HTC has endured a difficult 2015 so far. The flagship device, the HTC One M9, has been criticized for a number of reasons such as having a similar design to the 2014 flagship One M8 model, for only using a 1080p resolution display, for using a Toshiba camera sensor rather than a Sony sensor and for using the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor, which has a reputation for overheating. And HTC finds itself in a difficult position: it’s high end products compete with Apple and Samsung, the two largest smartphone sellers in the world, and in many respects are comparable. However, HTC’s marketing budget is considerably smaller than these two giants and this means the devices must be better than the rest in order to compete. Whilst HTC have continued to release high end flagship devices, even in the face of such stiff competition, it is in the mid-range where they have concentrated their efforts in the last couple of years with successful products such as the HTC Desire 820. Against this backdrop, a new mid-range HTC device has surfaced: the HTC Desire 728, which appeared on the TENAA’s website over the last couple of days.
The Desire 728 is a reasonably typical mid-range HTC smartphone. The device has a 5.5-inch, 720p resolution (that being, 1,280 by 720 pixel) LCD panel and a MediaTek MTK6753 processor, which is backed up by 2 GB of RAM. The MediaTek 6753 is an octa-core processor based around the ARM Cortex-A53 application core: this is a modern generation, 64-bit processor that whilst not the bleeding edge in terms of performance, offers low power consumption and respectable speed. The Desire 728 also comes with 16 GB of internal storage for media and applications combined with a 13MP rear camera. There’s a 5MP front facing camera for selfies and video calling, plus a 2,800 mAh battery and HTC’s signature front facing BoomSound speakers. The Desire 728 will be available in a number of colors including black, white, orange, red, gold and grey.
There’s more good news in that the Desire 728 will run Android 5.1 Lollipop under HTC’s Sense user interface, but at the time of writing we do not know the release date or the price. That the Desire 728 has appeared on TENAA means that it is coming soon to the China, but we do not know if the handset will surface elsewhere in the world. We can also expect the Desire 728 to carry something of a price premium compared with devices with a similar core specification, although these smartphones will not have HTC’s BoomSound or Sense interface. We will let you know if we hear any more news about the Desire 728.