HTC Explorer: Affordable Android Smartphone

Like its Korean rival Samsung, HTC is making sure it's got every corner of the mobile market covered, releasing a whole range of smartphones from high-end handsets to entry-level phones like the new Explorer.


Every week seems to bring a new HTC handset at the moment, as the manufacturer has been particularly prolific in 2011. After presenting two upcoming Windows Phone mobiles, the Titan and Radar, Taiwanese manufacturer HTC clearly affirmed its multi-platform product strategy by presenting the Rhyme mid-to-high-level Android mobile just last week.

Now HTC is back with an entry-level option named the Explorer. This smartphone weighs 108 g, runs on Android 2.3, and is presented as a budget model that HTC is aiming at users who aren't bothered about top-notch technology—not the firm's usual target customers, then. Even though it'll no doubt come at an attractive price, the Explorer will still have to work hard to find its place in what's becoming a very crowded market (Samsung, LG, Acer, ZTE etc.).

The HTC Explorer has a 3.2-inch screen which, at 480 x 320 pixels, is far from the kind of resolution seen in top-of-the-range models. Plus, the Explorer has a 600 MHz processor, compared with 1 GHz or more further up the market or at least 1.2 GHz for a dual-core processor. It has 512 MB of memory and you'll soon need to pick up micro SD card, as there's only 90 MB of storage space for apps! The Explorer has a 3-Megapixel camera for still shots or SD video and comes loaded with version 3.5 of HTC's excellent Sense graphic user interface.

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