The HTC Desire 826 was just announced, bringing another
64-bit enabled midranger to the table. This one comes with
the “proper” operating system to boot – the Desire 826 is
pre-loaded with Android 5.0 Lollipop, although it is
dressed in the company's proprietary Sense UI. Upon first
look, the HTC Desire design language is instantly
recognizable, with just a few very minor tweaks and
updates. Let's have a look.
Design
The HTC Desire 826 reminds us a lot of the 820's design
language, mixed with a splash of Desire EYE. It is mostly
made of glossy plastic, adorned with some subtle color
accents – a modernistic look, which seems to be becoming a
signature of the Desire series. The sides of the 826 have a
rubbery texture, which should provide for a better grip of
its not-so-small body. This handset is also equipped with
HTC's BoomSound speakers, which are hidden in thin lines
where the display panel meets the top and bottom bezels –
much like how HTC did with the Desire EYE.
Display
The display is still a 5.5" display, but the Desire 826 one-
ups the Desire 820 by upping the resolution to 1080 x 1920
pixels, which gives it a nice dense ratio of 401 PPI. It offers
a sharp image, nice, wide viewing angles, and is surrounded
by rather thick bezels by today's standards.
Interface
HTC's snappy Sense interface makes a return, but this time
around – it adorns Android 5.0 Lollipop, which makes the
Desire 826 HTC's first midranger to come with Google's
newest OS out of the box. On first glance – the Sense UI
doesn't seem to look very different from anything we've
seen so far.
Processor and Memory
The Desire 826 is powered by the 64-bit, octa-core
Qualcomm Snapdragon 615, clocked at 1.7 GHz, and paired
with 2 GB of RAM. Now, we've encountered this SoC before,
as it also powers the Desire 820 – a nice and powerful CPU,
which provides a snappy performance – we are truly
curious how it would perform under extensive testing on a
phone with Android 5.0 Lollipop.
The phone's internal memory is 16 GB and it supports
microSD, microSDHC, and microSDXC cards of up to 128 GB.
Camera
The main camera has a 13 MP resolution sensor, keeping in
check with HTC's strides towards enabling and encouraging
users to take more high-quality photos. If the sensor is the
same as the one in the Desire 820, we'd expect some very
satisfying results. The frontal snapper is a 4 MP UltraPixel
camera. Yup, the tech that HTC tried to cram in not one,
but two of its One ( M7 and M8 ) models' main cameras, and
which is rumored to be absent from the upcoming 2015
flagship, is making a return as a selfie-cam. This could
actually turn out well, as frontal cams often need better
light-siphoning abilities, and HTC's UltraPixel tech was
invented with just that in mind.
Expectations
A slightly upgraded Desire 820, with a crisper display, a
different type of frontal cam, and a slightly sleeker design
with its hidden speaker grilles and rubbery bezels, the
Desire 826 doesn't seem to offer specs that are notably
better than its sibling, however, if one were on the market
for a new HTC midranger right now, we could see how the
newest offering could be more attractive.
Unfortunately, the only thing we know about the handset's
launch is that it will be hitting stores in China soon. This
doesn't mean that it will not be available in the US, though,
there is not word on if or when. We also don't have official
information on price, but seeing as the Desire 820 was
priced at $475 (off-contract), we'd imagine that the price
of the HTC Desire 826 would be in the ballpark, if not
slightly above.
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