Pre-Orders Are Now Open For HTC Vive

HTC’s $799 Vive virtual reality headset opened for pre-orders this morning. The headset will begin shipping April 5 in the US, just a week or so after the consumer launch of the the Oculus Rift, which launches March 28.

Pre-orders can be placed on the HTC site today for shipment to the US and 23 other countries.

The $799 package includes the headset, a pair of controllers and two “Lighthouse” laser-tracking sensors. The bundle also includes (while supplies last) a trio of quick-and-fun games that show off some of the flexibility offered by the Vive’s room-scale tracking and motion-tracking: office destruction physics game Job Simulator, whimsical puzzle game Fantastic Contraption, and Google’s 3D painting tool Tilt Brush.

I’ve tried out the Vive quite a few times and have loved what I’ve seen. It offers a much more rich out-of-the-box experience than the Oculus Rift thanks to its included wireless motion controllers which allow you to move your virtual hands with ease. The $599 Rift currently includes an Xbox controller as its primary input device, the company has not yet announced a ship date for its similarly-featured Touch wireless motion controllers.

Worth reiterating is that you need a gaming PC with decent specs to power the Vive, HTC recommends that your PC rocks a Nvidia GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290 graphics card at a minimum. Valve has put together a nice little system checker to see how well your PC can run VR content so if you have any questions about your specific rig best to give the system test a whirl. HTC has specified that they will likely follow Oculus’s move and begin selling VR-ready PCs bundled alongside the headset, but nothing has been announced yet.




Source: Techcrunch

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HTC officially unviels the HTC one X9

HTC has officially revealed the HTC One X9. As some of the more recent rumors suggested, it’s a mid-range phone with a 1080p display and an all-metal body.

There’s no fingerprint scanner to be seen, but it does feature a capable 2.2GHz MediaTek X10 processor supported by 3GB of RAM. Storage is expandable to 2TB via Micro SD and the phone comes with internal storage at 32GB. It supports Bluetooth 4.1 as well as Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, and it’s got a 3,000mAh battery. In addition to this, it has a 13-megapixel rear camera and an UltraPixel front-facing camera.

According to the HTC website, the battery should last the phone through 15 hours for 3G phonecalls, 10 hours of HD video, and 40 hours of music. Important to note here is that this probably isn’t taking your average daily power-user into account.

Before the official reveal, several rumors surrounded the new phone. A listing on the TENAA website — a Chinese regulatory board — indicated mid-range hardware and was accurate in most aspects aside from internal storage, which was first noted at 16GB. The same listing also suggested the phone’s operating system (OS) would be Android 5.0.2, but no official information on the OS has been revealed. It’s possible that the manufacturer is still working out the details, as the phone doesn’t have an official release date. But considering the HTC One A9 was released with Android 6.0 Marshmallow, it wouldn’t be surprising if it went the same route with the One M9. For music lovers, the phone supports both hi-fi audio formats as well as output to professional grade headphones via 0.98 volt output.

There was also a leak suggesting much more powerful hardware in the One X9 than what’s been revealed. The leak suggested the phone would feature a 5-inch display at 2,560 x 1,440 pixels, a Snapdragon 820 processor, and 4GB of RAM. But this only dismisses one potential candidate from the list of HTC devices rumored to feature high-end hardware.


Source : Digital Trends

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HTC's Delayed Vive VR Headset Launching April 2016

HTC announced in a blog post that its Vive VR headset won’t see a commercial launch until April 2016.

When the company first showed off the developer edition of the Vive in March, it said that it would begin selling the headset by the end of this year.

In August, gaming giant Valve, which is partnering with HTC to develop the Vive, revealed plans to offer a limited number of headsets to consumers before 2015 was out, but that didn’t happen.

The Taiwanese hardware maker says it’s still committed to delivering the Vive. It said that it’s been shipping developer kits to game and content creators and will launch its second iteration at the CES expo in January.

