HTC announced three new mid-range devices today at MWC but decided to forgo showing off a new flagship.
HTC may not have had an official launch event at this years MWC, but that didn’t stop them from announcing three new handsets and a global roll-out for the Asia-only One X9. The latter was a variant of the very impressive A9, however it was missing the fingerprint sensor and had the addition of boomsound (which is a great addition). Other than this, it’s a little bigger which means more battery life (3000mAh vs. 2150 on the A9) and has a faster processor in the form of the impressive MediaTek Helio X10.
Mid-range masterclass
The Desire range has never been a bad set of smartphones, they just seem to be forgotten among the titan flagship killers such as the OnePlus 2.
Starting at the bottom of the line-up, we have the 530, a small 5-inch phone with a 720p panel and lowly Snapdragon 210 processor. Arguably, it makes more sense to call this a budget handset since the specs seem to dictate so, yet HTC wants this line associated with the mid-range. Like previous Desire devices, it comes with a plastic body that still feels better than most other plastic handsets on the market… Even if it doesn’t quite compare to the premium metal finishes we’re all mostly used to by now. The Desire 630 makes up the middle of the line and is essentially the same device from the outside, but it benefits from a beefier snapdragon 400 processor, BoomSound and a much better 13 megapixel camera.
Moving up to the top device in the range we have the Desire 825, which is visually a bit different and lies half way between the A9 and lesser Desire handsets (it’s still plastic for the record). The device will come packaged with a Hi-Res headset and features BoomSound with true stereo speakers. Other than this, it ships with a larger 5.5-inch screen with the same 720p resolution and Snapdragon 400. RAM is also the same as the 630, at 2GB. In fact, even the camera is the same, with the only true difference being the battery, which gets a nice bump to 2,700mAh.
The HTC Desire 825, 630 and 530 will be hit stores in March for money. No info on pricing as of yet, but we’ll keep our eyes out in the coming days.
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