HTC 10 with Ultra Pixel camera to make its way to India soon

Taiwanese handset-maker HTC has said that it is planning to launch its latest premium smartphone in the country soon

Taiwanese handset-maker HTC has said that it is planning to launch its latest premium smartphone in the country soon

Taiwanese handset-maker HTC has said that it is planning to launch its latest premium smartphone in the country soon.

"We are pleased to announce that global flagship HTC 10 is coming soon to India. Stay tuned for the announcement and the availability date," Faisal Siddiqui, president HTC South Asia, said.

Announced Tuesday, the HTC 10 phone is expected to be available in late April. The company didn't immediately announce pricing.

The 5.2 inch HTC 10 has Qualcomm Snapdragon processor with computing speed of up to 2.2 Ghz. It has 32GB internal memory and supports external storage of up to 2 terabyte or about 2,000GB. Other notable features in the HTC 10 include a powerful battery — promised at two days — and the ability to customize the home screen so that app icons don't all have to stay in a grid. There will be stickers of different sizes to move around and create a personalised design.

HTC is also giving a slight boost to the selfie camera — to 5 megapixels, matching the Apple and Samsung phones. It also joins its rivals in letting the screen serve as a front-facing flash.

The camera unit tries to strikes balance — larger individual pixels, but not as large as before. The rear camera is now 12 megapixels, the same as the latest iPhones and Samsung Galaxy phones.

"What we tried to do ... is to get the best of both worlds," said Nigel Newby-House, HTC's associate vice president for product planning in North America. In last year's HTC One M9 phone, "the imaging performance was not up to the kind of spec of what we really like to see in a flagship."

HTC's flagship phones have drawn good reviews in the past, but it's had trouble translating those into sales. The company doesn't currently rank as one of the top five phone manufacturers worldwide, according to the market-research firm Gartner. In recent months, HTC has branched out to fitness and virtual-reality devices. But it isn't giving up on phones.

It has very little UI enhancements and sticks mostly to a stock Android look. This should make it easier for HTC to upgrade the 10 from its present version of Marshmallow 6.0 to Android N much more quickly. For audiophiles, the phone can now handle higher-quality sound files, and the two external speakers have been tweaked so that one focuses on high end notes, while the other emphasises bass.