HTC notes that it will also make 7,000 more developer kits available next year ahead of the Vive’s commercial launch.

The company hasn’t explained the reason behind the delay, but pushing the launch date to April means that it might be late to the VR party: Oculus and Sony are set to stock shelves with their headsets early next year. If HTC can’t be the first to launch a VR headset, it better build a damn good one to take on its rivals.


Source :The Next Web

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HTC's first Android Marshmallow device due on October 20th

Even though HTC isn't a maker of the new Nexus devices with Marshmallow, it'll definitely be one of the first to release its own phone running on the latest Android build. According to the company's announcement, its upcoming product will be launched on October 20th, and you can tune in to the live-stream (12:00 noon ET / 5:00 pm UK) on its website. There's no indication as to whether we can expect this to be the leaky "Aero" aka "A9," but we'd like to think that the charcoal on HTC's flyer is hinting at the model's "carbon gray" color option. All will be unveiled in three weeks' time.

As for HTC's existing devices, most of the hero models from last year up to now will get the Android 6.0 update, according to an official tweet. These include the M8, M8 Eye, E8, Desire 816, Desire 820, Desire 826, M9, M9+, ME, Butterfly 3, E9 and E9+. Subject to regional and carrier requirements, the M9 and M8 will get the goodies before end of the year.



Source :Engadget 

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HTC reportedly working on Android Wear smartwatch codenamed 'Halfbeak'

HTC may have been knocked down during recent years, but the company is certainly not out if Phandroid's latest report on a possible smartwatch is anything to go by. According to their sources, HTC is working on an upcoming Android Wear-powered wearable, codenamed "Halfbeak".

Not much was revealed, aside from a round display (much like the Moto 360) and a resolution of 360x360. Perhaps we'll see something at a company event scheduled for September 29? Only time will tell. Would you be interested in a HTC Android Wear smartwatch?

Source: Phandroid

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HTC's next big flagship phone has crazy specs and a wild new name

HTC is probably fully aware that it lost the battle with Samsung this year, as the HTC One M9 failed to impress buyers in a manner similar to the Galaxy S6 family. Now, a new report indicates that the Taiwanese company is already working on a powerful new flagship device, a phablet that will sport high-end specs and a crazy new name.

The HTC One M9 isn't the most appealing name you can think of, and a simpler name like HTC O2 might be more customer-friendly. Apparently, that's what the new device will be known as when it's finally ready to launch, Phone Arena reports.

On the hardware front, the handset is rumored to have a 6-inch 2K display (2560 x 1440 resolution), a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB and 128GB storage options, 20.7-megapixel rear camera, 5-megapixel front-facing camera, 3,500 mAh battery and BoomSound front-facing stereo speakers.

Since 6-inch phablets aren't for everyone, so the rumor goes on to say that a 5-inch version of the phone will be released next year, featuring a 2K/4K display, and an even more powerful eight-core Snapdragon processor.

The HTC O2 will supposedly have a narrow body with thin bezels, and will come with dust and water protection.

HTC ihass yet to confirm the HTC O2, but the company was rumored recently to be preparing a new flagship launch.

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HTC to trim staff and phones following heavy losses

HTC announced in an earnings call this week that it's going to start trimming its workforce and reducing the number of smartphones in turns out each year. The news comes after the company recently posted its biggest ever quarterly loss of £163 million.

Its ailing efforts have been a stark contrast to last year's, which saw the One M8 receive praise from critics and consumers alike – even being crownedT3's phone of the year. However the One M9 has failed to repeat the feat, with HTC facing criticism for making minor changes.

In a statement given to the press, HTC said the losses were caused by “weaker than expected demand at the high end...along with weak sales in China.”

It's not surprising that HTC has found it difficult to crack the Chinese market, given that it has to fight off all the big players in tech – including Xiaomi, Lenovo, Samsung, and Apple.

There might, however, be a light at the end of the tunnel; the HTC Vive. The virtual reality headset is set to launch in 2015's holiday season and HTC is promising big things.

