Hasta La Gadget!

HTC plans to unveil the new Desire 8 officially at MWC 2014 next week. Ahead of that official debut of the smartphone, HTC is offering up several images of the … Continue reading

HTC, so the rumor machine goes, is readying its first smartwatches, at least one of which is said to pipe Google Now directly to the wrist. If you’re going to … Continue reading

HTC is working on three wearables which it’s planning to preview privately to carriers at next week’s Mobile World Congress tradeshow in Barcelona, according to a report in Bloomberg.

The three devices are said to consist of two smartwatches, one focusing on Google Now’s cards based recommendations feature, and another device based on Qualcomm’s Toq smartwatch, which was really just a hardware showcase for OEMs. (The Toq link tallies with a January report by ReadWrite’s Dan Rowinski that reported HTC had licensed Qualcomm’s Toq hardware and designs.)

The third wearable HTC is working on is apparently an “electronic bracelet that plays music”.  Teenagers on buses are going to get considerably more irritating if the latter device becomes a successful commercial reality.

The news agency said the device details come from “a person with direct knowledge of the plans” — and that person also told it HTC has not decided if it will publicly demo any of these wearables next week, or simply allow carriers to have a sniff.

HTC declined to comment on the report when contacted by TechCrunch.

The mobile maker has been fighting sliding marketshare in the smartphone space for more than a year — so it’s likely viewing the rise of wearables, and the opportunity a nascent device space provides, as a potential lifeline for its business, over and above its stated aim of making more affordably priced phone slabs, targeting the $150 to $300 price range.

Earlier this month chairman, Cher Wang, told Bloomberg HTC would release its first wearable device by Christmas, although she did not provide details on exactly what form the device would take — so today’s report puts some more meat on those bones.

She did say HTC has spent ”years” on wearable development and tackling technical challenges such as ensuring a smartwatch has long enough battery life to be useful.

“Many years ago we started looking at smartwatches and wearables, but we believe that we really have to solve the battery problems and the LCD light problems,” she told the news agency. “These are customer-centric problems.”

These latest wearable hints follow some leaks around HTC’s forthcoming new smartphones. Yesterday a leaked image of an update to HTC’s flagship One was tweeted by the @evleaks Twitter account — sporting a new gold colourway (with silver and grey named as the other colour options for the flagship), and with camera enhancements apparently on board.

@evleaks has since tweeted an image of the charcoal grey version of the handset — along with specs for what sounds like a more mid-range forthcoming HTC smartphone, painted in a range of brighter colours:

HTC A5: MSM8928 (1.6GHz x4), 5.5" 720p SuperLCD2, 1.5GB/8GB (+microSD), 13MP/5MP, Sense 6.0, BoomSound, black/white/red/yellow/purple.—
@evleaks (@evleaks) February 20, 2014

Just the other day, an alleged press rendering of the HTC M8 made its way online. The rendering featured the phone in a gold finish, and now thanks to another photo leaked by the ever-reliable @evleaks, the HTC M8 is pictured again in another press rendering, this time in a gray finish, which we have to admit looks pretty good. Now based on the rendering, it would seem that the handset features a brushed aluminum look, although a previously leaked photo would suggest that the “metallic” exterior seems fake, almost like a metallic sticker. However with the HTC One sporting an aluminum build, it would almost be a step backwards for HTC if they were to release the HTC M8 with slightly less premium build materials.

For those who have not been following the HTC M8 rumors, word on the street has it that the handset will sport a larger display at 5-inches, a slight step up from its predecessor which featured a 4.7-inch display. Unfortunately it seems that HTC will be retaining the Full HD resolution rather than a QHD resolution which competitors like Vivo and Oppo have done with their respective devices. The HTC M8 will also most likely be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 chipset with 2GB of RAM, an Ultrapixel camera similar to the HTC One, and also the possibility of a fingerprint scanner, a feature which other companies such as Samsung and LG will reportedly incorporate as well. The HTC M8 will also be skipping MWC 2014 and will launch in March in Beijing at a separate event instead.

Alleged HTC M8 Press Rendering Leaked In Gray original content from Ubergizmo.

With MWC 2014 taking place next week, we’re sure many of you guys are looking forward to learning more about HTC’s upcoming smartphone, the HTC M8. However it also seems that HTC might have something else that they’re planning to show, which is their reported smartwatch whose battery life was apparently solved. Unfortunately if you were hoping that HTC would take to the stage to make their announcement of said device, you would be disappointed as Bloomberg’s sources have claimed that the smartwatch will instead only be shown off to carriers, presumably behind closed doors in a private meeting/event.

Interestingly enough HTC’s smartwatch is expected to be based off the Qualcomm Toq smartwatch which was shown off last year at IFA 2013. What this means is that if HTC were to match the reference design component for component, what we can look forward to is a Mirasol touchscreen display, wireless charging capabilities, the ability to take calls, play music, display calendar information, and text messaging support (read-only). However apart from this reported smartwatch that will be based on the Toq, Bloomberg’s sources also claim that HTC is working on other wearable devices, like another smartwatch with Google Now features, and a smart wristband with a thin touchscreen display.

HTC’s Smartwatch Will Reportedly Be Shown Off To Carriers At MWC 2014 original content from Ubergizmo.