These affordable phones come from HTC’s Desire series, which targets the middle to lower markets, unlike the company’s pricey One phones. The handsets are expected to make their way across a variety of carriers in the United States, but pricing has not yet been confirmed.
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Touching DesireThe Desires all run Android 5.1 with the latest version of HTC Sense, which HTC wanted to talk up.
Let’s start with the most interesting of the bunch: the Desire 626. The 626 (postpaid)/626S (prepaid) is downright desirable, because its body has personality; it’ll come in a range of two-tone designs, depending on carrier, with blue, red, silver, black, and white all playing roles.
As for the HTC Desire 626S, it steps back to a 2-megapixel front camera and loses both the NFC and the carrier aggregation.
T-Mobile will get a purple/tangerine. They also each boast a 5-inch 720p display. Boost Mobile, Virgin Sprint and Trackfone will get a pearl white/terra white.
Trying a selfie on the Desire 626S. That means solid build quality, attractive designs, and the same software features you’ll find on higher-end HTC phones.
Then you’ve got the Desire 626 and 626S sitting at the top of this class. Both are kitted out with 5-inch, 720p screens but the differences are there if you know where to look. There will also be a special 626S model, which has double the storage (16GB). First, the good: they feel surprisingly sturdy given their all-plastic construction, not to mention nearly shockingly light. Of course, I only had a very limited time with it in a controlled conference room, so I couldn’t really test things like image noise and color accuracy.
HTC’s Desire 520 is the bottom of the barrel with these new budget phones, but it’s still a decent option for those who need a cheap phone.
The Desire 520 is the smallest phone in this group and a Cricket exclusive.
HTC Desire 526 has 1.5GB of RAM, 8GB of expandable memory, 4.7 qHD display, 8MP main camera, 2MP front-facing unit, and 2,000mAh battery. Which includes the Desire 626, Desire 626s, Desire 526, and Desire 520. However, for a budget phone, that’s pretty normal, and HTC’s version looks decent enough.
Next up comes the HTC Desire 526, scaling up the specs a little.
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It’s slightly more powerful sibling the Desire 526 will feature a 4.7-inch 960×540 display and will come with 1.5GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, and will feature the same 8MP/2MP rear/front-facing camera setup as its smaller Desire 520 sibling. As LTE devices with quad-core processors, the HTC Desire 626, HTC Desire 626s, HTC Desire 526 and HTC Desire 520 offer speedy uploads and downloads while keeping up with multitasking between apps.
