HTC: Snapdragon 835 Not Coming with MWC Flagships, New HTC Phone Coming when Processor Arrives

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HTC has been criticized for many of the decisions they made with the HTC U Ultra — from a small battery (for its size) to packing last year’s Snapdragon 821 instead of the newer 835, HTC seemingly couldn’t catch a break from many sectors of the media. A new interview by tbreak clears up some question we had about HTC’s upcoming smartphone:

Chialin Chang, President of Smartphones and Connected Devices at HTC, told tbreak that every time a new CPU with “power that [they] can leverage” comes to the market, they are at the forefront — however, the decision to pack in a Snapdragon 821 with the HTC U Ultra was determined 9 months ago. HTC claims it is the best CPU out there, and it certainly is the best option largely available to OEMs. Mr. Chang states that “when the next CPU flagship comes, HTC will be one of the very first tier doing that.”

If rumors are to be believed, this that means we can expect an HTC flagship around the same time as Samsung’s Galaxy S8, which is said to be debuting with the Snapdragon 835. HTC then reinforces their decision by stating that “[they] want to have a couple of months of leadership before the next flagship CPU comes (…) but that will be in another period of time — not at MWC.” He then goes on to say “not for us or any other player. I can tell you that for sure.” This is consistent with reports which claim that the LG G6, expected to launch in late February or early March, will not come with a Snapdragon 835 processor.

Furthermore, the interview gives us some insight into HTC’s decision for packing in a measly 3,000mAh battery on a large device with a 5.7 inch QHD display: “We could have done a bigger battery”, Mr. Change told tbreak, “but the design would have been impacted. We wanted to get a symmetric design and the trimming on the sides impacts the battery.” To be frank, we don’t know what we expected.