We expected Taiwanese phone manufacturer HTC to show off plenty of new wares this week at the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona, and the company definitely didna4‚¬a4„t disappoint.
HTC launched its first tablet, the Flyer, as well as teen-focused Salsa and Chacha Facebook phones, and updated many of its existing Android phones with the Incredible S, Desire S and Wildfire S.
First the tablet: The Flyer is a 7-inch Android tablet running a 1.5 gigahertz processor, with an aluminum case and a pressure-sensitive capacitive stylus. Ita4‚¬a4„s surprising to see HTC launch its first tablet now considering countless other Android manufacturers hyped up their tablets last year. The Flyer will run Android 2.4 Gingerbread &8212' the slightly updated version of Gingerbread that will help developers prepare for Android 3.0. It will also support OnLivea4‚¬a4„s cloud gaming service (HTC recently poured $40 million into OnLive to get the service on its devices).
The capacitive stylus is an interesting addition, and ita4‚¬a4„s one I think other manufacturers will adopt. While ita4‚¬a4„s nice to use the touch-screen interface on modern tablets with your fingers, a stylus is helpful for productivity tasks like handwriting or drawing.
The Salsa and Chacha Facebook phones arena4‚¬a4„t terribly exciting &8212' theya4‚¬a4„re slow, small phones meant for teens &8212' but theya4‚¬a4„re an interesting development for Facebook, which has long denied that it will produce phones of its own. Both phones feature a context-aware Facebook button, which pulsates light whenever youa4‚¬a4„re looking at something that could be shared on Facebook. Theya4‚¬a4„re definitely made for the younger crowd that spends most of its time on Facebook &8212' anyone older will most likely find that dedicated Facebook button a waste of space.
The Salsa is a 3.4-inch slate-styled phone, while the Chacha features a smaller 2.6-inch screen with a hardware keyboard (think teeny bopper BlackBerry).
As for HTCa4‚¬a4„s refreshed phone lineup, the Incredible S is a new 4-inch device in the style of last yeara4‚¬a4„s Incredible, while the Desire S is a 3.7-inch aluminum-clad update to the Desire. Both phones will feature front-facing cameras, while offering slight hardware bumps from their predecessors. The Wildfire S, on the other hand, will be a new low-end device with a slightly higher screen resolution than the original Widlfire.
HTC says that all of the devices should ship around the second quarter of 2011.
Via Engadget 1, 2, 3
gallery-1 {
margin: auto'
}
gallery-1 .gallery-item {
float: left'
margin-top: 10px'
text-align: center'
width: 33%' }
gallery-1 img {
border: 2px solid cfcfcf'
}
gallery-1 .gallery-caption {
margin-left: 0'
}
Comments