Handsets

HTC concedes big, battery-hungry LTE phones were disappointments

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After reporting a downturn in revenues, HTC’s top brass is conceding that some of their woes can be attributed to a disappointing crop of bulky, power-hungry LTE handsets. CFO Winston Yung wasn’t mincing words during the company’s quarterly earnings call, saying that HTC “dropped the ball” with last year’s lineup of high-end smartphones. Yung pointed to a lack of breakout specs and poor battery life as the main reason for less-than-stellar sales. Yung and HTC understand that this year’s models can’t suffer from the same overall poor design and are looking to correct course with the launch of several new models at Mobile World Congress, including the rumored quad-core HTC Edge. The Taiwanese manufacturer has been emphasizing quality over quantity in 2012, and with less on their slate they can devote more time to crafting great smartphones and great experiences with a more nuanced touch.

[via Engadget]

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42 Comments

  1. No shit. Stop churning out cellphones like welfare mothers pumping out kids.

    1. whats wrong scott, no “occupy” rallies to attend today?

      1. I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter

  2. HTC Ville, a quad-core ? I thought it was rumored to be a double-core…

    1. Edge is quad core, Ville is dual core

  3. It’s all about phones that are slim and sexy. Just look at the Galaxy S line.

    1. Really though, the Galaxy design is a slight modification to the design of the Infuse. HTC has much better designs so if they’re able to get their heads on straight then they can really stand out.

  4. Step 1) Stop using Sense
    Step 2) Burn and delete all documentation and code related in any way to Sense
    Step 2) ???
    Step 3) Profit

    1. LOL ;) !!!

      MAKES SENSE!

      …and I am an hTC user!!!…

      They need to reinvent the sense experience…

      I saw the leaked video of sense 4.0 on the Ville & to say the least I was not impressed…looks too bloated with unnecessary animations…

      1. Sense is bloated and looks outdated, it’s so 2009.  It was fine when stock Android was ugly and needed a little dressing up.  They don’t need to reinvent anything, Google already did that by making stock Android look beautiful with ICS.

        1. from what ive seen as far as sense and touch wiz on 4.0, ill stick with my gnex and in two years ill just get the nexus_?_. 

          1. Nexus 5 will be an HTC phone.

          2. We’re only on #3 right now.

        2. Sense 3.6/4.0 looks a lot better but still AOSP ftw.

    2. I like sense–and I have Motorola. The phone geeks may want freedom from manufacturer UIs, but the large majority of regular users like them.  Almost all the people I know who don’t have iPhones, have HTC. Most are women, and they love Sense. When a woman points out how much she likes the “cool stuff in her HTC Android phone” in the same breath as her new jeggins, you know some one got things right. In this case it’s not about the 1% (us phone geeks) it’s about the 99% who want to make phone calls and tweet every 6 seconds.

      1. HTC’s sales numbers have said otherwise.

  5. LTE phones will be truly great when they have a Tegra 3 in them with a 3000+ mAh battery. The Transformer Prime I have sips power when just doing light tasks and I feel that could help phones tremendously.

    1. Nvidia chips don’t play nice with LTE. Hopefully, that will change.

  6. I like sense its not the problem they need better screens like Samsung

  7. Get your facts straight. The Ville isnt a quad core. The Edge is the quad.

  8. I’ve used htc phones Since the htc hero on Sprint. I like sense and currently have the rezound, the battery life isn’t the greatest they should provide with a extra battery free of charge with a charger to charge it like Samsung did with the instinct. I do they they should sell phones with and without sense as well as providing an easy tool go make your phone stock Android.

  9. I’ve used htc phones Since the htc hero on Sprint. I like sense and currently have the rezound, the battery life isn’t the greatest they should provide with a extra battery free of charge with a charger to charge it like Samsung did with the instinct. I do they they should sell phones with and without sense as well as providing an easy tool go make your phone stock Android.

  10. “Ville” is not going to save HTC! if this is their best effort they are doomed!!!

  11. I don’t understand why they don’t just focus on a few amazing releases per year. They’re just pissing people off when they go buy a phone and two months later it is outdated. There is a reason Apple’s once a year iPhone release is doing so well. 

  12. HTC has notoriously poor customer support in addition to lack of hardware quality

    1. Not true at all. They have been nothing but great every time I have had to use them.

      They had my Nexus One back to me in less than a week including shipping for only $55 round trip when I broke the screen. The power button failed on my brother’s N1 and they not only replaced it, they replaced the trackball with the same speed that they did for my broken screen. They have never argued or played games when I have had issues on any of my phones.

      1. Yea but you know what? Their software sucks. It’s bloated. I emailed their tech support on an issue I had with the browser. Everytime I would leave tabs open on my Sensation’s stock browser and I left the browser long enough for the phone to clear its cache….it cleared out all unfocused tabs. Tech support tried to tell me this was a feature to save battery. Ummmm, no.