“The company is working with over 1,000 developers on content creation over a wide spectrum of applications including gaming, entertainment and education, to ensure a compelling ecosystem ahead of the highly anticipated launch of HTC Vive at the end of the year,” says HTC.

Standing in its way though is the Oculus Rift,Sony's Project Morpheus and the Samsung Gear VR. And from what we hear, the Vive could be the most expensive of the bunch.

Source: T3

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Is HTC Android's first falling giant?

HTC has announced "significant cuts" and slashed jobs after posting a $265 million net loss, with more losses promised for the future. Reuters is reporting that the poor performance has been blamed on the company's One series of flagships that, while accomplished, are losing out to "more fashionable phones" in the market. TechCrunch is saying that HTC is hoping to reverse this trend by turning its attentions to the middle-tier of the market, devices that cost between $300 and $500, parking its tanks squarely on the lawns of Chinese rivals Huawei and Xiaomi.

HTC's woes are likely to start a round of seriousbloodletting in the Android industry, as companies fight off multiple threats to their business. For a start, many established players are feeling the squeeze as newer, younger rivals produce hardware of a similar quality but are happy to make a much smaller profit. Then there's the fact that the smartphone market has matured to the point where there aren't millions of people all looking to buy their first device any more. For years, China was thought of as a rich, untapped seam of fresh customers, but a recent IDC reportclaims that the country is now locked into the same upgrade cycle as everybody else.

HTC is hoping to get ahead of the curve by turning its attentions towards India, which is seen as the next big market for manufacturers looking for a fast buck. Unfortunately, this could be too little, too late, since OnePlus, Xiaomi and even ASUS are now directing efforts to gain a foothold in the country. In addition, established local playerMicromax has teamed up with independent Android firm Cyanogen to bolster its software efforts and lure in customers. Google's not helping either, since its Android One program is ensuring that bargain-basement firms can produce devices with a half-decent experience for very little cash.

Of course, HTC isn't going to collapse overnight, and its VR partnership with Valve might just prove the boost that the company needs. It's not unfair, however, to say that it's very hard to pull out of one of these death-spirals when you're in one. That job is even harder since, unlike deep-pocketed firms like Sony and LG, HTC doesn't have other profit-making appliance and manufacturing divisions that can prop it up when times are hard. We've already seen how this story played out at Nokia and BlackBerry, and this could be the third case of history repeating itself in as many years.

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HTC Spends Nearly $10M On A 15% Stake In Virtual Reality Platform WEVR

HTC is planning to release its extremely well-received virtual reality headset Vive to consumers later this year, possibly in November. In the meantime, the Taiwanese company is busy building out its VR ecosystem. HTC disclosed that it spent almost $10 million for a 15 percent stake in WEVR, an open VR platform and community based in Los Angeles.

HTC's investment in WEVR makes sense because it's a chance for the company to build more content for Vive, which will be an important selling point for potential buyers.

In addition to enabling developers to create and publish VR content, WEVR also runs a grant program called OnWEVR that awards virtual reality producers from $5,000 to $50,000 to support projects.

Vive represents a departure from HTC's lagging smartphone business. Its has struggled to compete with Apple, Samsung and (more recently) Xiaomi over the past two years, and its shares recently took a nosedive and hit a ten-year low after its flagship phone, the M9, bombed because it did not differentiate enough from devices by competitors(or, for that matter, its predecessors the M7 and M8).

While Vive has been extremely well-reviewed and is expected to be a major rival to Facebook-owned Oculus Rift, HTC still has a lot of progress to make before its VR gambit succeeds.

For one thing, it needs to build enough quality content to convince people that a Vive is worth purchasing. Its price has not been disclosed but isexpected to be higher than Oculus Rift. In order for Vive to gain traction among a wide audience, it's important for HTC to develop content that will appeal to non-gamers (HTC has talked to potential partners like HBO and Lion's Gate).

Source : TechCrunch

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