Even as HTC is starting to ship its latest flagship smartphone, the HTC 10, to buyers around the world, the company is doing all it can to grab a slice of the mid-range smartphone market in critical emerging markets like China, India and Vietnam, among others. The company already sells a number of mid-range and entry-level handsets as part of its ‘Desire’ lineup, and another such device is now apparently all set to join that list. HTC had originally listed the dual-SIM version of the all-new Desire 628 entry-level handset on its Vietnamese website, but the listing has since been removed, but not before images of the device had already leaked out via Twitter.
While HTC is yet to announce it officially, the HTC Desire 628 dual-SIM will likely be the company’s next official launch, making it the latest in the long lineup of Desire-branded devices to hit the market from the Taiwanese tech company. The upcoming smartphone will very likely be targeted at pre-paid users in most markets, but there’s no info currently about the device’s launch date, pricing or availability. However, even with its brief listing on HTC Vietnam’s official website, some of its important hardware specs are already out for public consumption. That includes a 5-inch 720p display panel, a MediaTek MTK6753 chipset that comes with a 1.3 GHz octa-core CPU, 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage that can be expanded by way of a microSD card.
As for the imaging options available on the handset, there’s a 13-megapixel camera with an f/2.0 aperture at the back and a 5-megapixel sensor at the front. The phone comes with a 2,200 mAh battery and obviously has dual-SIM support, which is evident from the name itself. Either way, since HTC hasn’t yet officially announced the device, there’s no telling how the company will actually price it in an increasingly-competitive market, but provided it’s priced right, HTC might just have a pretty decent offering in a market that’s already filled with bang-for-buck devices like the Redmi Note 3, Lenovo K4 Note, Huawei Honor 5X and the Meizu Note 3. With Asus and Motorola reportedly just days away from launching their respective offerings in the segment, it promises to be interesting times ahead for mid-range smartphone buyers globally.
