HTC’s event at Mobile World Congress happened yesterday evening. While Samsung, LG, SE etc targeted the high-end to upper-midrange products, HTC announced devices that will cover most genres from Chacha for budget consious buyers to world’s first 7” tablet with HTC SenseUI. Let’s have a quick look. HTC Flyer Tablet
Finally, HTC has entered into the tablet market with Flyer and it defintely was a surprise. But there are some problems with it. First, it runs Gingerbread which is meant for smarpthone instead of tablet specific Honeycomb. Second, it’s a 7” tablet which is too small for being a tablet and too big to be a phone. Overall specification too are nothing worth mentioning. The only good thing about this tablet is that it comes with digital pen. Though HTC has some innovations up it’s sleeve like “HTC Scribe Technology”, “Cloud based gaming with OnLive”, “HTC Watch”, the overall UI is just average and the plain reason being lack of tablet specific UI elements. If you still want to get this tablet, it should be available globally in Q2 2011.
Key Specifications of HTC Flyer Tablet:
Finally, HTC has entered into the tablet market with Flyer and it defintely was a surprise. But there are some problems with it. First, it runs Gingerbread which is meant for smarpthone instead of tablet specific Honeycomb. Second, it’s a 7” tablet which is too small for being a tablet and too big to be a phone. Overall specification too are nothing worth mentioning. The only good thing about this tablet is that it comes with digital pen. Though HTC has some innovations up it’s sleeve like “HTC Scribe Technology”, “Cloud based gaming with OnLive”, “HTC Watch”, the overall UI is just average and the plain reason being lack of tablet specific UI elements. If you still want to get this tablet, it should be available globally in Q2 2011.
Key Specifications of HTC Flyer Tablet:- Android Gingerbread with Sense UI
- 1024×600 7” LCD
- CPU: 1.5GHz
- 1GB RAM, 32GB user memory with microSD expansion
- 5mp rear camera with autofocus, 1.2mp front facing camera
- 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS
- 195.4mm x 122mm x 13.2mm (HxWxD)
HTC Salsa
This phone is one of its kind and might mark the start of a new breed of phones. The phone looks like HTC Wildfire’s top half and Legend’s bottom half glued together but with few changes. The chin is thinner and the optical joystick is gone. Instead the phone has a facebook button on one side of the chin as shown in the below picture:
One might get confused that it might just launch the facebook application but, in HTC’s words,
The Facebook button on HTC ChaCha and HTC Salsa is context-aware, gently pulsing with light whenever there is an opportunity to share content or updates through Facebook. With a single press of the button, you can update your status, upload a photo, share a Website, post what song you are listening to, ‘check in’ to a location and more. For example, you can take a photograph of friends on your phone and upload it instantly to Facebook by simply pressing the button. Or let your friends know what song you’re listening to by pressing the button while listening to music on the phone. The track is automatically identified and shared on Facebook.
This phone is one of its kind and might mark the start of a new breed of phones. The phone looks like HTC Wildfire’s top half and Legend’s bottom half glued together but with few changes. The chin is thinner and the optical joystick is gone. Instead the phone has a facebook button on one side of the chin as shown in the below picture:
One might get confused that it might just launch the facebook application but, in HTC’s words, The Facebook button on HTC ChaCha and HTC Salsa is context-aware, gently pulsing with light whenever there is an opportunity to share content or updates through Facebook. With a single press of the button, you can update your status, upload a photo, share a Website, post what song you are listening to, ‘check in’ to a location and more. For example, you can take a photograph of friends on your phone and upload it instantly to Facebook by simply pressing the button. Or let your friends know what song you’re listening to by pressing the button while listening to music on the phone. The track is automatically identified and shared on Facebook.
That facebook button does lot more than opening an application. The thought that came to my mind is, why restrict it to facebook. It would’ve been even better if the button can be used for preferred social network (twitter, facebook, myspace for example) which might win them much more customers. Gone will be those days when you have to take a picture, put it on one of the twitter services for photos and let the world know. You can take the picture, click the button and have the photo will be immediately shared on twitter.
Apart from the facebook integration, there isn’t much interesting about this phone. As you can see from above list, the phone has a decent 600Mhz processor and 512MB of RAM which should keep the UI fast. The ROM though is lowly 512MB but users should be able to install apps on SD Card, thanks to Gingerbread (functionality added in Froyo). There is the usual network connectivity with802.11b/g/n, bluetooth and 3G. For shutterbugs, there is a 5mp snapper with LED flash and autofocus and there is a front facing VGA camera for video calling. Good that HTC has packed a 1520mAh battery for this phone which should keep it alive and kicking atleast for a day or two.
