HTC is expected to unveil new products next week, as the Taiwanese company confirmed a “U” launch event for January 12. Among the new devices that could go live in just a couple of days, there’s one that we haven’t heard before, an HTC Vive branded smartphone.
While we reported about two unannounced smartphones that are suppose to be announced on January 12, the HTC U Ultra (also known as HTC Ocean) and HTC U Play, the new device wearing the Vive brand is completely new to us.
The smartphone was spotted for the first time in an official video that HTC has prepared for us, which was recently leaked by Evan Blass.
The video shows a couple of cases that that Taiwanese company is likely to introduce next week, so there’s a chance that the HTC Vive brand is just a unique case for one of the smartphones launched on January 12.
On the other hand, we don’t see why HTC will put the Vive branding on a simple case, so an HTC Vive smartphone would make much more sense.
HTC 2017? pic.twitter.com/ppONWlT5Mr
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) January 8, 2017
The cases shown in the video indicate that HTC is ready to launch a special program for fans who want to customize their smartphones, much like Motorola’s Moto Maker. There are three types of cases that will be unveiled next week, based on material and pattern.
Even if it’s just a HTC Vive branded case that the handset maker plans to introduce in order to allow customers to customize their smartphones further, it will surely be interesting to find out what makes it so special in comparison with other cases.
HTC is expected to launch at least three Android smartphones in Q1 2017, the HTC U Ultra, HTC U Play and HTC One X10.
The HTC Vive branded smartphone would be the fourth if the device shown in the image is really a phone and not a simple case.
