It wasn’t long ago (and it wasn’t unexpected, either) that we announced the HTC Desire S would come to Telstra. After their success with the first iteration of the HTC Desire, it was no surprise Telstra would follow up with the Desire S. Today we can share the launch pricing, following HTC and Telstra’s launch party last night in Sydney.
The HTC Desire S will sell through Telstra for $649 outright – available from 31 May 2011 – and will also be available for $5 per month on Telstra’s $59 Freedom Connect plan over 24 months. The plan offers $550 worth of calls and MMS messages, unlimited text messages to any mobile within Australia, and 1.5GB of data per month.
Of course, if you’re with another carrier and would like it (a) sooner and (b) cheaper, you can look at getting your Desire S from MobiCity for $499. Note, this version isn’t Next G compatible, so it’s recommended for Optus/Vodafone/3 users.
As with many Telstra launches of late, they’ll have the exclusive on this device until 31 August 2011, after which time you’ll probably see this phone picked up by Optus or Vodafone, or both, though there’s nothing confirmed yet.
An evolution of the original Desire, the HTC Desire S features the same 3.7in, capacitive touchscreen, 1GHz Qualcomm processor, and 5-megapixel camera as its predecessor, with a minor RAM increase being the biggest change — it has 768MB, up from 576MB in the original. The Desire S also has a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video calls – a welcome addition.
Unlike its predecessor, the HTC Desire S’s body is a unibody aluminium design and software-wise, it runs the latest 2.3 “Gingerbread” version of Android.
We hope to bring you a review of the Desire S really soon.
Saw a video on this via demarket today, looked like a great event. The Desire received a great wrap and Telstra mentioned that it was their most successful android phone.
hmmm the HTC Desire S does NOT have the same CPU as it’s predecessor and it addresses one of the major shortcomings of that model, a lack of ROM/Flash space. While it’s not a big leap over the original Desire, you could at least get the facts correct Chris!
The CPU in this is better than the HTC Desire Z’s, so that’s obviously a sign of its upgrade (and that far outweighs an extra ~200MB of RAM). It also happens to be the same processor (and GPU) that the Incredible S uses. So, give this phone some credit. Secondly, HTC has never been a trend setter with hardware. Before (and during the first generation of) the Android Age, HTC was using older processors. Primarily this was due to the massive change in the landscape of phones but still, old processors is old processors. … Still though, you’d have to be an… Read more »
HTC are very going downhill. Not interested in this phone at all.
Please Telstra, just bring out the Galaxy 2….
They will be – wait a month or so 🙂
Actually, HTC is still pretty much alive and kicking with their new flagship, Sensation (and EVO 3D in the U.S.) and the new Sense UI 3.0 that continues to give a good and well-rounded Android experience to their customers.
So yeah, this phone here now sucks because the Australian carriers are still behind in selling new phones on time in the country, not really the fault of the manufacturers.
All of them has locked bootloaders…
Actually, HTC is still pretty much alive and kicking with their new flagship, Sensation (and EVO 3D in the U.S.) and the new Sense UI 3.0 that continues to give a good and well-rounded Android experience to their customers.
So yeah, this phone here now sucks because the Australian carriers are still behind in selling new phones on time in the country, not really the fault of the manufacturers.
I’m not sure why anyone would bother with the Desire S. I have the original Desire, and it was pretty good for its time, but if I were going for a mid-range single core phone now I’d probably grab a Galaxy S or an XPERIA Neo.
best single core (+ future prroofed) atm is probably nexus s
This phone ticks all of my boxes…
– native Android 2.3 – not too big at 3.7″- Next G- decent CPU- front facing camera
I’m looking at getting one of these for the wife, to replace her dying nokia 5800 (still almost a year left on contract). A couple places I found have the imported version for $424. Other options are the moto defy (import) for $324 or huawei x5 (local) for $299. I’m leaning toward the desire s because of the newer android version, front camera and more RAM. Any other things I should be considering?
Get Incredible S. Its promised Gingerbread update is coming and hardware specs are better than Desire S plus it is about $100 cheaper outright with Telechoice. If you do not mind not using the NextG Network, that is.
Incredible s is $100 more than desire s, not sure it’s worth it for an extra 0.3 inch of screen. Also, we’re on virgin/optus.
No the Incredible S is $569, about $100 cheaper from Telechoice, outright:
http://ausdro.id.au/iWOAIg
And you get a bigger screen plus better camera at 8 mega pixel and an extra LED flash.
Lame, why would you pay $64 a month for this when you can get the incredible for $34 a month?
Why would you pay $64 a month for the Desire S when you can pay $64 a month for the Galaxy SII? 😀
but no telstra prices have been announced for SGS2 – unless you’re referring to optus pricing (which isn’t a very fair comparison)
if the last desire is any thing to go by no one will pick up this phone. in 3 months, no wait it is already an outdated phone from a specs point of view. HTC is no longer an innovative company. That and the locked bootloader+NAND+kernel has turned me off HTC