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Earlier today, HTC India officially announced two new mid-range smartphones under its Desire series – Desire 12 and Desire 12 Plus. Since the duo was introduced internationally last March, their specifications were already out, leaving only the Indian pricing for being revealed at today’s launch. Both the smartphones will be available in Cool Black and Warm Silver color options with a price tag of Rs. 15,800 ($236) for the Desire 12 and Rs. 19,790 ($296) for the Desire 12 Plus. The two handsets will be up for pre-orders starting tomorrow, June 7 from HTC eStore, and will go on sale from Monday, June 11, via HTC’s widespread online and offline sales channels.
HTC has made use of metal as a base material for both its mid-rangers along with a curved glass back. The smaller HTC Desire 12 features a 5.5-inch display in an 18:9 aspect ratio with a resolution of 1,440 x 720 pixels and comes powered by a MediaTek MT6739 processor paired with a PowerVR Rogue GE8100 GPU. The Indian variant of the phone gets 3GB of RAM and 32GB of onboard expandable storage. The dual-SIM phone supports VoLTE and comes running Android 7.0 Nougat-based Sense UI. A single 13-megapixel rear camera and a front 5-megapixel camera complete the package together with a 2,730mAh battery. The Desire 12 Plus, on the other hand, boasts a larger 6-inch display with the same tall aspect ratio and HD+ resolution. HTC has included a Snapdragon 450 SoC in the Plus variant that also has 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. Over at the back, the Desire 12 Plus also gets a fingerprint scanner along with a dual-camera setup that includes a secondary 2-megapixel sensor besides its primary 13-megapixel one. An 8-megapixel front-facing camera is a part of the package along with a 2,965mAh battery.
The Taiwanese company first announced the two handsets back in March at an event in the UK to be first available in Taiwan and the UK before being rolled out to other markets. Given their specifications and Indian pricing, HTC seems to have made a number of compromises, especially with the use of Nougat in Desire 12, which was released nearly two years back, and a low-res display on both. In a price-sensitive market like India, where Samsung has also started to feel the heat from Chinese players, these two devices will have to face fierce competition in the price segment they’re launched in.
