With all your favorite 2022 buzzwords
HTC’s smartphone glory days are long gone. The company used to be up among the top players in the game, but started to see a steady drop around 2017, with the launch of its U lineup. We haven’t had a proper flagship from HTC since the release of the HTC U12+ in 2018, and it’s mostly regarded as a dead brand these days, even as we sporadically get some mid-range or budget phones like last year’s HTC Desire 21 Pro. But now it sounds like there’s a chance we might just see a return of the Taiwanese giant to the flagship smartphone space, all thanks to… the metaverse?
DigiTimes reports (shared by WinFuture) that HTC is preparing to launch its first flagship smartphone in four years. While precious few details are available, the idea is that the handset would be deeply rooted into the company’s AR, VR, and metaverse efforts — because of course, a 2022 smartphone needs to have all those 2022 buzzwords.
This idea’s at least in line with HTC’s other MWC 2022 announcements, where the company shared the latest advances for its “Viverse” metaverse… thing. Remember, even as HTC largely retired from the Android game, it’s still one of the main players in the VR space. And along that vein, don’t be surprised if this phone ends up having the “Vive” branding somewhere.
While we’re largely just guessing right now when it comes to hardware, regardless of how this metaverse-phone arrives, it wouldn’t be the first “weird” flagship from HTC — the Exodus 1 in 2018 was pretty much an HTC U12+ for cryptocurrency aficionados. But as its first major phone in years, we have to be curious about this one. Maybe we could expect a powerful camera setup given its rumored focus in VR and AR? HTC might well have other plans in store, and for now we’ll just have to wait and see.
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