HTC Officially Announces Low-End HTC Desire 200 (No Launch Date or Price Yet)

[dgstorm]

HTC just officially announced their newest budget-conscious focused smartphone, the HTC Desire 200. We have heard rumors about this device for sometime now, and HTC finally outed it. It's specs are necessarily lackluster, considering it is designed to appeal to the low-end market. No specific pricing or launch dates were revealed, although we can expect it to be both cheap and soon. Here's a breakdown of specs,

• 3.5-inch HVGA (480 x 320) “intelligent display” that automatically adjusts text size, and removes unwanted ads from websites
• Maybe Ice Cream Sandwich, but could/should be Jelly Bean
• HSDPA, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0
• 5MP rear camera with F2.8 aperture and 34mm lens
• Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 processor clocked at 1GHz
• 512MB of RAM
• 4GB of internal memory
• A MicroSD card support
• 1,230 mAh battery

Looking at these specs we can't help but wonder what market HTC is trying to appeal to with this product. Even at the extreme low-end, unless they are paying you to take this, there are much better alternatives, like an SGS3 or even an SGS2 (or you can even get their own HTC Droid DNA for a penny at Amazon with ridiculously more powerful specs). It seems like they will lose more money building, shipping and marketing these than they will make in profit on them...

If HTC isn't careful they will slip back into old habits and squander the opportunity afforded them by the success of their HTC One.

Source: HTC

 

[kodiak799]

Maybe it's meant for emerging/developing markets?

Otherwise, HTC is still hung-up on "new" devices trumping older discounted ones with still superior specs.

 

[dgstorm]

That's exactly what we have been speculating here at HQ. It makes no sense to launch this anywhere else.