Following the recent unveilings of Samsung’s mid range android smartphones, HTC just officially launched Desire Q, a new mid-range android smartphone.

The HTC Desire Q is said to be a slightly modified version of HTC Desire U with almost all similar features apart from the fact that Desire Q is a dual-SIM phone whereas U is a single SIM.

Weighing 114 grams with dimensions of 118.5 x 62.3 x 9.3 mm, it sports a 4.0-inch WVGA display with 480 x 800 LCD capacitive screen and running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Inside, this device is powered by a 1GHz single-core processor along with 512MB RAM and 4GB internal storage that is expandable by another 32GB via microSD slot with a battery capacity of 1650 mAh.

On Connectivity front, HTC Desire Q includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and 3G while it is embedded with 5-megapixel rear auto-focus camera with LED flash, but lacks a front-camera, which may down it a bit from other smartphones. The phone comes with Beats Audio branding to enhance the sound experience, like several of its compatriots.

Currently it has been made available to Taiwan with price tag of NT$ 699 which is approx PKR 24,000. However, till yet it has not revealed by HTC that when it would be available to other market and at what price.

HTC Desire Q technical specifications

• 4.0-inch WVGA display
• 1GHz single-core processor
• 512MB RAM
• 4GB internal storage, expandable up to 32GB via microSD slot
• 5-megapixel rear camera
• 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS
• Beats Audio technology
• Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
• 118.5 x 62.3 x 9.3 mm
• 114 grams
• 1650 mAh

Whether you like the new Facebook Home or not, HTC is pretty much sold on the concept. The new First smartphone by the company is the first phone with the service built right onto the phone.

Here are the full specs of the phone:

• Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with Facebook Home
• 4.3 inch HD display
• 8.9mm thick weighing 123.9g
• Micro-sim card slot
• 4G LTE supported
• 1.4Ghz dual-core Krait processor with Adreno 305 GPU
• Qualcomm SnapDragon 400 chipset
• 1GB RAM with 16GB expandable storage
• 5 mp back camera with LED Flash and Full HD video recording
• 1.6mp front camera
• Accelerometer, gyroscope, compass
• Bluetooth 4.0, microUSB 2.0, GPS, Wifi Hotspot
• 2000 mAh battery

The star of the show is Facebook’s own ‘Home’ though. The new launcher will be built-in onto the phone right from the start. And in case you can’t care less about the phone, the Home is also coming to other Android phones on April 12. Only the flagships will be served at first, namely the Samsung Galaxy S IV, S3, Note 2 and HTC’s One and One X+ but Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced his plans to bring Facebook Home to ‘as many people as possible’.

However it must be kept in mind that the HTC First isn’t the first phone targeted towards Facebook users. Some years back, it was again HTC which was the first company to roll out 2 phones, the ChaCha and Salsa with dedicated Facebook buttons which could share anything being displayed on the screen upon pressing. It remains to be seen though whether the HTC First will perform better than the 2 earlier phones which are already history now.

The phone will be released later this month. Pricing is unknown at the moment.

After teasing it for months, yesterday HTC finally revealed its newest flagship, called the One, HTC One. The flagship boasts a 4.7 inch Full HD 1080p display and a first-in-its-class ‘Ultrapixel camera’. It runs on Android 4.1.2 coupled with HTC’s new Sense 5 skin.

Just like last year, HTC has again beaten Samsung, its nemesis, by unveiling its flagship first. Here are the specs in detail:

Design and Hardware

The HTC One is made of aluminium and is a bit heavy by current standards at 143g. It is 9.3mm thick. As you might’ve imagined, its a unibody design. It will be available in Red, Black and Silver colour versions.

At the front is the big 4.7 inch display and at either sides of it are stereo speakers which are quite loud at 93db, thanks to HTC’s BoomSound technology.

Under the hood, the HTC One runs on a 1.7Ghz Quad-core Krait processor with Snapdragon 600 chipset along with 2GBs of RAM. The GPU is an Adreno 320 one. The storage tops at 32 or 64GB along with 25GB of Dropbox storage but there is no microSD card slot onboard so expanding memory is out of question.

