Does this feel a little strange to you? An honest and true product announcement in late January? With rumors of the Galaxy S IV still buzzing around all over the place? Well, it’s important to remember that while the rumor mill has its black hole on full power, manufacturers are still going to do what the hell they want and, in the case of HTC it would seem misguided choices are afoot. The Taiwanese company has announced a new budget-minded – very budget-minded – handset in Taiwan called the Desire U. It seems that the Desire branding has now been relegated to the lower-end of HTC’s line-up which is okay, it is an old brand of theirs after all.
Now, onto the device and some specs – I think these pretty much speak for the “budget” aspect of the device:
- 4-inch WVGA (800 x 480) LCD Display
- 1 Ghz single-core processor
- 512MB of RAM
- 4GB internal storage with microSD card slot
- 5 MP rear-facing with…no camera round the front but there is a flash, so that’s something.
- 1,500 mAh battery
- Android 4.0 ICS
So, as you can see, HTC are really going for the budget feel here, at least when it comes to specs. Now, I’m not going to bang into my keyboard that every phone should have a quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM but, these specs are pretty awful. I’m not talking awful in a traditional sense either, phones in the lower-end aren’t geared up to be powerhouses but, even for a budget-minded handsets these specs are pretty awful. Single-core processor with 512MB of RAM? Budget handsets from Pantech, Motorola, Samsung – the list goes on – are all packing in better and more respectable specs into their more affordable handsets. Yet, HTC feel the need to throw something like this out there.
We shouldn’t be too harsh on HTC, after all we don’t know how much this thing is going to cost. It’s currently only announced for Taiwan but there’s normally a good chance of these offerings from HTC hitting European shores and a slim chance of them coming to the U.S. The Taiwanese company has always made well-built handsets for the budget audience but, even a good construction isn’t going to save them on this one. Sorry, HTC but, this is too little, too late for a budget handset like this.
[Source: HTC]