HTC Desire, HD mini, Legend get official

HTC had a very busy day at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, as it announced three new handsets: the Desire, HD mini and Legend (above left to right). Although they’re all quite different, they do have a few things in common including GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, G-sensors, 3.5mm headphone jacks and dual-band (900/2100MHz) 7.2Mbps HSDPA connectivity. Having said that, there are some huge differences as well, so let’s run through each device.

By far the most impressive of the bunch is the Desire. Best thought of as the Nexus One with Sense UI (albeit with a single mic), it has a 3.7″ WVGA AMOLED display, 5 megapixel camera, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 512MB ROM / 576MB RAM, optical joystick, fully supports Microsoft Exchange, runs Android 2.1 with Sense UI, is Flash enabled and 10.1 ready. It will be available in both Europe and Asia starting in Q2.

Next up is the Legend. A handset that that oozes sex appeal thanks in part to its chassis machined from a single piece of aluminum. The Legend features a 3.2″ HVGA AMOLED display, 5 megapixel camera, 600MHz MSM7227 processor, 512 MB ROM / 384MB RAM, optical joystick and Android 2.1 with Sense UI.  Anyone living in Asia will have to wait until Q2 to get a Legend, but Europeans will begin to have access to it next month.

Last but not least is the HD mini. A scaled and powered down version of the HD2, the HD mini has a 3.2″ HVGA multi-touch capacitive display, 5 megapixel camera, 600MHz MSM7227 processor and 512MB ROM / 384MB RAM. It does indeed run Windows Mobile 6.5, although we were told it will not receive an update to Windows Phone 7 Series. That might sound a bit off-putting, but let’s be honest; you’re going to want the latest and greatest hardware when that OS is released. Look for it in Europe and Asia as of Q2.

We’ve mentioned that each of the new devices has Sense UI, and HTC was quite pleased to announced it has updated the skin. Some of the new features include general enhancements to the UI, a social media aggregate app called Friend Stream, a newsreader widget and Leap, which is basically card view. We haven’t heard anything US-specific, but European and Asian Hero owners will be getting the update in the near future.

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