HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s No. 5 smartphone brand, yesterday launched two smartphones running Microsoft Corp’s latest Mango operating system (OS) in Europe.
The company is taking the lead in debuting Mango phones in the industry, after Fujitsu Toshiba Mobile Communications announced in July it would launch the IS12T starting this month, but only in Japan.
Launching the two smartphones, the Radar and the Titan, at user-gathering events in London, Berlin, Madrid and Paris, HTC said those devices would be available next month in Europe and Asia.
EARLY ADOPTER
HTC, a long-time partner of Microsoft and Google Inc, is an eager adopter of new technologies and has taken the lead in launching many of the industry’s new products.
It was the first mobile phone maker to adopt Google’s Android OS, in 2009. Last year, the company launched the first co-branded mobile phone with Google and also introduced the market’s first LTE mobile phone in March in the US.
Mango OS is Microsoft’s latest attempt to salvage its slumping smartphone market share.
According to UK-based market researcher Canalys, Android was the No. 1 smartphone OS in the second quarter, with 48 percent of global market share. That translated to shipments of 51.9 million smartphones running Android during that period.
Apple Inc’s iOS was in second place, with a 19 percent share, or 20.3 million units in shipments.
Less than 1.5 million Microsoft-based smartphones were shipped during the April-June quarter, equating to only a 1 percent share of the global market, it said.
Canalys predicted that Nokia Oyj — Microsoft partner and HTC’s bigger rival — will not launch a Mango device until the mid- or late fourth quarter and it would take a long time before it has a complete portfolio of Mango smartphones to boost the volume.
The HTC Titan is the more powerful model of the two. It has a 1.5GHz processor and 16GB of embedded memory with 512MB of RAM. Its display is a 4.7-inch “super LCD” touchscreen with 480x800 WGVA resolution.
The Radar has a 1GHz processor with 8GB of internal memory and 512MB of RAM. It also has a super LCD screen of the same resolution, but measuring only 3.8 inches.
The Titan shoots photos at 8 megapixels, while the Radar’s camera is 5 megapixels.
HTC is also selling its second tablet, the 10-inch Jetstream, with the US telecom carrier AT&T Inc starting tomorrow.
Priced at US$700 with a two-year plan, the tablet runs on Android 3.1 and has a 10.1-inch display and a dual-core processor with a clock speed of 1.5GHz.
ULTRABOOK DEBUT
Separately, Acer Inc (宏碁), the world’s No. 4 PC brand, yesterday showcased its first “ultrabook” at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin.
The company said it was debuting the industry’s first ultrabook — Intel Corp-backed notebooks that are super-slim, powerful and offer tablet-like features such as “instant on” — this month in select markets and the model would be its “star product” in the fourth quarter.
Acer’s ultrabook, called the Aspire S3, comes with a 13.3 LED screen, measures 1.3cm in thickness and weighs less than 1.4kg. The battery can last up to 7 hours, the company said in a statement.
The Aspire S3 is priced between 799 euros (US$1,139) and 1,199 euros, depending on specifications.
Specifications include Core i3, i5 or i7 chips, 240GB solid-state drive or 320GB and 500GB of hard disks.
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