        Not only that but coming out with the Sensation, then the Sensation XL, then the XE then the Amaze? C’mon

    2. My MyTouch 3G was a tank.. never had a problem with it.. It’s still in fine shape and I used it the full 2 year commitment.. I was so impressed with the quality that I bought a Sensation.. The Sensation seems well made, but I have had the volume button pop out somewhere in points unknown, so I have to get it fixed (when I have time) so I am stuck on vibrate mode until I do.. I like the display indoors, but outdoors or anywhere near too much sunlight, it is a bad experience.. and made worse with really small text in some apps.. I am still “mostly” happy with it.. but I will definately do an “outside” test before I buy my next phone.. My favorite “MyTouch” story is when I was in Prague and would get lost in the winding streets and use my phone and Google maps to get unlost.. My Sensation would have failed, unless it was night time.

  13. *sigh* Full disclosure: I am a big HTC fan. I’ve owned nothing but HTC devices since my WinMo VX6900. I presently own the Rezound. That said, I have copious amounts of exposure to other Androids.

    I love my current HTC Rezound. I’m pulling 6 hours of heavy use, wifi/lte mix, auto brightness, stock speeds/voltage. That’s enough for me. The reality is, I’m never away from a wall or car charger for more than 2 hours tops. If I’m desperate, I’ll buy a second battery. Big whoop.

    As for “bulky phones”….I prefer that. Yeah, I’m a freak, I know. I have big ol grubby man-paws. Something thin just doesn’t work for me. I feel like I’ll snap it in half, and I drop it every 15 seconds it seems. Pass. My Rezound is almost perfect, and become perfect with my nice, thick, TPU case bulking it up to a thickness that would make Motorola cry. I have -never-.damaged or broken an HTC device, nor have I personally known of it happening. I know it does, but not in my life.

    Regarding the supposed lackluster components, what do you expect to be in it? All the Rezound lacks is an NFC chip, which frankly, right now it’s a gimmick at best. It has the second nicest screen on the market (second only to the GNex). There are no quad core phones out, and the Snapdragon S3 in it is Qualcomm’s best available chip for the moment. Fit better or worse, depending solely on personal opinion, Beats Audio is mixed it for a unique audio experience that the competition lacks.

    Sure, it feels like HTC churned out a new phone a week, but stop and think. How many were on the same carrier? Do I need to compare to the insane amount of Samsung Galaxy S II variants and Moto Droid variants released on each, individual carrier, much less across all carriers. When I really thought about it, HTC seems like the least offensive of the “big three.”

    1. I’m with you on the big phones.  My 3vo has a giant extended battery in it making it huge.  

    2. NFC is only a gimmick because of the lack of phones it’s on. PayPass is all over the place. I use my Nexus to pay for stuff every day. As far as the rest of what you said, I totally agree. I am a former HTC only man. It took the Nexus to change that.

    3. You are by far in the minority of regular users. People want thin, lightweight phones that are easy to use with good battery life and lots of apps. How do I know? I sell phones.

      1. True but what’s more important, thin or battery life?  I’ll take the latter.  I don’t need 5mm thinness, 200Ghz or 24 thousand cores.  I just need an Android phone that is reasonably fast, reasonably sized,  good screen and battery life that lasts a couple days.

        Android devices are getting trapped into what happened with laptops years ago.  They kept focusing on Ghz and addons instead of battery life.  Most want a laptop that lasts all day on a charge, not 4Ghz.

        I think it’s OK to target superphones but each device maker needs another line that focuses on battery life.  I know a couple people who switched from Android to iPhone for the better battery life.

        1. Shit man, I’m with you 100%. I think the Razr Maxx stands out for that one feature alone. Honestly it’s one advantage that WP7 has over Android and something that regular customers really appreciate. This hole needs to be plugged ASAP and HTC seems like a very ballsy OEM.

  14. I think sense on the EVO 3d is one of the best iterations of sense. The htc hub is great, which I find it odd how not on htc rezound for example. They should not stop using sense! They should make a few phones with stock Android though imho .

  15. Thunderbolt is the main failure that I see.  What other phones would they be referring to as big LTE phones?

  16. I have the Rezound, and I love it to death! No, the battery life isn’t perfect, my OG Droid spoiled me with that, but such is the life of dual core, LTE, vibrant display with great resolution, etc. I just shut off data when I’m not using it, keeping the phone signal active. This way I use about 1% per hour even with light use, and that isn’t even the extended battery I bought and don’t hardly use anymore. Learn to adapt, or move out of the way.

    1. Yea but as a result you don’t get push notifications or other data related functions. Plus you have to manually turn that back on. It would help if it turned on automagically when you turned the screen on.

    2. I get 18 hours with mine (extended battery) and couldn’t be happier. I love my Rezound!

  17. The “Ville” is not a good start to the year for them.

  18. they better start working on the customer service dept. too.

  19. Let’s start by getting at least 1700+ mAh batteries on our high-end phones, HTC. Already, there are rumors out there of 1650 on the Ville. Quite pathetic, frankly.

    EDIT: Said Edge instead of Ville.

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