app kept crashing in the video. I would question the decision making abilities of the marketing manager if this were deliberate.

    1. He should have known better leaving it out or even telling his son about it. Kids these days are anxious to post themselves all over the internet for a bit of stardom or at least 15 minutes of fame.

      Looks like he got what he wanted but at a great cost, if I were his dad he’d be grounded til he was 18..

      1. He probably is 18.

  25. I think this kid could be the voice actor for Elmer Fudd. He lacks common sense.

    1. Be vewy, vewy quiet. We’re wooking for phone leaks. Hohohohoho.

  26. What I can’t understand is, if they moved the home and back menu buttons from hardware to on-screen, why didn’t they get rid of the bezel on the bottom to make more screen space? Did they need the HTC logo on the front THAT badly? Really bad design decision.

    1. Where did you get your degree?

      1. Wow, come on if someone is gong to make what could be a good meme, at least get the word right. It’s bezel, not bevel. Bevel is when the edge of something is slanted, Bezel is the border surrounding the main feature (the display in this case). Come onnnn!

    2. This will be answered when there is a phone tear down. It’s been speculated that there are necessary for components. So that space would be needed.

      It may be where the components for the speakers are.

      1. If that were true, screen could have covered it instead of bezel.

        1. So I saw a tear down of the HTC One 2013. If you understand hardware a lot, maybe you’d recognize the part. There was this strip attached to the bottom portion, particularly where the bar was.

          So if HTC is following a similar design, then this is why the black bar is there.

          If they’re going with a similar design, then this is why that black bar will be there again. There may have been no avoiding it. Also why the phone may not get much larger screen-wise. The design won’t allow it without it being something like the HTC One Max.

          1. If that is the case, they should have left the buttons there. It looks as if they made the device bigger, probably for a larger screen. With on screen buttons, the usable screen space will still be about 4.7. With on screen buttons, the black bar, and the bottom speaker…that pushes the dock bar 25% up on the phone. It just looks odd.

          2. I agree with that actually. If the bar was there, might as well keep the capacitive buttons. At least make some use out of it.

            That reviewer didn’t seem like he new much of the phone. Maybe there’s something hidden there, IDK…

            Or maybe it’s just a plain ol’ HTC logo. =.S

            Eh…? I just hope the dimensions are the same. If not, then we are in for a very long phone.

  27. Seems like a clear controlled leak like a lot have suggested here. Plus, isn’t it adorable when he says he doesn’t want to infringe on copyright . . . For youtube videos! Never mind the unreleased ‘secret’ phone you have in your hands. If real, that comment alone would make him the worst reviewer ever.

  28. Lol his parents ended up getting fired.

  29. Phone is still fugly as all hell but at least the camera is somewhat improved. HTC is almost there but not quite yet.

    1. Ugly? You must have a ugly girlfriend

      1. The bezels make the phone look outdated. This was cool for the Mytouch 3G, but not in this day & age. Give me edge to edge aesthetics and then we’ll talk.

        1. Also what’s up with that retarded lip around the edge, like the S5. Fugly safety bumpers are a no go.

  30. No point in software keys if they were going to keep that bar down there. Should have just kept capacitive buttons.

    Oh well… I’ll be rooting and adding my search and menu buttons as needed. =.3

    1. I personally prefer capacitive over software keys so I agree, but oh well.

  31. Looks sexy. And an SD card? Talk about being super sexy. Hello, my new phone.

  32. Really, i had to mute the sound after 5 minutes of listening to his horrible mumbling. People like this get new phones early ?? Geeez they dont have standards at all. What a mumbling idiot.

    1. His dad is a tester, not him.

      1. And what happened next, when HTC found the video?

  33. Why couldn’t it have looked like this? :( this was freaking sexy.. http://phandroid.com/2014/02/05/htc-m8-front-leak/

  34. Why couldn’t it have looked like this? :( this was freaking sexy..

    1. Because companies just have to take away
      perfection some how,

  35. The bottom line is the HTC One is going to be one of the best devices of 2014. Whether we like it or not. I mean for heaven sakes the s5 sounds bad, but we all know that the s5 is going to sell like ice cream on a hot day.

    I personally like the new HTC m8, I don’t mind the bezel even though I have gotten used to the non bezel on my moto x. But overall the m8 is going to be a great device.

    I guess what I’m trying to say is, wait for march 25th and let’s see what HTC has to bring to the table insteading of making comments that are not relevant to the actual OFFICAL HTC one.

  36. Can anyone confirm for certain if the area between the right of the top speaker grill and the left of the camera is a light sensor or a new, larger notification LED?

  37. He did a TERRIBLE job covering the IMEI!!!

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