HTC rolls out updated versions of the Wildfire, Incredible and Desire smartphones with the company's Sense UI.
BARCELONA - HTC
unveiled three updated versions of its most popular smartphones, the Desire S,
Wildfire S and Incredible S. Featuring the company's Sense user interface for
mobile devices running Google Android, Brew and Windows Mobile, the phones will
be broadly available to customers across major European and Asian markets in
the second quarter.
As a successor
to the Desire, the Desire S is inspired by the company's Legend smartphone's
aluminum design; the Desire S is sculpted out of a single block of aluminum.
Powered by Qualcomm's 1GHz Snapdragon MSM8255 processor, the handset offers
dual front and back cameras, high-definition video recording and a 3.7-inch
WVGA touch-screen display.
The Wildfire S
builds on the concepts embodied by the earlier version of the handset, offering
social-networking features like the ability to tag friends in photos before
posting them on Facebook or share discovered applications found in Android
Market. The Wildfire S is one of HTC's smallest phones ever-measuring just 4
inches long and less than 2.5 inches wide-and boasts a 3.2-inch HVGA display.
Users can
choose from a variety of colors, including black, purple and white. The phone's
home screen is fully customizable for organizing favorite applications, widgets
and content. A 5-megapixel color camera with auto focus, expandable microSD
memory and support for a variety of audio and video formats round out the
multimedia offerings.
Rounding out
the selection is the Incredible S smartphone, which features a stylish,
contoured body that highlights the internal hardware components of the device.
Capturing and viewing video in high-definition is possible, and a bright 4-inch
WVGA Super LCD display and stereo surround sound offer an enhanced handheld
multimedia experience.
The Incredible
S also features an 8-megapixel camera with dual flash, and it enables videos,
photos and music to be shared from the handset direct to a TV using DLNA (Digital
Living Network Alliance) technology. Thanks to the handset's front-facing
camera and video-call functionality, users are also able to chat with their
friends and colleagues face-to-face.
"HTC developed the HTC Sense experience to bring
cutting-edge innovation to our customers in simple and natural ways that just
make sense; this is what Desire S, Wildfire S and Incredible S represent
best," said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corp. "These new phones offer an
exhilarating mix of style, innovation and features that extend people's mobile
experience in ways that feel personal and completely original."
The update
complements the announcement of two HTC smartphones also debuting at this
year's conference, the ChaCha and Salsa handsets, which offer one-touch Facebook
connectivity. Facebook messages and conversations are integrated within the
phone and appear within text and e-mail inboxes alongside regular
conversations. When a user makes a phone call, the dialer screen displays the
friend's latest status and photos, and if their birthday is approaching.
Nathan Eddy is Associate Editor, Midmarket, at eWEEK.com. Before joining eWEEK.com, Nate was a writer with ChannelWeb and he served as an editor at FierceMarkets. He is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.