HTC has quietly taken the wraps off a sleek black version of its HTC One Max phablet, slowly bringing the handset up to colour terms with the rest of the HTC smartphone line.

The HTC One is available in silver, black, red, blue and gold, while the HTC One Mini is available in black, silver and blue. The HTC One Max launched in silver in October, and is just now getting its second coat of paint.

READ: HTC One Max review

The black HTC One Max was unveiled on HTC's Hong Kong website on Thursday. As of now, Hong Kong is the only market we know will get the black version. However, we wouldn't put it past HTC to roll out the second colour variant to a few more markets, including the US and UK - though it remains unconfirmed.

The black HTC One Max lives up to its description, highlighted in the press shot, being completely blacked out. In a way it makes the fingerprint sensor on the back of the handset more subtle, instead of it sticking out as it does on the silver version.

The change of colour doesn't bring a change of specification for the 5.9-inch handset. You'll still find a quad-core 1.7GH Snapdragon 600 processor, BoomSound speakers, 4-megapixel UltraPixel rear-camera, 2GB of RAM, MicroSD card support and Android Jelly Bean (upgradeable to 4.4 KitKat).

A red version of the HTC One Max was recently spotted in a Taiwanese advert but hasn't been unveiled officially by HTC.

HTC will want to make the most of the fame of its One range - which now includes a Pocket-lint Gadget Award for Best smartphone - before the HTC M8 comes along early next year to take up the flagship mantle.