HTC Unveils Mid-Range Desire 501 and Desire 700 Smartphones

At a press event held earlier today, HTC showcased four new smartphones from its Desire series targeting its home market of Taiwan. The company unveiled two new mid-range devices, the Desire 501 and 700, while also highlighting the Desire 300 and dual-SIM 601, which it first introduced back in Oct.

The Desire 501 offers a 4.3-inch 800 x 480-pixel display, a dual-core 1.15GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage with microSD support, a 8-megapixel rear camera, and apparently no front-facing camera. The new handset comes in silver, pink and black models and runs Sense 4 with an unspecified version of Android. HTC says the Desire 501 will cost NT$9,900 ($334).

Meanwhile, the Desire 700 comes equipped with a full 5-inch display but a disappointing resolution of just 960 x 540 pixels. It also sports a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage with microSD support, dual SIM card slots, an 8-megapixel rear camera, a weaker secondary camera, and BoomSound front-facing speakers. HTC’s new mid-range handset comes in black and runs Sense 5. It costs NT$13,900 (roughly $470).

Neither of HTC’s new smartphones will blow you away, and the company doesn’t expect to compete on a global scale with its latest Desire devices. Instead, HTC likely hopes it can leverage its home-field advantage in Taiwan to cut back on losses while it gears up to release a successor to its flagship HTC One.