news Taiwanese gadget giant HTC has confirmed that it will shortly be launching its new top-end One line-up of Android-based smartphones revealed at Mobile World Congress in Australia, and will reportedly also launch a 4G version of its Titan II Windows Phone 7 handset locally as well.

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the company overnight launched a series of new handsets that it’s dubbing its ‘One’ family. All of the handsets run the new Ice Cream Sandwich (version 4.0) edition of Google’s Android operating system, and offer advanced features over the company’s current line of HTC Sensation and Desire handsets currently available in Australia.

The top-end model of the One range is the HTC One X. The phone features a polycarbonate unibody design and is powered by NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 CPU, with a quad-core processor running at 1.5GHz (plus an additional core which HTC says is aimed at saving battery life). To keep the phone’s graphics up to speed, it runs a 12-core NVIDIA graphics processing unit.

The screen of the One X is a 4.7″ touchscreen running at a high definition resolution of 720p and using Corning’s Gorilla Glass material. In countries with 4G (using the Long-Term Evolution standard or LTE), it will also launch in a model supporting LTE and with a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU at 1.5GHz, to be known as the One XL.

The Verge and PC World Australia have reported that the HTC One XL will launch in Australia through Telstra. This makes sense, because Telstra is currently the only Australian mobile carrier to have launched 4G services in Australia. Currently the telco only sells one handset supporting 4G speeds — the HTC Velocity 4G, which offers customers dramatically enhanced network speeds in Telstra’s 4G supported zones, compared with the rest of its network. Optus has linked to the One X announcement through its Facebook page, hinting that it will launch the handset when it eventually arrives in Australia. This would also make sense, as Optus does not currently support 4G services.

The HTC One S also announced overnight is a similarly high-powered smartphone, with a 1.5GHz dual-core CPU, a 4.3″ screen and a thin unibody case. The case is only 7.9mm thick, which HTC says makes the One S its thinnest phone yet. The One S boasts a qHD (960×450) display resolution. It is unclear whether the phone will launch in Australia.

The last Android smartphone in HTC’s new armoury is the One V, which is a lower-order phone with a very similar design to the HTC Legend, which was quite popular in Australia and sold primarily through Vodafone. The One V features a single core 1GHz CPU.

It’s not clear which of the phones will launch through Australia’s third major carrier, Vodafone, although HTC did list Vodafone Australia on its supported carriers page in the Asia-Pacific region for the new handset launches. In addition, it’s not yet clear when the handsets will launch in Australia, although globally, a number of other carriers are citing April as a target time frame for launches of the handsets. “Stay tuned for local announcements!” HTC Australia’s Facebook page stated today.

In addition, it appears as if HTC is not only planning to launch new handsets in Australia based on the Android operating system. Windows Phone Down Under has quoted international site Pocket-lint as having confirmed an Australian launch (likely through Telstra) of the HTC Titan II at some stage this year, directly from HTC. The Titan II is likely to launch through Telstra as the phone supports the LTE standard.

The Titan II was initially revealed in January as HTC’s Windows Phone 7 model to support the LTE standard. At that stage it was confirmed for AT&T in the US, but not for launch outside the US. The smartphone, if it does launch in Australia, will likely be Australia’s top Windows Phone 7 model at that stage. It comes with a 4.7″ super LCD touchscreen, a 16 megapixel camera and a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 processor.

opinion/analysis
Awesome! Absolutely awesome! These are some of the best smartphones I’ve ever seen, both in terms of pure specifications and in terms of design and they’re launching in Australia just as the major carriers are starting to upgrade their networks to LTE. It will be fantastic to see how users take them up locally. I’m predicting, given the strong and continued migration to Telstra’s network, that the HTC One XL will be one of the top smartphones of 2012 in Australia. And it may even be the top model. I’m sure Samsung will have a bit to say about that, however, given time as will Apple ;)

In short, Australia is currently about to experience a bounty of riches when it comes to smartphones, and of course pricing also continued to be solid every year. It’s good times ahead.

Image credit: HTC

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1. grant
   Posted 27/02/2012 at 6:18 pm | Permalink | Reply

   I was really excited about this phone. I am quite prepared to spend a bit of money to get a phone as ‘futureproof’ as possible.

   So imagine my surprise seeing that you have to choose between a 4X processor and 4G.

   I would really like to know why we have to choose between one and the other! I live in a 4G area, and would love to have those fast net speeds, but I also only wanted to get a new phone if it was significantly more powerfull, such as a 1.5ghz 4X.

   Looks like i’m stuck with my old Desire for a little bit longer.

   I love HTC’s products, but sometimes I have to wonder what they are thinking!

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 27/02/2012 at 6:25 pm | Permalink | Reply

     Does a quad-core CPU really make that much difference?

   • AJ
     Posted 27/02/2012 at 6:41 pm | Permalink | Reply

     The Tegra 3 is A9 Quad core but the Dual Core is A15 they have very similar performance the tegra is slightly better for games but the Quailcomm is better generally

     • AJ
       Posted 27/02/2012 at 6:45 pm | Permalink | Reply

       http://www.anandtech.com/show/5563/qualcomms-snapdragon-s4-krait-vs-nvidias-tegra-3

   • Brandon
     Posted 27/02/2012 at 8:07 pm | Permalink | Reply

     “I would really like to know why we have to choose between one and the other!”

     That’s because Tegra 3 chip doesn’t have LTE. They need to find a partner to provide LTE to them. They haven’t decided on a partner yet. When that happen you will start to see more Tegra 3 with LTE.
     Where as Qualcomm have LTE built into the SoC.

     Therefore for HTC there’s not really much option for them if they want to launch a phone with LTE.

2. Aryan
   Posted 27/02/2012 at 8:50 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Please don’t get fooled by the dual core or quad core marketing terms. These new Qualcomm cpus are Snapdragon S4, a totally new architecture from previous dual cores. Benchmarks are showing them to be at least as fast as the quad core Tegra3, and in some respects faster.

3. grant
   Posted 27/02/2012 at 9:23 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Thank you guys for the info. Very interesting indeed.

4. Brad
   Posted 07/04/2012 at 12:49 am | Permalink | Reply

   These are pretty sweet phones, and i really like the look of the white one, the One X, I hope these phones allows HTC to make up for the past few under performing months. I’m actually pretty stocked to see the Titan II, I think WP7 will have a good impact and I would love to see it gain support. I also hope that we’ll be seeing that lovely Nokia Lumia 900 along side it’s Titan II cousin, both are really good quality. Looks like an interesting year so far!

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