Despite the fact that their ‘Big’ event is planned for the 25th of March, HTC is still at Mobile World Congress and took to the stage overnight to announce some new products, but in the Desire range rather than their ‘One’ range, announcing the Desire 610 and the Desire 816.
Desire 610
The Desire 610 is a mid-range device which brings features such as BlinkFeed and BoomSound into the more affordable end of the spectrum for consumers. Although described as a mid-range phone the Desire 610 will still carry LTE radios and allow customers to keep up with the latest speeds available.
Hardware wise, the Desire 610 comes with a 4.7″ qHD(960×540) display, a 1.2GHz Quad-Core Snapdragon 400 SoC, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage with microSDXC support, an 8MP Rear Camera and 1.3MP Front-facing camera and powered by a 2,040 mAh battery. With dimensions of 143x71x9.6mm and weighing in at 143.5grams it’s not the slimmest or lightest phone around but the price should reflect that when announced.
The HTC Desire 610 will be available across Europe from May with pricing to be announced closer to launch.
Desire 816
The Desire 816 is said to be the ‘first edition of the new-look Desire Family’ taking elements from the HTC One range and adding a splash of colour with quality materials included to build a distinctive new design.
Peter Chou, CEO of HTC described the HTC Desire 816
The HTC Desire 816 marks the beginning of an exciting new era for the mid-tier. Incomparably beautiful to look at and hold with the technology and software to match, the HTC Desire 816 challenges everything that people expect from lower cost smartphones. It is bringing genuine choice to the category by delivering stunning design and high-end performance at unbelievable value.
The Desire 816 will include a 5.5″ 720p HD display with a 1.6GHz Quad-Core Snapdragon 400 SoC, 1.5GB of RAM, 8GB of on-board storage plus microSDXC support up to 64GB, a 13MP Camera with 1080p video capture is on the rear and a 5MP Front-Facing camera is ready for video conferencing. The Desire 816 carries a 2,600 mAh battery and with the dual front facing speakers also includes ‘BoomSound’. The Desire 816 will of course run HTC Sense and include all the features such as BlinkFeed, HTC Zoe
The HTC Desire 816 will be rolling out to China first, arriving in March with a Global rollout to begin from April. Pricing will be announced closer to the launch date.
The Desire 816 is the first HTC phone to catch my attention (my tastes are a bit different I guess) in a long time. I like the slim design. I hope they price it competitively.