Aside from its powerful One phones, HTC also has another series made for emerging markets and folks who don’t want to pay a premium for a high-end smartphone. I would say that the Desire series is crucial for HTC’s success in the future as these phones, rather than fancy One variants, will help the company get customers in the fast-growing emerging markets.
We’ve already seen the Desire 816 selling well in China, and have also told you about upcoming Desire 316 and 516. Now we have another device being caught at China’s certification body. The still unannounced Desire 616 may be the company’s first octa-core device, with specs that include a 5-inch 720p HD screen, 8-megapixel camera with LED flash on the back, 2-megapixel front-facing camera, 1GB of RAM, 3G connectivity and a microSD expansion slot. This model will have an all-plastic body and will thus be cheaper to produce, helping HTC compete on pricing in China and elsewhere. Size wise, the Desire 616 will measure 142 x 71.9 x 9.1 mm and have a weight of 150 grams. Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean will run the show with Sense UI singing on top.
An important thing to note here is that the octa-core chip (made by MediaTek) found inside the Desire 616 isn’t faster than Qualcomm’s top-end quad-core chips like Snapdragon 800 and 801. As Qualcomm used to say, the point is to have better not more cores.
Finally, the availability — we’re clueless when HTC will start selling the Desire 616. In fact, we’ve no idea whether this unit will ever make it to the West, but even if it remains “stuck” in China and few surrounding markets, we won’t be missing it that much. We have the All New One to play with. 😉
[Via: G4Games]