In November, HTC unveiled the Desire 650, a mid-range handset with near-identical specs to the Desire 630 that it announced in February 2016.
The storage (16GB + microSD slot), RAM (2GB), front-facing camera (5MP), battery (2200mAh), display (5-inch LCD, 1280x720px), and BoomSound audio features are all carried over to the Desire 650 from the 630. The 650 also includes the same Snapdragon 400 chipset, which Qualcomm originally announced three years ago, and which has since been superseded by the Snapdragon 410, 412, 415 425, 427, 430 and 435.
Despite HTC's continued struggles in the mobile market, the company has apparently decided that the best way to attract new buyers is by offering devices with inferior specs to those available on rival handsets. The Desire 10 Lifestyle that it revealed in September has the same ancient Snapdragon 400 chip, while the new HTC 10 evo (which recently launched on Sprint in the US as the Bolt) has last year's Snapdragon 810, rather than the newer 820 or 821 chips. It also released the One A9s in September with numerous inferior specs to its predecessor.
The new Desire 650 appears to have the same 13MP camera as the One A9s, improving on the camera in the earlier Desire 630 thanks to its wider aperture (f/2.2 vs f/2.4).
And by the way, despite HTC's promotional site for the 650 showing someone beating its display with a mallet, the device has no 'rugged' capabilities.
Indeed, aside from their exterior design, there are so few differences between the Desire 650 and the older Desire 630, which is now almost a year old, that it's not at all clear why HTC even bothered to launch the new device. Initially, it appeared that the 650 was destined to be exclusive to the company's home market of Taiwan, but HTC has confirmed that it will launch in other countries, including the UK and Europe, in February.
According to HTC's site, the Desire 650 ships with Android 6.0 Marshmallow, despite even its original Taiwan launch coming after the release of Android 7.0 Nougat in August. Google has since released the even newer Android 7.1.1 update.
Its international launch will come just in time for it to be overshadowed by a new generation of devices from other manufacturers, many of which will be unveiling their latest handsets at Mobile World Congress at the end of next month.
Source: Pocket-lint
Editor's note: This article was updated shortly after publishing to add details of the handset's Android OS version.
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