HTC Droid DNA Announced

HTC may be losing market share, but this hasn’t stopped the Taiwan based manufacturer from announcing the HTC Droid DNA, finally bringing HTC to the sub-tablet category of phones popularly called ‘phablets’, which as the name suggests is quite similar to what can be judged as a cross between a phone and a tablet. This is supposedly the device that will save HTC from its smartphone rutt that has left them gasping for breath in the fourth quarter of 2012.

The Droid DNA will feature a 5 inch 1080p HD display based on the much awaited S-LCD 3 technology and protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass 2. This screen is expected to be the proverbial ‘daddy’ of all the others in the market, even when throwing the Samsung Galaxy Note II’s Super AMOLED HD Plus display into the mix. A joint press conference with Verizon will be hosted by HTC in New York City on the 13^th of November to release this device, which is the American version of the HTC J Butterfly announced last month in Japan.

Even though the huge 5 inch screen will be pushing a lot of pixels, performance is expected to be spectacular with the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chip clocked at 1.5 GHz, which also powers heavyweights like the Samsung Galaxy S III and most other flagship devices by various manufacturers. 2 GB of RAM rounds off the essential specs list, which is also becoming the de-facto standard for RAM in high end devices (Galaxy S III and the Nexus 4 also came with two GB of RAM).

Other specifics of this device include NFC, 4G LTE and an 8 MP camera. Running on the latest version of Android, Jellybean, this the Droid DNA is expected to do well as HTC’s premium build quality and design were till now missing from the 5 inch category of smartphones. A few concerns that may hinder the prospects of the HTC Droid DNA may be the amount of internal storage (non-expandable) and the lack of a user replaceable battery. This was one of the major problems with the HTC One X, which attracted much ire for short battery life. Since the Droid DNA is pushing 1080p resolution, the lack of a replaceable battery may be a deal breaker for many.

The expected price for this device is expected to be around $299.99 on a two year contract, which will also pose problems for HTC considering the availability of similar devices at a lower price point.