HTC-made Google Nexus 9 announced with Tegra K1 chip

As expected, today Google announced its latest tablet - the HTC-made Nexus 9 tablet. The tablet runs on Android 5.0, which has just been confirmed to be called Lollipop and packs a 9" IPS LCD with the unusual for Android aspect ratio and a resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels (that's 4:3 aspect ratio).

The 7.9mm thick Google Nexus 9 is powered by the Nvidia Tegra K1 chip with a 2.3GHz CPU, the very potent Kepler DX1 GPU and 2GB of RAM. The available storage is either 16 or 32GB, but there's no expansion slot.

HTC Desire EYE price revealed, costs as much as HTC One (M8)

HTC today announced the Desire EYE, alongside the HTC Re standalone camera (quite an odd camera, we must say), but didn’t reveal how much the two new devices would cost. However, it looks like French website Nowhere Else knows how much the Desire EYE will cost.

According to the website, the new handset should be available in France before the end of this month for €529. Since that’s also the price of theHTC One (M8) in France, it’s probably safe to assume that the Desire EYE will cost about as much as the One (M8) in all markets - including in the US, where it should be launched soon.

The Desire EYE is an unusual smartphone, because it has a 13 MP rear camera, as well as a 13 MP front-facing camera, each with its own dual LED flash set-up. Thanks to these cameras, the EYE should be very good at taking both regular photos, and selfies.

Running Android KitKat with Sense 6 UI, the Desire EYE also features a 5.2-inch display with 1080 x 1920 pixels, BoomSound speakers, a quad-core 2.3 GHz Snapdragon 801 processor, 2 GB of RAM, and 16 GB of expandable internal memory. The handset weighs 154 grams, measures 151.7 x 73.8 x 8.5 mm, and comes with a 2400 mAh battery.

HTC unveils the Desire EYE, a selfie-centric high-end smartphone with a gigantic camera front 13MP

HTC's most recent flagships, the HTC One and the HTC One (M8), have been getting quite a lot of flak due to their underperforming Ultrapixel rear cameras, but the company has been rarely criticized for failing to endow its high-end phones with good front-facing snappers. It looks that the company is trying to push the limits in this segment even more, as its latest device can easily snatch the crown and become the ultimate selfie phone from a well-known manufacturer. 

At its long-scheduled press event today, HTC unveiled the 5.2” HTC Desire EYE, a device that is equipped with a humongous 13MP (not a typo) front-facing camera. Whoa. Undoubtedly, HTC's newest smartphone is a direct rival to the selfie-centric mid-rangers of its bigger rivals, namely Sony's Xperia C3, Samsung's Galaxy Grand Prime, and Microsoft's Nokia Lumia 730. There's a vital difference between these devices and the HTC Desire EYE, though - the latter has nothing to be ashamed of in the hardware department.

Design

Frankly said, the two-color, unibody Desire EYE is not as compact as similar 5.2” devices. It has dimensions of 151.7 x 73.8 x 8.5 mm and tips the scales at 154 gr, which is just a tad larger than the 5.2” Sony Xperia Z3, for example. Among most probable causes for the elongated silhouette of the device is the additional space required to fit in the large sensor of the front facing camera. 

The front-facing BoomSound speakers at the front of the device have most probably taken their toll on the size, too – you might not seem them at first sight, but they are right there, hidden between the display's black bezels and the contrasting frame. The BoomSound speakers also come with the signature built-in audio amplifiers. Meanwhile, a trio of noise-canceling microphones and HTC's Sense Voice technology take care of your voice reproduction.

Oh, and HTC has finally jumped on the trendy-of-late water-resistant bandwagon, as the HTC Desire EYE is IPX7-certified, meaning that it can survive in up to 1 meter of water for as long as 30 minutes.