Sometimes living in the UK really can get on our nerves. There’s the weather, the crowds, and then on top of everything else, companies like HTC go and do things like this.
Last night it announced the HTC Rezound, the first US-bound handset using the Beats tech it invested in back in August. ‘So what?’ you may be thinking, ‘we’ve got our own HTC Beats-enabled phones right here in Blighty.’ And you’d be right, we do. But they’re not a patch on this.
At first glance, the Rezound’s specs look exactly like those of the HTC Sensation XE we put through its paces recently — same size screen, same Beats audio, the clock on the press shots even shows the same time for crying out loud. But look again. The screen may be the same size, but the US-bound Rezound is 1,280×720 pixels resolution, compared to a paltry 540×960 on the Sensation XE. That’s right, a 720p display — HTC’s first phone with the same resolution screen as the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. The XE also only has 4GB storage, while the Rezound packs a whopping 16GB.
The Rezound comes equipped with identical Beats headphones to the XE (even down to the controls on the cord), the same 1.5GHz processor and 8-megapixel camera, but there’s 1GB of RAM, as opposed to 768MB on the XE. And while the new phone ships with Android 2.3, like the XE, it’ll be upgradeable to Ice Cream Sandwich in early 2012. There’s no word on when the XE will get the latest version of Android.
So, looks like a big fat raspberry to us Brits.
Sure we have the HTC Sensation XL, but that’s a 4.7-inch beast, with a screen resolution nowhere near the crisp 720p of the Rezound. And it doesn’t have as much RAM.
Should HTC bring the Rezound, or an equally-specced handset to British shores? Let us know below or on our Facebook page.