These were the three phones that HTC announced at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona today. Excitement was a little muted because all three had been leaked online, some hours before the official announcement, although the leaks did not quite get the Desire’s name correct. To sum up, the Desire is what was previously codenamed the Bravo. The Legend is well, the Legend. And the Touch HD Mini was previously the Photon, according to the leaked HTC product roadmap in December 2009.
So, the Desire and Legend will run Android 2.1 with HTC Sense with Friend Stream. Friend Stream is a technology from HTC, incorporated into Sense, that brings together the “feeds” from all your contacts into one seamless consolidated screen so you don’t have to scroll back and forth between different screens and applications to see what your contacts are up to in Twitter, Facebook, SMS, email, etc. In short, it’s a social person’s wet dream come true.
Basically, the Desire is HTC’s own equivalent of the Google Nexus One, which it also produced. Instead of a trackball, it uses an optical trackpad (which I think is miles better than a trackball). Otherwise the specifications are almost unchanged from the Nexus One – the 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 3.7 inch AMOLED screen, etc. And it comes with HTC Sense, which to me, is a good good good thing. Did I mention it’s a good thing it comes with HTC Sense?
The Legend is the HTC Hero’s successor. Talking about the HTC Hero, HTC did mention that it too will get an update to Sense, making it run the same version as that available on the Desire and Legend. The Legend is crafted from a single piece of aluminium, making its design very sleek, a point emphasised a number of times during the press conference. It retains the signature “Android chin”, present from the days of the HTC Dream. It is solid phone, says HTC, and during the press conference, HTC’s Chief Marketing Office even whacked it against the wall to demonstrate how sturdily built it is. The Legend also sports an optical trackpad.
The Touch HD Mini is the smaller sibling of the HD2. I don’t know what it is about minis this year, but they’re big at the MWC. Minis are smaller versions of their older siblings, most notably in terms of screen size, and sometimes even hardware specifications. I’m no longer keen on minis on hardware because my minimum screen size for a smartphone nowadays is 3.5 inches, and the only minis I like are those worn by leggy models. But that’s another story.
Personally, if you ask me, I’m most interested in the Touch HD Mini (sadly, it doesn’t come with a 1GHz processor but at least this should keep the costs down, hopefully sub RM 2,000 when it arrives in Malaysia) and the Desire, of course! Has anyone noticed a couple of things? Firstly, HTC seems to be moving away from manufacturing phones with physical QWERTY keyboards. Secondly, only three new handsets were announced this time, which means that HTC is playing its cards close to its chest by seeing what others come out with – a testament to the fact that this year is going to be a very competitive one for smartphones running Android and Windows Mobile. Thirdly, it seems to be moving slowly away from Windows Mobile/Windows Phone platform – because Windows Phone 7 Series is not going to allow the kind of customisation that HTC has been renowned for with its HTC Sense. If it can no longer compete on software, does it really want to compete based on price alone, in the shark infested waters that is the smartphone market? So, while HTC says it is still committed to the Windows Phone platform, even putting out a press release saying so, I will not be surprised if this year sees HTC phones running other mobile operating system platforms – bada or meego anyone? ;-) And let’s not forget that they are also hedging their bets by moving downstream into the mass market with their first dumb-phone/feature-phone, ironically called the HTC Smart, hint hint!
Availability for all three phones is April 2010, although I’m not sure which markets will get it first, but if I had to bet, it would be Europe followed by Asia.
Unfortunately, at the time of writing this post, I still cannot seem to locate an official press release from HTC regarding these three new phones. Neither were the phones’ specifications given out during the press conference this afternoon our time, so we’ll have to be a little patient, I guess. But digging around the internet has revealed some alleged specifications for the following phones:
HTC Desire (courtesy of Android@Modaco)
- CPU Speed – 1 GHz
- Platform – Android™ 2.1 (Éclair) with HTC SenseTM
- Memory – ROM: 512 MB, RAM: 576 MB
- Dimensions – (LxWxT) 119 x 60 x 11.9 mm (4.7 x 2.36 x 0.47 inches)
- Weight – 135 grams (4.76 ounces) with battery
- Display – 3.7-inch AMOLED touch-sensitive screen with 480 X 800 WVGA resolution
- Network – HSPA/WCDMA:
- Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz
- Upload speed of up to 2 Mbps and download speed of up to 7.2 Mbps
- Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
- 850/900/1800/1900 MHz (Band frequency, HSPA availability, and data speed are operator dependent.)