Key Specifications of HTC Salsa:
- Facebook phone
- 3.4” 320×480 resolution 256k color display
- Android Gingerbread with Sense UI
- CPU: 600Mhz, 512MB RAM, 512MB ROM, microSD expansion
- Videocalling (VGA front facing camera)
- Li-Ion 1520 mAh with 9 hour talktime over 2G network
- 5mp camera, autofocus, LED flash
- Wi-Fi b/g/n, bluetooth 3.0, 3G, GPS
- 12.3mm thin
HTC Chacha
The second facebook phone with that blue facebook button. Under the hood, it’s very much similar to Salsa but instead of a full face touch display, HTC went for a full qwerty keypad and 2.6” touch display. the qwerty part is slightly raised (like a chin) and HTC says that this will make the typing faster and easier. The battery is slightly smaller though at1250mAh and that might effect the talktime a bit.
So, if you are a facebook addict, you better give these two phones a try before making a purchase decision. We are expecting Salsa and Chacha to hit Indian market sometime in Q2 and both should cost inside 17k. Key Specifications HTC Chacha:
- Facebook phone
- Portrait qwerty keypad
- 2.6” LCD 480×320 pixels 256k color touch display
- Android gingerbread with Sense UI
- CPU: 600Mhz, 512MB RAM, 512MB ROM, microSD expansion
- videocalling (VGA front facing camera)
- 5mp camera, autofocus, LED flash
- Wi-Fi b/g/n, bluetooth 3.0, 3G, GPS
- 10.7mm thin
- 1250mAh battery with 7.5hr rated talktime
HTC Wildfire S
HTC Wildfire that was released in mid 2010 was a mediocre device. The specs were good but the poor resolution and low quality display kept many away from it and those who purchased this phone later cursed their choice. Looks like HTC has learned from this mistake as Wildfire S seems to be a worthy successor and a true midrange phone. The Wildfire S has a better processor, more RAM,802.11n, bluetooth version 3. The much appreciated optical joystick is gone and the battery is slightly weaker. It’s a good move by HTC to try capture sub16k segment. Let’s see how it can tackle the might of Galaxy Ace and LG Optimus devices which are well set and already eating up lot of market share.
Key Specifications of HTC Wilfire S:
HTC Wildfire that was released in mid 2010 was a mediocre device. The specs were good but the poor resolution and low quality display kept many away from it and those who purchased this phone later cursed their choice. Looks like HTC has learned from this mistake as Wildfire S seems to be a worthy successor and a true midrange phone. The Wildfire S has a better processor, more RAM,802.11n, bluetooth version 3. The much appreciated optical joystick is gone and the battery is slightly weaker. It’s a good move by HTC to try capture sub16k segment. Let’s see how it can tackle the might of Galaxy Ace and LG Optimus devices which are well set and already eating up lot of market share.
Key Specifications of HTC Wilfire S:- 3.2” 320×480 pixel 256k color LCD
- Gingerbread with Sense UI
- CPU: 600Mhz, 512MB RAM, 512MB ROM, microSD expansion
- 5mp camera, autofocus, LED flash
- Wi-Fi b/g/n, bluetooth 3.0, 3G, GPS
- 12.4mm thin
- 1230mAh battery with 7hr rated talktime
HTC Desire S
HTC Desire was and still is one of the best droids availble in the market and is still hot favourite among modding community with dozens of ROMs available to try. While the successor Desire HD had good specs, it’s poor battery life and average quality display resulted in mediocre to average response from buyers. Desire S on the other hand can very well be the worthy successor to Desire. Display remains the same but the four hard keys are now capacitive touch buttons while optical joystick is gone, which is sad, given the use of the joystick for reading and moving around text while typing. CPU got slight better while ROM is doubled and RAM is increased to 768MB. Wi-Fi module is upgraded to 802.11n with DLNA. Other areas are more or less then same. This phone should be released in India sometime in Q2 2011. While it seems to be a good phone when compared to Desire and Desire HD, it looks pale when compared to other highend phones announced at MWC and let’s see if the final phone announced by HTC can stand against the might of Optimus 2x, optimus3D, xperia play and Samsung Galaxy S II.
