HTC on Wednesday launched the Desire Eye in a bid to cash in on the popular selfie trend in the market. Apart from being an AT&T-exclusive at launch, no pricing and availability details have yet been mentioned.
The HTC Desire Eye selfie-focused smartphone boasts of a front-facing camera with the same treatment as the rear camera. Both feature 13-megapixel sensors, and are both accompanied by dual-LED flash.
It is worth noting that the Android 4.4 KitKat-based HTC Desire Eye is one of the only smartphones with such a high resolution front-facing camera. HTC Desire Eye also features an IPX7 rating, designed to resist immersion in water up to 1 metre for 30 minutes.
Both the front-facing and rear cameras can shoot 1080p@30fps videos. While the rear camera features a f/2.0 aperture and a 28mm lens, the front-facing camera features a f/2.2 aperture with a 20mm lens.
Two camera centric apps namely Eye Experience and the latest version of HTC Zoe, a video editing tool, has been introduced in the HTC Desire Eye. The Zoe additionally integrates with the new HTC RE camera. The video-editing app will roll out to other Android and iOSsmartphones later this year.
Certain camera features like Split Capture, Crop-Me-In and others are also available on the HTC Desire Eye. While the Split Capture divides the image 50/50 between front and rear cameras, the Crop-Me-In feature crops the user's image and superimposes it on the image shot by the rear camera.
HTC will also be rolling out the Eye Experience to other handsets including HTC One (M7), HTC One (M8), HTC One (E8), HTC One mini, HTC One mini 2, HTC One Remix, HTC One Max, HTC Desire 612, and HTC Desire 816. The full list of features is yet to be detailed.
As for other specifications, the HTC Desire Eye boasts of a 5.2-inch full-HD LCD display; Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor; 2GB of RAM; 16GB of inbuilt storage expandable via microSD card (upto 128GB), and a 2400mAh Li-Po battery.
Front-facing stereo speakers powered by HTC Boomsound technology are also onboard the handset. It measures in at 151.7x73.8x8.5mm.