As expected by industry experts and fans, HTC unveiled its latest flagship smartphone during the Mobile World Congress to give the world its first experience with the upcoming HTC One M9.

The Taiwanese company left out announcing a global release date, but it is expected to hit carrier's shelves sometime soon. Australia seems to be the first country to have the One M9 available to them, with Telcos coming out with guns blazing and offering pre-order special offers for the HTC flagship set to hit Aussie stores Tuesday, as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald.

SMH reports that those in Australia looking to buy an unlocked handset will be shelling out a pricey $1,099, much of it due to the One M9's luxurious design.

"The M9 is again an all-metal smartphone that's crafted from one piece of metal. HTC told me that it's used the most amount of processes ever to build the chassis, more so than the M8. What's immediately obvious is the subtly gold colored bezel and dual-tone finish. It's not over imposing bright yellow, but a gente hue that segues nicely with the anodized metal unibody rear casing, which does"”at first glance"”give the M9 a jewelry-esque premium look. It really is one of the best looking smartphones I've ever held," opines Forbes' tech contributor Jay McGregor, who added that HTC said to have looked to luxury brands like Montblanc and Rolex for design inspirations.

But the M9 is not all about looking good with specifications able to hold their ground against Apple, Samsung, LG, and Sony, as pointed out by DigitalTrends.

The M9 features Android's beautiful Lollipop 5.0 OS, along with HTC's "Sense" user interface. HTC also improved from the M8 in terms of internal storage upping the M9 to 32Gb with a Micro SD slot that enables users to add up to 128GB of storage. It also uses the Snapdragon 810 processor, and has 3GB of RAM.