HTC Viverse release date, price and spec rumors
HTC was once one of the most popular Android phone brands. Its Desire series was a triumph in both design and functionality, but over time the brand faded with a series of phones that failed to sell.
After selling part of its phone business to Google in 2018, it looked like the company would follow the path of LG and Blackberry. But rumors quickly spread that the Taiwanese innovators may be back with a phone that’s different from anything on the market.
Here’s everything we know about the HTC Viverse phone.
When will the HTC Viverse phone be released?
As such, there has been no official announcement of when we’ll see the HTC Viverse phone.
Digitimes in Taiwan reported that HTC General Manager Charles Huang said at Mobile World Congress 2022 in March that the company will be announcing a new high-end smartphone in April 2022 that will focus on Metaverse. However, that doesn’t seem to have happened, so we’re not sure when HTC might make their announcement.
How this will work remains to be seen as the Metaverse is seen as the next iteration of the Internet, but this time in immersive 3D via virtual and augmented reality technologies. However, we’re ready to see how HTC thinks this could apply to smartphones.
At MWC 2022, the company laid out its vision for Viverse, which appears to be its own version of the Metaverse. It makes sense, then, that the phone will join other products that it is currently creating so that people can enter this virtual world of the future.
For a more detailed explanation of the general concept, read What is the Metaverse?
How much will the HTC Viverse phone cost?
Details on the potential cost of any new device from HTC are not available at the time of writing. For any AR and VR experiences to be smooth enough for a phone built with the Metaverse in mind, it will need a powerful processor and top-of-the-line cameras.
Looking at other flagships with these specs, we think you’re likely to find a price point north of £1,000/$1,000.
What about the specifications of the HTC Viverse phone?
Such is the mysterious nature of the HTC Viverse phone, there is little to no information on the web about what components we can expect to see.
In the company’s address at MWC 2022, HTC Chairman and Co-Founder Sher Wang confirmed that Viverse will be built on technologies such as AR/VR, AI, blockchain, and fast 5G. We have already seen some unusual devices in this direction, such as the cryptocurrency-focused HTC Exodus 1, so the Metaverse phone is not as hackable as you might think.
HTC is also hard at work on the Vive VR product line as well as a huge AR/VR software environment, making it one of the most advanced companies in the field. It also states in its promotional videos, and Cher Wang reiterated, that “Viverse will strive to be accessible to everyone, from any online device, through our Vive Connect tool.”
From this we can deduce that the Viverse phone should at least have 5G, perhaps a variation of mmWave which is the fastest currently available, and it will need a solid set of cameras to handle the demands of rendering and hosting AR content on display. .
Again, it takes a powerful processor to process these numbers, so we’d be surprised to see anything less than a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 if the HTC Viverse is coming soon.
In one of the promotional videos for Viverse, we saw someone wearing an HTC Vive VR headset but using a smartphone at the same time. So it’s entirely possible that the phone could be some sort of controller to adjust settings or handle communication things while users are immersed in a virtual reality environment.
Sure, it could be a standard flagship phone with a few dedicated apps. I hope we don’t have to wait long. To find out what devices it will have to overcome if it wants to become a bestseller, take a look at our guides to the best smartphones currently available and the best smartphones coming in 2022.
