Technology
HTC Officially Unveils the Desire 816 and Desire 610
HTC has unveiled a duo of new smartphones over at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona; the mid-range flagship Desire 816 and the slightly downsized, but more affordable, Desire 610.
The Desire 816, which HTC calls its “flagship mid-range” device, features a 5.5-inch 720p display with a screen resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels. It’s powered by a quad-core 1.6GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, 1.5GB of RAM, and a 2,600mAh battery. It’ll have 8GB of internal storage, but can be expanded by a whopping 128GB via microSD.
The Desire 816 is equipped with a 13-megapixel f/2.2 rear camera and a 5-megapixel f/2.8 front camera. Neither of the cameras utilizes HTC’s Ultrapixel camera technology, but HTC’s Zoe app will be present along with a new HTC Sense 5.5 UI that still features HTC’s BlinkFeed app. The Desire 816 will also feature, in some areas, a dual-active SIM capability that will enable the user to use 2 nano-SIM cards and have both cards connect and run 3G at the same time.
The HTC Desire 816 takes its looks from last year’s flagship, the HTC One, but instead of aluminum, it will feature a glossy plastic case. The device is only 7.99mm thin, weighs only 165 grams, and will be available in white, black, red, yellow, and purple.
HTC’s other new smartphone, the cheaper Desire 610, features a 4.7-inch 960 x 540 pixel display, a 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 2,040mAh battery.
The Desire 610 sports an 8-megapixel f/2.4 rear camera and a 1.3-megapixel front camera; both of which are capable of shooting 720p video. Like its bigger brother, it also comes with 8GB of internal storage which is expandable via microSD by up to 128GB.
The Desire 610 also comes in glossy plastic and is a bit smaller but thicker than the Desire 816; it measures 156.6 x 78.7 x 7.99 mm, weighs only 165 grams, and also comes in a variety of colors.
Both the Desire 816 and 610 will be LTE-capable and feature HTC’s BoomSound frontal stereo speakers, which were first introduced with the HTC One. Both will also be the first phones from HTC that will utilize nano-SIMs.
According to HTC, The Desire 816 will launch in China next month and will launch globally in April, while the Desire 610 will come out sometime in May. HTC did not give any specifics regarding the price of either smartphone.
