The HTC Tide is a blast from the past: it’s one of the many Android phones leaked from HTC’s roadmap back in 2009. The thing is, with the unveiling of the HTC ChaCha this week at Mobile World Congress, it’s also the only one that’s still not been released. Could this be HTC’s next “Facebook phone”?
A tipster on the XDA Developers forums back in 2009 leaked no fewer than five incoming HTC Android phones, of which four have since turned up as the HTC Legend, HTC Wildfire, HTC Desire and HTC ChaCha.
Best Android phone: budget Top 5
Still missing from the HTC’s product page over on its website however is this one: the HTC Tide. Originally pencilled in for an April 2010 release, it packed in Wi-Fi, HSDPA and A-GPS, a 3.2 megapixel camera camera, 2.6-inch QVGA touchscreen, and most intriguingly of all, a 0-9 physical numberpad.
That’s incredibly unusual for an Android smartphone, but we could see there being a potential audience for dumbphone upgraders used to typing out texts at speed on a T9 keyboard – and it worked for the INQ Mini 3G so we won’t knock it.
We long ago assumed HTC had scrapped the form factor, but our interest has been reawakened in the light of the HTC ChaCha, also leaked in 2009, only just seeing the light of day, as one of HTC’s first social phones with a dedicated Facebook button.
Further more, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg appeared via video at HTC’s MWC press conference on Tuesday to say that we’ll be seeing “dozens of phones with much deeper social integration than anything we’ve seen so far.”
Could a revamped HTC Tide for 2011 be one of them? Is there a market for it? Time will tell, but sound off with your thoughts right now in the comments below. Would you buy an Android phone with a numbered, like the long lost HTC Tide?
Out TBC | £TBC | HTC
