14 DAY TRIAL // HTC may be best known for its many phones, but its stake in the media player market is also considerable, possibly set to grow some more if a certain report is anything to go by.
Over the past couple of years, many consumer products were created by this or that company in collaboration with beats by Dr. Dre.
In HTC's case, this includes various phones, like HTC Sensation XE and HTC Bass/Runnymede.
Now, it is said that the company also has a media player in the works, though one wouldn't immediately think it.
The photo provided by the rumor, expected low quality and lighting aside, makes it easy to mistake the item for a phone.
In fact, the one thing that does make the difference is the fact that the soft button at the bottom says “Music” instead of “Phone”.
Indeed, this HTC Beat is a media player that runs the Android operating system (whichever version it is) and the HTC Sense interface on top of it.
The Android 2.3 gingerbread is said to be the most likely version, since this is the one that all other Sense 3.0-loaded HTC devices use.
That said, the report did provide some insight into the specification, even if the list is, ultimately (and predictably) incomplete.
An on-board DSP chip, for example, decodes audio better than default hardware would, while WiFi and Bluetooth are present as well, as is DLNA compatibility. 3G, unfortunately, is not included.
Needless to say, Beats by Dr. Dre headphones/in ear buds will be sold in the same bundle as the media player itself, whenever that happens.
Unfortunately, no pricing details were provided, and there isn't really any exact way of guessing how much longer those interested have to wait for this detail, or for the rest of the spec sheet to be exposed.