During the HTC Concept Store opening yesterday, I was able to have a brief chat with HTC Philippines Channel Manager, Mr. Richard Estanislao, about upcoming phones. Aside from the HTC Sensation XE featuring Beats by Dr. Dre which will be arriving next month, there are three more phones set to arrive after that. The HTC Pico, HTC Radar and HTC Bliss.
The HTC Pico will be the new entry-level Android phone from HTC, having a lower price than that of the HTC Wildfire. All I got out of it is an 800MHz processor (contrary from the 600MHz as rumored previously) and interchangeable back covers marketed towards teens. I’d assume that it will have slightly similar specs as that of the LG Optimus Net.
The HTC Radar will be the first Windows Phone 7.5 or more commonly known as Mango coming from HTC. It is already available in Singapore so if you want to have yours early, you can have one purchased from there. It features a modest 3.8″ screen (480 x 800), a 1GHz processor, 8GB internal storage, an improved 5 megapixel camera that has an f/2.2 lens for better low-light shots. It also has a front-facing camera to take advantage of Microsoft’s recent Skype acquisition.
The release of this HTC Radar promptly brought down the price of the HTC Mozart as this looks like its upgraded version. It’s currently being sold in Singapore for SGD569 which roughly translates to aboutPhp20k. What’s odd though is that we’re not seeing the Beats tech here. Is Beats going to appear only on premium HTC phones? Too early to tell but it’s a possibility.
The HTC Bliss, which is being reported to have a name change (Rhyme maybe?), is a phone that Richard said is going to be catered to the ladies mainly because of a charm accessory that lights up whenever the phone has notifications that needs to be attended. Cute but not really breakthrough idea especially to us Filipinos. Based on the initial specs and photos that surfaced on the internet, it looks like the lovechild of the HTC Wildfire S and the HTC Desire S. Around the size of the Desire S but with the chic colors and innards of the Wildfire S.
Aside from these three, there are two more upcoming phones that are slated to arrive before the year ends. We’re probably looking at the heavyweights, the Titan and Vigor or Runnymede. Richard won’t comment about it so we’ll just have to wait. Looks like HTC is poised to finish the year with a bang.