Display

The display of the HTC One is a 4.7 inches big Super LCD3 touchscreen. It is a Full HD 1080p unit with a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels which translates to a pixel density of 469 pixels per inch. It is protected by Gorilla Glass 2 plus HTC’s own ‘Infinity Glass’ which makes it even more resistant to scratches.

Software

The phone runs on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean which although isn’t up to date, will surely bring a lot of features to the pack. It is coupled by HTC’s newest Sense 5 UI. In this latest version of Sense, HTC has tried to make the overall OS a bit less childish and more mature but obviously more functional.

Camera

The camera is easily one of the most exciting aspects of the HTC One. Instead of flowing along with the trend by announcing a high megapixel camera, HTC chose the other way round by showcasing a new ‘Ultrapixel’ camera. According to HTC, Ultrapixels are larger than the normal smartphone pixels which improves image quality and allow more light to be taken inside. HDR and Optical Image Stabilisation are there too. Its a 4 megapixel unit and has an LED flash along with it.

A 2.1mp Full HD front facing camera is there too

The rest of the details

The battery is a 2300 mAh one and since the design is unibody, is non-removable. The connectivity package is complete Bluetooth 4.0, NFC (in some markets), microUSB 2.0, GPS, 4G LTE (I hear a lot of you sighing) and Wifi/ Wifi-Hotspot.

Speaking of 4G, the phone has a micro-sim card slot so regular, increasingly unpopular SIMs won’t work in this phone.

Specs:

• Hardware:
  • Processor: Quad-core 1.7 GHz Krait 300
  • Chipset: Qualcomm APQ8064T Snapdragon 600
  • GPU: Adreno 320
• OS: Android OS, v4.1.2 (Jelly Bean), upgradable to v4.2.2 (Jelly Bean)
• Design:
  • Dimensions: 137.4 x 68.2 x 9.3 mm (5.41 x 2.69 x 0.37 in)
  • Weight: 143 g
• Display:
  • Super LCD3 capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
  • 1080 x 1920 pixels, 4.7 inches (~469 ppi pixel density)
  • Corning Gorilla Glass 2
  • HTC Sense UI
• Memory:
  • Card slot: No
  • Internal: 32/64 GB, 2 GB RAM
• Connectivity: GPRS, EDGE, HSPA+; LTE, Cat3, 50 Mbps UL, 100 Mbps DL, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/ac/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth v4.0 with A2DP, NFC, Infrared, microUSB v2.0 (MHL)
• Camera:
  • Primary: 4 MP UltraPixels, 2688 x 1520 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
  • Secondary: 2.1 MP, 1080p@30fps, HDR
• Battery: Non-removable Li-Po 2300 mAh battery

The phone will launch in March but no pricing details have been given yet. Of course, since its a flagship device, no one should expect it to come cheap or at least below Rs. 60,000.

With the HTC One, the Taiwanese brand is once again at the top of the table. With innovative features like an Ultrapixel camera and Infinity Glass, the company can finally watch the phone wind away from the competition for some time coming, or at least until the next Samsung flagship, the Galaxy S IV, or the next big thing is announced. As for now though, its HTC and Sony who are at the top of the ladder in the Android game.

A lot of rumours have been heard lately saying that HTC is pulling itself out from the Android starting range but those have finally been denied as the Taiwanese company has just announced a new budget phone for the market, The HTC Desire U.

To keep the pricing down, HTC has opted for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich instead of Android Jelly Bean. Also instead of a dual-core processor, this phone runs on a single-core 1GHz processor.

In terms of design, the Desire U fits in nicely . On front, this new device features a 4.0-inch with 800 x 480 resolution display.

HTC packs 5 megapixel camera on the back with WVGA video recording, Beats Audio with the battery capacity of 1,650mAh.

As far as connectivity goes, the Desire U offers Bluetooth 4.0, and W-Fi, and it’s compatible with HSPA, WCDMA, and GSM networks.

