HTC financial results find a new bottom every new
quarter, but the company is not giving up and keeps pushing new phones. We saw
the U12 Life midranger at IFA in Berlin and it looks like we might see even
more affordable smartphone. A device with the model number HTC 2Q72XXX was just
approved on Bluetooth SIG website, revealing a Snapdragon 435 chipset.
The Qualcomm SoC dates back to February 2016 when it
was introduced along two other chipsets. The 435 is built on the even older 28
nm process with eight Cortex-A53 cores, clocked at up to 1.4 GHz. There is an
Adreno 505 GPU and a modest X8 modem with a Cat.7 connectivity of up to 300
Mbps.
Going for flagships in the past two years did not
prove a successful solution in the past two years, so the Taiwanese company
might be switching to the affordable segment. There is also a slight
possibility HTC is just certifying test products that have nothing to do with
the smartphone market, so we have to wait and see.