HTC might be sitting out the flagship phone battle at this year's Mobile World Congress, but that doesn't mean it isn't vying for some of the attention. Not only has it revealed the price for the HTC Vive, it's also taking the wraps off some new mid-range smartphones, including the X9 and a range of fashion-conscious Desire handsets.
The X9 takes its design cues from the metal unibodies that HTC has used since the M7. Coming in four colours - Carbon Grey, Opal Silver, Topaz Gold and Cooper Rose - the phone has a 5.5-inch full HD screen. The rear camera is 13MP with optical image stabilisation, and can shoot video in 4K. The front camera is 5MP.
On the inside the X9 is powered by a MediaTek Helio X10 Octa-core 64 bit processor, with 3GB of RAM. The phone will come with 32GB of storage and MicroSD support up to a whopping 2TB.
Essentially, if you want a stylish metal HTC phone, and don't want to splash out on the M9 (or whatever HTC announces later this year), this could be the one to go for. The phone is due to hit shops in Europe, the Middle East and Africa - as well as what HTC calls "North Asia" (Russia, we presume), at the end of the month.
A Desire for Fashion
Meanwhile, if you're more concerned about looks, HTC is hoping that three new handsets in its Desire range will catch your attention. The Desire 530, 630 and 825 all have plastic shells and each device produced will be ever-so-slightly unique due to the speckled design on the case.
The Desire 630 and 825 will come in two colours: "Stratus White Remix with duo color micro splash" and "Graphite Grey Remix with gold micro splash". Or "white with coloured dots" and "grey with gold dots", in other words.
The Desire 530 meanwhile will come in Graphite Grey and Solid Stratus White block colours. HTC will also be throwing in a high quality pair of headphones for the two slightly-higher-numbered devices.
But what's on the inside? All three come with a front-facing 5MP camera, and while the 530 has an 8MP camera on the rear, the 630 and 825 bump it up to 13MP.
The 530 is a fairly basic device: With only Snapdragon 210 inside and 1.5GB of RAM. The screen is 5 inches and runs at 720p. The 630 bumps the processor up to a Snapdragon 400 and 2GB of RAM, and the 825 improves on the 630 by adding an extra 0.5 inches to the screen, and adding a layer of Gorilla Glass to make it tougher.
Pricing and which countries the new devices will be hitting have not yet been announced - though they are due to hit retailers by the end of March.
