HTC One XL arriving in Europe in June

Vodafone Germany has announced it will be stocking the HTC One XL from ‘early June', according to reports, and should be available in other EU countries, including the UK around the same time or shortly after.

The new confirms what we heard from our industry sources towards the end of April.

Why's that a reason to get excited? Well the One XL is, of course, part of HTC's One range of Android Ice Cream Sandwich handsets, which includes two excellent phones, the One X and One S.

The One XL is essentially a merging of the two aforementioned handsets: it has the body shell, display and overall spec sheet of the One X but instead of the One X's quad core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, it's running the Qualcomm S4 Snapdragon ‘Krait', which is in the One S.

It's significant because, according to benchmarks, Qualcomm's S4 dual core chip is actually faster than Nvidia's Tegra 3, and the Tegra 3 was impressive enough to begin with so that should give you some indication of how rapid Qualcomm's hardware is.

So, essentially, it's the One X with the One S's performance, which sounds like a good idea to us - and as well as running quicker, it should also run cooler and not drain your battery quite so fast.

Not only that, the S4 chip has built-in 4G LTE capability. Of course, we don't actually have 4G in the UK yet but it is on the way. Folks across the pond in the USA have been enjoying the One XL with its LTE capability for a little while now but it's finally going to land over here fairly soon.

According to IntoMobile, it will go for €660 euros on the continent, over here that translates to around £529, making it a bit more expensive than the current One X which sits around the £450 mark, though, of course you'll almost certainly be able to get some kind of tariff deal with a UK carrier when it launches.

The One X and One S are currently our favourite Android handsets on the market and easily outclass Samsung's new Galaxy S3 in terms of fit and finish.

We'll have a review for you as soon as we can get our hands on one.