Ooh, HTC are rapidly becoming my favourite manufacturer. Their star is most definitely no the ascendant, and according to BGR, their prolific rise is due to continue next year. Well, that’s if their product roadmap is anything to go by. Seriously, let’s take a look at some of the goodies heading our way next year.
First up, there’s the Design and Lifestyle category, and here, we find two phones, the Legend and the Salsa. Now both of these beasties are Android phones, and with the Legend, you can see the design lineage. If that isn’t the sequel to the HTC Hero, then my name’s not Conan C. Eagleburger Technical Markus. Hell, the name even evokes the Hero (but it’s a Legend, so it’s like more epic). The Salsa’s rather interesting, too, though, as it’s an Android phone that follows a very Blackberry-esque form factor. Definitely intriguing, that.
Next, we’ve got the Social category, and here we find the Tide and the Buzz. Obviously, form the category name, they’re going to be focused on social networking and other social features, rather than top-end smartphone skills, but notably, the Tide seems to be running the Sense UI, which means that UI is going to be seen on a lot more Android phones than just the Hero. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on with the Tide’s keyboard as the numbers on it are a bit… well, half-hidden, but at least it’s running the Sense UI.
Now we move on to the really interesting stuff, as the next category is Performance, and the phone in this category is the HTC Bravo. The best bit about it? Well, it’s a toss-up between two things. First, it’s got a Snapdragon processor, just like the HTC HD2, running at 1GHz, so it’s going to be lightning fast. And second, while the camera only comes in at 5MP, it’s also going to be able to capture 720p HD video. Oh, and it’s also got a 3.7 inch AMOLED screen, so any video you do capture is going to look the canine’s conkers. The OS on it is, again, Android.
And finally, we come to the category I’ve been waiting for, Best Supporting Actor Productivity. And I’ve been looking forward to this bit because, whereas the others have all been Android, these are all Windows Mobile 6.5. There’s the Photon, which appears to be, basically, a baby version of the HD2, with a smaller (but still capacitive) screen, a smaller camera, and a 600MHz ‘not-Snapdragon’ processor. The next phone, the Trophy, answers the question of what would happen if you launched a HTC Snap at a HTC HD2, inside the large hadron collider. Ish. Kind of. Well, alright, maybe not, but from the back, it looks like a thin HD2, and it’s got a similar earpiece, and a similar keyboard to the HTC Snap, and… ah, you get the point.
And finally, we come to the Tera, which appears to be the WinMo 6.5 version of the Touch Pro2. Only with a smaller screen. Er, which isn’t a great bombshell to end on, put frankly, what do you expect when the HTC HD2, aka/ the bets phone ever made, is already on the market…?
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