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With Design/Lifestyle and Social out of the way, it’s time for the interesting stuff…Performance. Unfortunately there is only one device but it’s by far and away the pick of the new HTC bunch and will provide real competition for the Sony Ericsson X10.

HTC Bravo - “Everything you want comes to life on Bravo” – April 2010

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This is what everyone wants to see, a high end, high powered, feature packed device. The Bravo is the 1GHz Snapdragon device which has long been rumoured to be coming from HTC and while the RAM is listed as 256MB, B3ler3fonte at xda-developers claims this will be increased to 512MB. Focusing on the real specs however, the Bravo is still very impressive with a 3.7″ AMOLED, WVGA screen, a 5MP camera with flash and HD video recording at 720p, DivX & Dolby support and a 16GB microSD card in the box!

The obvious rival for the Bravo is the X10 and the release dates could be key. We already know that Sony Ericsson won’t make their original February estimate but now they have a real target as they must aim to release before the Bravo arrives in April 2010 with similar specs and a slimmer body at 112 x 56 x 11.7mm compared to the X10’s 119 x 63 x 13mm.

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We’ve seen the leaked Design/Lifestyle handsets from HTC’s 2010 portfolio and now it’s time to see what the company has in store for the social networking market. These devices have an obvious focus on the social networking sites such as facebook, twitter, flickr as well as IM and also present us with the first Android devices with full keypads on the front.

HTC Tide - Touch or type, you decide” – April 2010:

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Here we have the first Android with a physical alpha-numeric keypad albeit at the cost of screen size, there’s just 2.68″ for you here. However, this isn’t trying to be an awe inspiring multi-media device and instead is geared for social networking and easier text input. There’s also HTC’s new “Friendstream” which is probably along the lines of Sony Ericsson’s Timescape which compiles all your social networking data into one place , it’s worth noting though that Friendstream is actually available on all these new HTC devices and not just the Social ones.

The bad news again is that the 528MHz Qualcomm makes another appearance along with 256MB RAM and a 3.2MP camera while the battery is a worrying 1130mAh.

HTC Salsa - “Social Networking with an EDGE” – June 2010:

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The Salsa is the first Android with a full qwerty keypad on the front of the device and of course resembles it’s Blackberry and Nokia E-Series competitors. Personally I think it’s catastrophically ugly but there seems to be a market for this style of device. Again social networking and text input are the goals here while specs remain similar to the Tide with a 2.6″ screen (landscape this time), 3.2MP camera, 256MB RAM and yes, once again, the Qualcomm 528MHz processor! This is outdated now so I have real concerns for this device launching with such hardware in June of next year and as if that wasn’t enough the battery is a meagre 1100mAh, there may be trouble ahead for the Salsa.

Coming in Part 3: “Performance” from the HTC Bravo

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HTC’s device portfolio for 2010 has been leaked via a scanned brochure over at HTC loving xda-developers.com. While there are WM devices in there too, it’s really only the Android ones which interest me.

HTC have grouped their new range into a few categories, the first of which is “Design/Lifestyle” and as you would expect this contains handsets focused on design and customisability.

HTC Legend - “Stlyed for life” - March 2010:

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This is a device with a heavy focus on design with it’s stylish uni-body aluminium construction and just 11.4mm thickness, though the red backside on it looks a little odd to me and is reminiscent of the original iPhone. The device runs HTC Sense and clearly looks like a successor to the Hero with slightly changed, not necessarily improved, specs including a 600MHz processor, slightly less RAM and a lower capacity battery!

HTC Buzz - “Applications are meant for sharing” – May 2010:

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The Buzz puts emphasis on customisation with various designs for the rear cover and UI and as such is likely to replace the Tattoo. Perhaps one of the most interesting things about this device is a feature listed as “Application Sharing”, quite what this is remains to be seen. Also worth a mention is that the camera include face recognition, with the Xperia X10 also having this we can hope to see this as a regular feature for future Android devices.

Less impressive is the tired old 528MHz Qualcomm processor being wheeled out again with 256MB RAM.

Coming in Part 2: “Social” with the HTC Salsa and Tide…