14 DAY TRIAL // The dual-SIM HTC Desire 516 smartphone was launched in India last week, where it is now available for purchase for no less than Rs 14,200 ($235 / €175) outright, which is seriously overpriced for an emerging market such as this country.
The handset made its debut in China several months ago, where it sold pretty well due to the lower price. However, it appears that HTC has decided to mingle with the phone’s price tag on other markets, which is one of the reasons we don’t think the Desire 516 will sell well in other parts of the world.
Today, HTC announced that the Desire 516 would go on sale in Europe beginning early August. According to HTC, the smartphone will be available for purchase for €200 ($270) off-contract and will be initially launched in Austria and Switzerland.
Although the phone’s price has been lowered a bit over the Indian version of Desire 516, it still costs too much for what it has to offer in terms of specs and software.
One of the main downsides of the Desire 516 is the fact that it comes with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean operating system out of the box. If HTC had managed to add Android 4.4.2 KitKat on the smartphone, it would have been its strongest point and people would have been more tempted to buy it.
It’s unclear whether or not HTC has any plans on bringing Android 4.4.2 KitKat on the Desire 516, so owners might be stuck on Jelly Bean until the phone gets discontinued.
Even though it comes equipped with a 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor inside, which is complemented by an Adreno 302 graphics processing unit and 1GB of RAM, HTC Desire 516 competes with other handsets in the same price range that offer better specs.
HTC Desire 516 packs only 4GB of internal memory, but users will be able to further expand storage up to 32GB via microSD card slot.
The smartphone also sports a large 5-inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen display that supports qHD (540 x 960 pixels) resolution.
On the back, HTC Desire 516 packs a 5-megapixel photo snapper with LED flash and HD (720p) video recording, while in the front there’s a secondary 2-megapixel camera for video calls and selfies.
Given the fact that Desire 516 offers dual-SIM capability it’s unlikely to be picked up by an European carrier, so Android enthusiasts should expect to find this one only through major retailers across the region.