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HTC has announced a pair of new handsets for those not interested in breaking the bank for a new mobile communication device. It’s the Desire 816 and 610, two smartphones that won’t hold a candle to what HTC’s about to announce next month, but should do a pretty decent job of handling any sensible mobile task.
The Desire 610 is positioned closer to the low-end than anything, though it still makes a fair impression. It jumps into the ring with a 4.7-inch qHD display, a 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 processor, 1GB of RAM, an 8 megapixel rear camera, a 1.3 megapixel front camera, a 2,040mAh battery and more. There are 8GB of storage sitting inside, though users will be happy to learn they can expand that using a microSD card up to 64GB. Also of note are the stereo speakers on the front.
Jumping up to the Desire 816, users get a sizable bump to 5.5 inches and 720p resolution, as well as some very solid internals. Said internals include a 1.7GHZ quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor, 1.5GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage with microSD up to 128GB, 2,600mAh battery and a 13 megapixel camera on the back. The front camera comes in at 5 megapixels, so selfies and video calls shouldn’t be too much of an issue.
There’s no word which version of Android these are running just yet, but we imagine HTC will want to launch with at least Jelly Bean on-board. When will you be able to pick it up? April for the Desire 816, though those wanting the cheaper 610 will have to wait until May (and we imagine they won’t be too easy to find outside of Europe and Asia, though HTC has yet to fully detail rollout plans for either one). Stay tuned for hands-on with these two later on!
They may be mid range but HTC is bringing the microsd back! Definitely enforces the M8 microsd rumor, and 128gb, good job HTC.
Is this the first phone supporting 128gb microsd? congrats htc on making advances even in your midranger
Seems to be the new thing this year, Samsung announced it for the SGS5 as well.
Those are some sexy phones…and jus to add..the fact that they still keep the front stereo speakers is definitely a way to have a leg up on the market…I will definitely recommend these to those looking for the bang from the buck..once I see how they work that is…and welcome HTC back to the low and midrange market
*crosses fingers for a GPE of the Desire 816*
Without the dumb bezel bar on the front, these would be really nice
I want the Desire 816 very badly. Great looking phone.
the snapdragon 400 is this the same as the snapdragon s4 chip in the moto X? well, beside the X’s chip only being dual core, is there any difference in performance? the 816 doesnt sound to bad. price will be a huge factor tho!
Both have the same Krait 300 CPU but the Moto X has the better GPU – so, it’s a trade off between CPU cores and the GPU comparing the two. Depending on what’s being done, I’d expect performance could go either way fwiw.
There are almost no apps that use all four cores. Most apps are finally catching up to 2. quad core is a pure marketing check box to tick.
Having said that, GPU is much more important. Games, UI elements, etc..will be greatly effected by it.
But its not a “give up 2 cores for a better GPU”. Its more “2 useless cores vs something that is used often:”
Android does not work the way you think. The underlying OS is threaded, apps are threaded. If you can have four threads running in parallel and you’re on a quad core, the kernel schedules them out across four cores. And btw, you’re easily running at least 20 or more at any given time. The meme that apps have to be written as dual core or quad core is a myth held over to Android because that’s how iOS worked – Android never has been that way, and you never need to update apps to exploit additional cores.
In this way, it’s exactly like Windows, OS X, and desktop Linux.
Apps needing to be 4-core aware or optimized = total myth, sorry.
As for games and UI elements being GPU dependent – that’s not an absolute either. Many Qualcomm Snapdragons have a dedicated UI core that people don’t talk about – again, because it doesn’t fit in with accepted dogma.
In no event are 2 of 4 cores useless, and you need only profile a quad core running Android to see the truth of that for yourself.
These actually look really good.
That’s because they copied the iPhone 5C almost verbatim
I don’t really care. I’m glad they did.
I love these comments. When companies come out with a few color options “they copied the 5c”. Despite the fact the specs, the features, nor the looks (besides color options) are NOTHING like the 5c
Oh my… These aren’t bad lookin’ phones at all. =.S
Wow!! The little speaker designs on the front. LoL!!
But where’s my HTC G3 at? =.[
If the 816 had 2GB of RAM I would be tempted.