- Onscreen navigation – Optical Trackball
- GPS – Internal GPS antenna
- Sensors –
- Proximity sensor
- Ambient light sensor
- G-Sensor
- Digital compass
- Connectivity – Bluetooth® 2.1 with FTP/OPP for file transfer, A2DP for wireless stereo headsets,
and PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
- Wi-Fi® – IEEE 802.11 b/g
- 3.5 mm stereo audio jack
- Standard Micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
- Camera – 5 megapixel color camera with auto focus and flashlight
- Audio supported formats
- Playback: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma,
- Recording: .amr
- Video supported formats
- Playback: .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv
- · Recording: .3gp
- Battery – Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
- Capacity – 1400 mAh
- Talk time:
- Up to 390 minutes for WCDMA
- Up to 400 minutes for GSM
- Standby time:
- Up to 360 hours for WCDMA
- Up to 340 hours for GSM
- Expansion Slot – microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
- AC Adapter Voltage range/frequency – 100 ~ 240 V AC, 50/60 Hz
- DC output – 5 V and 1 A
- Special Feature – Friend Stream
HTC Touch HD Mini (alleged specifications courtesy of wmpoweruser.com)
- Qualcomm MSM 7227 600MHz processor
- WCDMA/HSPA: 900/2100MHz
- GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900MHz
- download: 7.2Mbps, upload: 2Mbps
- Windows Mobile 6.5.3
- 3.2 inch capacitive touchscreen 320 x 480 (HVGA) pixel resolution
- 5 megapixel camera with autofocus
- 512MB ROM, 256MB RAM
- microSD slot
- 802.11 b/g
- Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR
- GPS/A-GPS
- battery capacity 1300mAh
- motion sensor, FM radio, 3.5mm audio jack, microUSB
HTC Legend (specifications courtesy of Android@Modaco)
- CPU speed – 600 MHz
- Platform – Android™ 2.1 (Éclair) with HTC Sense
- Memory ROM – 512 MB, RAM: 384 MB
- Dimensions – (LxWxT) 112 x 56.3 x 11.5 mm (4.41 x 2.22 x 0.45 inches)
- Weight – 126 grams (4.44 ounces) with battery
- Display – 3.2-inch AMOLED touch-sensitive screen with 320 X 480 HVGA resolution
- Network – HSPA/WCDMA:
- Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz
- Upload speed of up to 2 Mbps and download speed of up to 7.2 Mbps
- Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
- Onscreen navigation – Optical trackball
- GPS – Internal GPS antenna
- Sensors –
- G-Sensor
- Digital compass
- Proximity sensor
- Ambient light sensor
- Connectivity – Bluetooth® 2.1 with FTP/OPP for file transfer, A2DP for wireless stereo headsets, and PBAP for
phonebook access from the car kit
- Wi-Fi® – IEEE 802.11 b/g
- 3.5 mm stereo audio jack
- Standard Micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
- Camera – 5 megapixel color camera with auto focus and flash
- Audio supported formats –
- Playback: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma
- Recording: .amr
- Video supported formats –
- Playback: .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv
- Recording: .3gp
- Battery – Rechargeable Lithium-ion polymer or Lithium-ion battery
- Capacity – 1300 mAh
- Talk time –
- Up to 440 minutes for WCDMA
- Up to 490 minutes for GSM
- Standby time –
- Up to 560 hours for WCDMA
- Up to 440 hours for GSM
- Expansion slot – microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
- AC adapter – Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 50/60 Hz
- DC output – 5V and 1A
- Special feature – Friend Stream
For a blow-by-blow account of how the HTC press conference unfolded, click here for engadget’s coverage.
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