HTC on Friday posted an open invitation to the public for a special event on September 1. The London gathering would give fans and the media alike a chance to "see what's next." No clues were given as to what the device roster would be.
The HTC Kingdom smartphone due at Sprint and leaked back in May will be known as the Hero 4G, according to a user posting a comment in the original PocketNow report. The user, override182, found this out when peeking at the Kingdom ROM loaded onto his Desire HD.
HTC was said late Monday to be holding a special event in London on June 27 where it would unveil new devices. Few details were available, but it would supposedly be preceded by an event in Utretcht four days earlier. The presentation would show "where design and advanced technology can lead," Planet Android understood.
The upcoming HTC Kingdom handset has now shown up at the FCC, undergoing regulatory testing. The only new piece of information confirmed by the listing is that it will get a CDMA and WiMAX radio that supports Sprint's network. Also confirmed is a 4.3-inch touchscreen with qHD (540x960) resolution.
HTC's mystery Kingdom was sighted for Sprint today in a sign the carrier was significantly raising the bar for its mid-range Android phones. The phone now appears to be a hardware-upgraded Incredible S with a single-core but faster 1.2GHz Snapdragon MSM7630 processor, a sharper four-inch 540x960 display, and WiMAX 4G. PocketNow understood that it still had 768MB of RAM and a 1.3-megapixel front camera, although it was unusually going to drop to a five-megapixel rear camera instead of the Incredible's eight.
HTC may not be finished with major phone introductions in 2011 as two leaks from the same source have pointed to two new models. One, the Kingdom, looks like a potentially smaller version of the Sensation but with the same 540x960 display resolution. The other, the Rider, has fewer details still from its 911sniper source but conspicuously has the same touch-sensitive button style as on Sprint's Evo-series phones.
