In case the Desire 610 wasn’t affordable enough, HTC has announced the even-more affordable Desire 510. So far the official tag is set at £150, which works out to around US$250 or AU$265. Of course, direct currency conversion is an unreliable prediction of the real-world price of a handset, but with any luck It’ll stay below the $300 mark.
Currently it’s set for a September release in the UK, with the US to follow shortly after. Other markets have not yet been specifically mentioned, although a more global release is certainly not out of the picture.
The most distinguishing feature of the Desire 510 is that it boasts 4G. Most phones in its class sacrifice the faster broadband speeds to keep the price down. Not only does the Desire 510 not do this, it’s even Cat 4 LTE compatible. Cat 4 is a faster form of 4G LTE that is available in some regions and it’s great to see its inclusion here.
Features and hardware
Interestingly, HTC looks to have ditched the BoomSound front-facing speaker design in favor of a rear one this time around. That’s a shame but it’s fair enough. You can’t be expected to cram a budget device with all of your premium phone features.
Much like the Desire 610 the phone itself is made from a polycarbonate material, and available in midnight blue, as well as grey, white and black.
The 4.7 inch screen is the same size as the HTC One (M7) from last year, but with a much lower resolution of just 480 x 854. The camera, too, is low-res at 5MP, as is the front-facing lens which is below 1MP.
There’s plenty of power from a quad-core 1.2GHz processor backed up by a full 1GB of RAM. Storage is 8GB on-board with, thankfully, a microSD slot for expanding that further.
Of course the whole thing comes running Android 4.4 with HTC’s proprietary Sense user interface.
All in all the Desire 510 sounds pretty good considering what HTC is asking for it. It’s a continuation of a trend in the phone market towards low-cost handsets that are designed to be bought outright and used on SIM-only no-contract plans. After all, not everyone wants or needs the latest, greatest piece of smartphone technology. And you can often save quite a bit by opting for a cheaper model and going on a BYO phone plan.
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