As expected, India received its share of new launches from HTC today, at a press event held in Delhi. HTC made two of its new smartphones- the mid-end Desire 616 and the high-end E8 - official in India, and as a pleasant surprise, has priced them decently. Till now, HTC is notorious for pricing its lower and mid end smartphones pretty high than the competition, which has been the sole reason behind the poor sales of its otherwise brilliant phones. But with the rise of Motorola, and the upcoming hype about Xiaomi has made HTC sit back and think over this issue.
Now talking about the phones, HTC E8 is the plastic version of the beautiful (and metallic) HTC M8. The E8 borrows almost all of its hardware prowess from the M8, with a slight change here or there. While the M8 was launched in India for Rs. 50k, the E8 has been priced more competitively at Rs. 34,990. Interestingly, Samsung Galaxy S5, which went at sale for Rs. 51,500 is now available in the market for less than Rs. 35k. So, HTC E8 will be in direct competition with the S5, which is performing poorly anyways.
Desire 616, the second phone launched at the event has been made specifically for developing markets like India. Desire 616 is powered by a Mediatek Octa-core processor, similar to the ones found in phones from Indian brands, as a move to keep manufacturing costs low. Other specs include a 8 MP camera and a HD screen. HTC Desire 616 has been priced at Rs. 16,990 and it will be competing with the likes of Moto G, the upcoming Xiaomi Mi3, Xperia C, Galaxy Grand 2, among others.
Let's take a look at the detailed specifications of both these smartphones.
Now talking about the phones, HTC E8 is the plastic version of the beautiful (and metallic) HTC M8. The E8 borrows almost all of its hardware prowess from the M8, with a slight change here or there. While the M8 was launched in India for Rs. 50k, the E8 has been priced more competitively at Rs. 34,990. Interestingly, Samsung Galaxy S5, which went at sale for Rs. 51,500 is now available in the market for less than Rs. 35k. So, HTC E8 will be in direct competition with the S5, which is performing poorly anyways.
Desire 616, the second phone launched at the event has been made specifically for developing markets like India. Desire 616 is powered by a Mediatek Octa-core processor, similar to the ones found in phones from Indian brands, as a move to keep manufacturing costs low. Other specs include a 8 MP camera and a HD screen. HTC Desire 616 has been priced at Rs. 16,990 and it will be competing with the likes of Moto G, the upcoming Xiaomi Mi3, Xperia C, Galaxy Grand 2, among others.
Let's take a look at the detailed specifications of both these smartphones.
HTC E8 - Detailed Specifications
- 5 inch Full HD display (1920x1080 pixels at 441 ppi)
- 2.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 Quad-core processor
- 2 GB RAM
- Android 4.4 KitKat with HTC Sense 6
- 16 GB internal storage, expandable upto 128 GB
- 13 MP rear camera, 5 MP front camera
- Dual SIM, LTE connectivity
- 2600 mAh Battery
HTC Desire 616 - Detailed Specifications
- 5 inch HD display (1280x720 pixels at 294 ppi)
- 1.4 GHz Octa-core Mediatek MT6592 processor
- 1 GB ROM
- 4 GB internal memory, microsd card supported
- 8 MP rear camera, 2 MP front camera
- Android 4.2 Jelly Bean with HTC Sense 5.1 (no word about updates, yet)
- 2000 mAh Battery
So, what do you think about these features given the price point these phones have been launched at. Sure, you can get the same specifications at about half of the price, in other brands, but this is the best HTC India has done in the pricing section in the recent few quarters.
 and Mediatek powered Desire 616 in India){kind=link}