14 DAY TRIAL // With only a month left until Mobile World Congress 2013 grand opening, handset manufacturers around the world are making the last preparations for their big announcements that will weigh heavily on their financial stats in the first half of the year.
HTC is one of the important brands that, sometimes, think it’s best to announce the upcoming lineup of devices during such a major event as MWC 2013.
Although the company is rumored to launch its Android flagship smartphone several days before MWC 2013, we expect the M7 to be showcased in Barcelona in late February, along with other handsets that are yet to be revealed.
Until then, the Taiwanese company launched a new budget-friendly Android phone in its home country. Dubbed HTC Desire U, the smartphone will be available for purchase for only $275/€205 off contract.
Customers in Taiwan will be able to grab the Desire U via major carrier Chunghwa Telecom. The operator offers quite a few plan options for those who cannot or do not want to pay the phone’s suggested retail price.
Unfortunately, we don’t have any details on Desire U’s availability outside Taiwan and China. HTC has yet to confirm whether or not the smartphone will go on sale in North America, Europe and/or other Asian countries.
Specs-wise, HTC Desire U is far from being impressive, but it does come with good features that make it worth its outright price.
The phone is powered by a single-core processor clocked at 1 GHz, which is complemented by 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal memory.
HTC Desire U sports a decent 4.0-inch WVGA capacitive touchscreen display that supports 480 x 800 pixels resolution.
The device also packs a 5-megapixel camera on the back, along with microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 32GB), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 3G connectivity.
The bad news is Desire U will ship with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system out of the box and there are slim chances it will get a Jelly Bean upgrade.