HTC wants you to save the date that will hopefully save the company

At this point in the year, very few smartphone makers have not launched a new flagship. Google won't be doing so until months later though we're still waiting for word on a Pixel 4a. HTC's absence and silence, however, has been particularly poignant given the company's once esteemed position in the mobile phone market. It has finally broken that silence to make a small peep, just enough to tease that it has something to show next week that it perhaps hopes will at least bring it back on the smartphone map.

At this point, it's not yet clear which of two rumored phones HTC will unveil. On the one hand, there has been an older rumor that the company will debut its first 5G phone in Taiwan but that was believed to still be in July. A June event suggests something that has been on the books for quite a while.

Unless HTC pulls off a grand surprise, that phone could very well be the HTC Desire 20 Pro. The teaser image confirms the very first leak that said it could look like a OnePlus 8 on the front with a punch-hole cutout in the corner. The back, on the other hand, shows a vertical array of cameras not unlike Xiaomi's Mi 10.

Despite its name, the HTC Desire 20 Pro may neither be that "pro" nor completely desirable. Based on the last tidbit we saw, it will run on a Snapdragon 675 and have 2019 mid-range specs. Its one saving grace? It will at least launch with Android 10, also from 2019.

HTC's current CEO admitted the company's failure to innovate on the mobile space and promised to keep on trying. Its event on June 16 will be the first proof of those efforts. Hopefully, it will be a lot better than what we've been hearing so far.