Since today was the first time we had heard of the HTC M7, we decided to do a little digging and see if we could uncover any additional information about HTC’s next flagship device. Surprisingly, details about the HTC M7 have been floating around for about a week. The reason we (and most other English language tech blogs) missed them was because references to the device have mainly been on Chinese language news sites.

Piecing together details from a handful of sites reveals that the HTC M7 will be equipped with a 5-inch HD display, Qualcomm APQ8064 quad-core processor and a 13 megapixel camera — all wrapped up in an aluminum unibody frame. As we mentioned earlier today, HTC plans to bring the HTC M7 to market in Q1. But, things may be moving a bit quicker than we originally expected. Sources claim that HTC wants the HTC M7 to  launch in mid-Q1, which would allow the phone to be on the market for 1-2 months without direct competition from Samsung’s Galaxy S IV (expected to launch in Q2 of 2013).

There are still a lot of details missing, but it looks like the M7 will be in the same class as the HTC Droid DNA and HTC J Butterfly – with a few extra refinements. Hopefully, HTC will consider equipping the M7 with a larger battery and at least 32GB of storage, or offer a removable battery and a microSD card slot to let users expand their battery and storage as needed.

If the HTC M7 launch timeline holds up, you’ll be seeing a lot more news stories on the device in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.