HTC will surprisingly announce a new phone next week

Of the few major brands in the smartphone market, few are probably seen as hopeless as HTC and Sony. Neither company is, of course, willing to concede what remains of their respective market shares. While Sony has a clear vision of what its smartphones are for, HTC seems to simply be clinging for the sake of still having a phone under its name. Aside from the extremely niche Exodus blockchain phone, few know what HTC has in mind for its mobile future. It might finally reveal that next week as it apparently has plans to announce a new phone that we have barely heard about.

Considering that, unlike Sony and Motorola, HTC hasn't yet launched a new phone this year (the Exodus 1 is a weird exception), many thought it has completely wound down its mobile business. After all, most of its workforce was already acquired by Google for the latter's Pixel phones.

There isn't much yet known about this surprise HTC phone. A few models have been spotted on AnTuTu and Geekbench but it's not unusual for OEMs to benchmark hardware that may never even see the light of day. If that phone, however, is what HTC will unveil next, it could be a bit of a disappointment for those still hoping for HTC to make a comeback.

That device, with model 2Q7A100, is noted to run on a Snapdragon 710 with 6 GB of RAM and a serving of Android 9 Pie. It may have a 6-inch FHD+ screen and a 3,930 mAh battery. Considering HTC's relationship with Google, it almost sounds like a slightly higher Pixel 3a, with all the HTC-specific features, of course.

HTC Taiwan's Facebook post says that it will all happen on June 11 and it could very well be HTC's only phone for this year. It seems to be quite invested in the blockchain phone idea though, so an Exodus 2 could also be coming later.