Monday, February 18, 2013

HTC - Will it be enough?

Now is an eventful time for HTC - they just dropped out of the 'top 10 Smartphone manufacturers' list (as mentioned by Android Headlines in their aticle), and tomorrow (Feb 19) HTC have a major event lined up, as teased on their site in a very dominant position. With both of these events, and Mobile World Congress (MWC) coming up very quick, it is vital that HTC makes a huge impact with their new phone(s) if they want to stay influential. That's the big question, but right now HTC just has to answer the question "will it be enough"?

OK, let's have a look at HTC's last major release - the HTC One lineup (of 2012 - the One X, One S, and One V). It looked very promising, but there were a few...weird things. First off, the One X looked amazing, performed great, has the best camera and screen many have seen...it had everything going for it. The X really pushed the envelope when it came to flagship phones when it first came out...for the most part. Oddly, HTC decided to make the One S very close to the X as far as specs were concerned. It has a slightly smaller, lower resolution screen, smaller battery, but the same processor/storage/RAM. Weird how they are so similar, but one was considered 'flagship status', and the other 'midrange'. The One V was an amazing little phone, which brought a lot of punch for a pretty low price.

How did the 2012 lineup do? It was Titanic. Let me explain. Like the Titanic, it had tons of hype, and was the 'next big thing' of it's day, but when it came time to actually performing it sank. The entire lineup didn't have good enough battery life. The other, larger factor was public awareness. Every tech blog site had numerous posts every day about the One series, but the average consumer doesn't read anything like that. In the general public's eye, Samsung makes the only good smartphones. We all know this isn't true...although it's understandable because I know I've never seen an HTC ad. Every other ad I see (on YouTube at least) is about Samsung's "next big thing".

So, back to the present. Will HTC's February 19th announcement wow the world enough to bring them out of their downward spiral? I really hope so. HTC was one company that really pioneered Android, and they do make quality hardware (likely the best hardware running any android phone). HTC's timer just passed the 24 hour mark, and I can't wait to hear about the new HTC phone(s) - the M7 and/or HTC One.

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