HtcVille
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Is the HTC Ville C a cheaper One S?
The Desire C has barely revealed itself as HTC's latest pocket-friendly Android phone, but another device following the same naming convention might also be on the cards. According to BriefMobile, a lower-priced One S variant, currently under the Ville C moniker, will shed the dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 and use a (presumably cheaper) dual-core 1.7GHz Snapdragon S3 (MSM8260). That's the same processor found in last year's Sensation, although we're skeptical of that clock speed. Otherwise, the leaked specs match the One S on the important stuff, including a 4.3-inch AMOLED display (with the same qHD resolution), an 8-megapixel auto-focus camera alongside HTC's ImageSense chip and 16GB of storage. Yep, like the One S, there's no option to expand storage, but if the price is right (and it does exist), we might be more willing to forgive that particular shortcoming.
Mobile World Congress 2012 preview: what will we see?
Without hesitation, February always seems to be the most hectic time of the year for the mobile industry, thanks primarily to the annual Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona, Spain. The show has long been considered the proper venue for phone and tablet vendors to show off their latest and greatest innovations. Naturally, the internet is been set ablaze with plenty of rumors and even a few official product announcements from companies hoping to benefit from some solid pre-show buzz.In this guide we'll take you on a tour and walk through the hardware we already know will be shown off at MWC, as well as what we should likely expect to see and the things we'd really love to hear more about but probably won't. Join us after the break, won't you?
HTC Ville to run on a dual-core Snapdragon S4?
Well looky here. A phone bearing the alluring name of "HTC VLE_U" just cropped up on NenaMark2 with a healthy 57.50 average frame rate. More interesting than the score, however, is the reference to a Qualcomm Adreno 225 GPU, which -- assuming this is legit -- strongly implies the presence of a powerful Snapdragon S4 sitting in the Ville's engine compartment. This tallies with earlier hints of the Ville carrying a 1.5GHz dual-core processor along with a (roughly) qHD display, and it also lines up with another MSM8960 benchmark from a reference handset spotted a few weeks ago. By extension, all the Tegra 3 smoke that's been billowing out of HTC recently must come from an entirely different fire -- namely the Endeavor or One X. Either way, it's certainly nice to see HTC hotting up.
Huawei Prism, HTC Ville may be heading to T-Mobile in April?
HTC and Huawei are both expected to bring their A-game to MWC. What exactly that entails remains a mystery, thanks to both companies keeping their lips sealed. And while we're still not completely sure as to what secrets these devices still hold -- or even their official names, for that matter -- TmoNews picked up a leaked screenshot that shows off a list of upcoming accessories on T-Mobile, some of which are for the HTC Ville and Huawei Prism in April. Does this guarantee that we'll see both devices featured on the GSM carrier? Not at all, but stay tuned over the next few days because we have a feeling more answers will come pouring in soon.
More HTC Endeavor whispers: SLCD display, thin chassis, 32GB and no microSD
Months of rumors about the HTC Endeavor (aka the One X, Edge, Ville) have layered up to provide a pretty complete (if not totally reliable) picture of the forthcoming Tegra 3-powered Android handset. There's room for a few more brush-strokes, however, and one of MoDaCo's tipsters is happy to paint them. We're told the new handset will have a Super LCD display, despite earlier rumors of HTC flirting with AMOLED (again). This could be no bad thing, judging from the stunning 1280 x 720 panel on the Rezound, but the Endeavor is expected to have a larger 4.7-inch screen and hence a slightly lower pixel density. The thinness of the Endeavor's chassis will reportedly be a major selling point, as will be the 32GB of onboard memory that will come as standard. However, this storage won't be expandable -- the tipster says there's no microSD on the back, just a microSIM slot and an 1800mAh battery that may or may not be removable. Again, the provenance of these reports is unknown, but MoDaCo's reports have so far tallied closely with what we saw in a leaked Endeavor ROM. Assuming it's all accurate, will it be enough to give HTC the differentiating leg-up it so badly needs? We're not sure, but we do know that more Beats Audio or a music streaming service won't cut it.
HTC Ville gets hands-on en Francais, is presumably practicing its Spanish for MWC (video)
While we're still a few weeks away from annual phone festival, MWC, it's these weeks in the run-up that often draw out blurrycam appetizers of what we'll see over in Barcelona. This time, it's no other than the HTC Edge Ville, that rumored divergent mix of quad-core processing bulk and slimline form-factor: something we don't typically see the unibody-armored HTC family. In the leaked video, you'll be getting a look at a heavily disguised version of Ice Cream Sandwich, covered in contentious (but new!) Sense sauce. The mysterious handset mole is also kind enough to pay a visit to the phone's specification list, confirming, at least if this is the finished article, an eight megapixel camera, 4.3-inch qHD display and a 1.5GHz dual-core processor. Alas, it looks like this isn't going to be the rumored quad-core debut from the Taiwanese phone maker, although going on past form, it won't shock us if the company reveals a whole line-up of handsets for us to meddle with next month. Take the tour yourself -- it's right after the break. Update: Looks like the original video has been unceremoniously switched to private. Fortunately, we managed to grab a copy beforehand.