Key Specifications HTC Desire S:
HTC Desire was and still is one of the best droids availble in the market and is still hot favourite among modding community with dozens of ROMs available to try. While the successor Desire HD had good specs, it’s poor battery life and average quality display resulted in mediocre to average response from buyers. Desire S on the other hand can very well be the worthy successor to Desire. Display remains the same but the four hard keys are now capacitive touch buttons while optical joystick is gone, which is sad, given the use of the joystick for reading and moving around text while typing. CPU got slight better while ROM is doubled and RAM is increased to 768MB. Wi-Fi module is upgraded to 802.11n with DLNA. Other areas are more or less then same. This phone should be released in India sometime in Q2 2011. While it seems to be a good phone when compared to Desire and Desire HD, it looks pale when compared to other highend phones announced at MWC and let’s see if the final phone announced by HTC can stand against the might of Optimus 2x, optimus3D, xperia play and Samsung Galaxy S II.
Key Specifications HTC Desire S:- 3.7” 480×800 pixel 16M color S-LCD
- Gingerbread with Sense UI
- CPU: Snapdragon MSM8255 1Ghz, Adreno 205 GPU
- 768MB RAM, 1.1GB ROM
- Li-Ion 1450 mAh with 9.5 hour talktime over 2G network
- 5mp camera, autofocus, LED flash
- Videocalling with VGA front facing camera
- Wi-Fi b/g/n, DLNA, bluetooth 3.0, 3G, GPS
- DivX/XVid built-in
- 11.6 mm thin
HTC Incredible S
While Incredible was part of Verizon’s Droid family and similar to desire in functionality, Incredible S will be a global GSM phone with a bigger 4” display but instead of AMOLED, HTC opted for S-LCD (probably due to scarcity of AMOLED panels). Similar to Desire S, HTC has opted for capacitive touch sensitive buttons (with rotating icons) instead of hard keys and the optical joystick is gone. Inbuild ROM is just 1.1GB instead of 8GB and more memory can be added using microSD expansion. Wi-Fi and 3G are must faster thanks to 802.11n and 14.4Mbps HSDPA. Remaining specs are more or less the same.
Key Specifications of HTC Incredible S:
While Incredible was part of Verizon’s Droid family and similar to desire in functionality, Incredible S will be a global GSM phone with a bigger 4” display but instead of AMOLED, HTC opted for S-LCD (probably due to scarcity of AMOLED panels). Similar to Desire S, HTC has opted for capacitive touch sensitive buttons (with rotating icons) instead of hard keys and the optical joystick is gone. Inbuild ROM is just 1.1GB instead of 8GB and more memory can be added using microSD expansion. Wi-Fi and 3G are must faster thanks to 802.11n and 14.4Mbps HSDPA. Remaining specs are more or less the same.
Key Specifications of HTC Incredible S:- 4” 480×800 pixel 16M color S-LCD
- Gingerbread with Sense UI
- CPU: Snapdragon MSM8255 1Ghz, Adreno 205 GPU
- 768MB RAM, 1.1GB ROM
- Li-Ion 1450 mAh with 9.5 hour talktime over 2G network
- 8mp camera, autofocus, dual-LED flash
- Videocalling with 1.3mp front facing camera
- Wi-Fi b/g/n, DLNA, bluetooth 3.0, 3G, GPS
- DivX/XVid built-in
- 11.7 mm thin
While Incredible was part of Verizon’s Droid family and similar to desire in functionality, Incredible S will be a global GSM phone with a bigger 4” display but instead of AMOLED, HTC opted for S-LCD (probably due to scarcity of AMOLED panels). Similar to Desire S, HTC has opted for capacitive touch sensitive buttons (with rotating icons) instead of hard keys and the optical joystick is gone. Inbuild ROM is just 1.1GB instead of 8GB and more memory can be added using microSD expansion. Wi-Fi and 3G are must faster thanks to 802.11n and 14.4Mbps HSDPA. Remaining specs are more or less the same.
Product page: http://www.htc.com/www/product/incredibles/overview.html
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Product page: http://www.htc.com/www/product/incredibles/overview.html
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So, there they are, a total for six device covering mos of the prosumers and this lineup looks much better than the current lineup of smart,wildfire,legend,desire,desire HD, desire Z lineup as it offers something for everyone. While I straightaway count their tablet out of competition as it lags behind tabs like Motorola Xoom, HP Touchpad, Samsung Galaxy Tab II, LG Optimus Pad in many areas and is launching at heavy price tag of 780$+ price tag.