HTC Showcase Event

On the 25th November, HTC were in the Blu Radisson in Dublin to showcase their wares. The Christmas decorations were up, the devices were out and the staff were passionate and eager to chat. Here is a selection of the products on show.

HTC Desire EYE

The latest edition to the Desire family, the HTC Desire EYE, was announced in October. Boasting a 13MP camera, with 1080p full HD video recording and two-tone, dual-LED flash, on both the front and the rear, this phone seems built to rival their current HTC One M8 flagship phone. The only drawback is the plastic body as opposed to the HTC One M8’s metal chassis.

However this phone feels very comfy in the hand. It’s lightweight at just 154 grams, while still packing a punch with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC. Some of the camera features include Face Tracking, Split Capture, Face Fusion, Live Makeup and Auto Selfie. There’s a real drive towards the Social Media age with this phone too as it includes the Zoe Share functionality. Zoe Share combines your still images and videos into a 30 second highlight reel which can be shared on Facebook, Whatsapp, Email etc. When you share the unique URL friends can watch the 30 second clip, but they can also view the individual pieces of media which were used to create it.

RE Camera

RE is a remarkable little camera, that lets you focus on the moment and not on a viewfinder. It’s a handheld camera that is designed to be used with one hand. Take photos and videos, with nifty effects such as time-lapse and slow motion. RE boasts a wide angle lens, 16MP camera and 1080p Full HD video. Hopefully very soon, RE will offer real-time video streaming to YouTube, allowing you to live in the moment and share it live via your YouTube channel.

Out of the box it can be used underwater to a depth of 1 metre for 30 minutes, and you can get attachments to allow underwater use of up to 3 metres for 2 hours.

HTC have designed this to work with Android and iOS, so it integrates photos and videos into your photo gallery via the app. You can use this app to see live previews and can take photos using the app while synced to RE. With an 8GB Micro SD card included, you can store the images directly onto the SD card until you’re ready to sync them to your phone or the cloud.

RE will be available on Vodafone next week, retailing at €169.

Nexus 9

The Nexus 9 is HTC and Googles first outing together since the first Google device back in 2010, the HTC Google Nexus One.

This 8.9 inch tablet is powered by Android 5.0, Lollipop, the latest OS release from Google. It has the expected HTC BoomSound front-facing stereo speakers and syncs easily to Chromecast. Lollipop combined with the 2.3 GHz 64-bit NVIDIA Tegra K1 Dual Denver SoC, gives the Nexus 9 better multitasking and there’s a real seamless feel when switching apps.

The available accessories for the Nexus 9 include the magnetic cover, which allows you to take a picture by folding back a corner, and the Keyboard Folio which connects via Bluetooth and doubles as a cover itself.