Here are showdown of its specifications:

• 1GHz processor
• Android 4.0.x- ICS with HTC Sense UI
• 512MB of RAM
• 4GB of internal storage
• MicroSD card support up to 32GB
• Dimensions: 118.5 × 62.3 × 9.32 mm
• Weight: 119.0 grams
• 4-inch, 800×480 (WVGA) capacitive touch
• 5MP, Auto focus rear camera with LED Flash
• 3.5 mm stereo headphone jack
• Micro-USB 2.0 port
• Wi-Fi (b/g/n) and Bluetooth 4.0
• Beat Audio
• 1650 mAh lithium-ion battery

The pricing and availability details aren’t given yet but it should cost around 20K here in Pakistan.

Earlier in the month of October, HTC had unveiled the first smart phone in the world with a full-HD display, HTC J Butterfly and now HTC has announced the GSM variant of the J Butterfly, which it is calling HTC Butterfly designed to run on GSM networks worldwide.

HTC Butterfly features a identical 5-inch Super LCD 3 display with Corning Gorilla Glass 2 and a pixel density of 441 pixels-per-inch.

On hardware front, the HTC Butterfly runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor clocked at 1.5GHz Krait CPU and Adreno 320 GPU with 2GB RAM and 16GB of internal storage along with microSD card(expandable up to 32 GB) for good measure. HTC has not revealed what version of Android it runs but it will likely to run on Android Jelly Bean 4.1 with HTC Sense 4+ with battery capacity of 2020 mAh battery.

Connectivity options include HDMI out, Micro-USB, Infrared, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, and NFC.

On board, the Butterfly features 8-megapixel camera with a 28mm lens, F2.0 aperture and a backside illuminated sensor, which should give it better low-light performance. There is the 2.1-megapixel front camera that can shoot videos in 1080p resolution. As most of top-end HTC smart phones, HTC Butterfly with come with a dedicated ImageChip for zero shutter lag and faster image processing. HTC has also added five levels of flashlight that is automatically set depending on the distance from the subject.

Here are HTC Butterfly key specifications:

• Dimension: 143 x 75 x 9.08 mm
• Weight: 140 grams with battery
• Display: 5-inch 1920 x 1080 pixels LCD 3 with Corning Gorilla Glass 2
• Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor clocked at 1.5GHz
• Memory: 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage expandable via microSD card up to 32 GB.
• Operating system: Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with HTC Sense 4+
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC
• Camera: 8-megapixel rear, 2.1-megapixel front cameras
• Battery: 2020 mAh

HTC has not revealed pricing and worldwide availability for this device, as of now.

HTC is expanding its ONE series by announcing new devices consecutively.

Adding a new member in this series, HTC has recently announced a new handset One SV aimed at emerging markets of Southeast Asia.

HTC One SV carries 4.3 inch Super LCD 2 curvy screen with resolutions of WVGA (480×800).

HTC has encased this new device in a “polycarbonate body” which is set off by a metal rim with availability in colors of white and black.

While it does not has quad core processor like high end HTC One X+ as it is embedded with a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chip along with 1GB of RAM. Internal storage comes in at 8GB, and that’s expandable via a microSD card slot.

In this handset, HTC has given the battery capacity of 1,800 mAH, which may not sufficient enough to last a full day.

It has a 5 MP rear camera with some impressive optics of a 28mm lens with f/2.0 aperture and support for 1080p video recording and a 1.6 megapixel front camera with back-side illumination and f/2.2 for better group shots.

On the software front, it has Android 4.0 Ice cream sandwich and HTC sense. Connectivity options for this device include Wi-Fi, blue tooth 4.0, Beats Audio, NFC and DLNA support. Depending on marketing availability, 4G LTE connectivity is also included which would be meaningless in markets like Pakistan.

Here are the HTC One SV specifications:

• Size: 128 x 66.9 x 9.20 mm
• Weight: 122 grams with battery
• Display: 4.3-inch super LCD-2 touch screen with Corning Gorilla Glass 2
• Resolution: 480 X 800 resolution
• CPU Speed: Qualcomm S4 1.2 GHz, Dual-core
• RAM: 1 GB DDR2
• Platform: Android 4.0 with HTC Sense
• WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, dual-band, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot
• Total storage : 8 GB, available capacity varies
• Battery type : Removable & rechargeable Li-ion battery

• Capacity :1800 mAh

So far, there are not any price specifications revealed by HTC, so will have to wait for its release. This new device is expected to be available Asia Pacific in coming December.