HTC Desire 820 to come in a cheaper version

HTC has announced that it will be making a cheaper version of the HTC Desire 820 targeted at consumers who might not be impressed by a 64 bit processor.

The HTC Desire 820 was revealed at IFA last week as the first Android smartphone with a 64 bit processor. The Lenovo Vibe Z2 will supposedly sport the same type of processor, if you’re keen on the configuration. Otherwise, HTC decided that a cheaper version of the 64-bit HTC Desire 820 would be a necessary step to take.

Since the HTC Desire 820 has a close to $400 price tag, the Desire 820 variant will probably try to go as low as possible. Assumptions are that the Desire 820 variant will sport a screen between 5 and 5.5 inches and it will come with Android 4.4.4 out of the box. What’s going to change in the budget version of the HTC Desire 820 is its processor, which will shift from the Snapdragon 615 64 bit processor to a more tempered Snapdragon 400 or 410, clocked at 1.2 GHz. The Desire 820 variant will have 1 GB RAM and 16 GB internal storage, expandable to 128 GB via a microSD card.

The Desire 820 variant’s front camera will suffer, dropped to 5 MP compared to the original HTC Desire 820 8 MP front camera. It will still fulfill your selfie-needs well, we think. We don’t know whether the 13 MP front camera will be changed, but we hope it won’t. HTC will probably aim for a mid-range phone that will satisfy most of the needs of the market without overdoing it, at a price low enough to help the company’s mid-range line’s popularity rise a bit.

HTC’s move comes as it has been noticeably absent from the low- and mid-range smartphone markets. The original Desire 820 is a high-end device with a reasonable price and making a cheaper variant of it would mean sacrificing a lot of the flagship’s most important features. But HTC’s statement did emphasize the fact that they want to offer powerful and durable phones for lower prices. If that’s HTC’s purpose, we’ll probably be looking at a considerably powerful phone with a sub $300 price tag. I might be exaggerating with that expectation, but considering the fact that you can now find behemoths like the Meizu MX4, Huawei Ascend Mate 7. Xiaomi Mi4, OnePlus One and Oppo Find 7 at prices well below what HTC is offering for its One M8 and Desire 820, too, I think a higher price for a low- to mid-range device would be a mistake on HTC’s part.

The company has recently ditched its plans for a wearable device and is going to be threatened by the OnePlus One, which will become available for pre-order next month. At the same time, the iPhone 6 are coming out (two of them) and the Xiaomi Mi4 will probably be available in the U.S. by the end of the year, not to mention brands like Alcatel and Motorola bringing devices like the Moto G and Alcatel OneTouch Hero 2. That’s quite the competition a mid-range device will have to face.

In any case, HTC promises an affordable HTC Desire 820 that will turn heads, but we don’t know enough about the upcoming handset to estimate whether it will surpass the obstacles it will encounter, or stumble and fall early.