14 DAY TRIAL // The HTC Desire 820s is a slightly different version of the Desire 820 mid-range smartphone that's been so popular in Asia. The Desire 820s was available only in China until recently, but it looks like HTC has found the resources to bring the smartphone to other countries.
Rumored to arrive in India for several days now, HTC introduced the Desire 820s in this country and customers can purchase it for Rs 24,490, which is about $390 or €370 outright.
Unfortunately, this is quite a high price for the Indian market, so HTC may not sell too many Desire 820s units in this country. But HTC and Samsung are well known for overpricing its devices in India, so there's no news that the Desire 820s is so expensive.
So let's see what customers who go for the HTC Desire 820s will get in return. First of all, the smartphone will ship with Android 4.4 KitKat operating system with Sense 6 UI on top, which is a bit disappointing.
MediaTek chipset instead of Qualcomm, but dual-SIM support
Furthermore, the Qualcomm chipset inside the Desire 820 has been replaced with MediaTek one in the Desire 820s model in order to make it cheaper.
HTC Desire 820s features an octa-core MediaTek processor clocked at 1.7GHz, which is complemented by 2GB of RAM and a Mali-T760 graphics processing unit.
One thing specific to Indian market is dual-SIM support, which is mandatory for smartphones launched in this country and the Desire 820s has it.
It also has a 13-megapixel photo snapper on the back, which features LED flash, autofocus and full HD (1080p) video recording, while in the front there's an impressive 8-megapixel camera for video calls and great selfies.
The Desire 820s comes with 16GB of internal memory, but it also packs microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 64GB).
Last but not least, HTC's mid-range Android smartphone sports a 5.5-inch HD (720p) capacitive touchscreen display and a decent 2600 mAh battery.