HTC scored no points with Nokia today as it announced its new smartphones, the Desire HD and Desire HD Z, at a press conference in London that conflicted with Nokia’s annual conference taking place in the same city.
At a press event in London, HTC unveiled what are essentially the European versions of the HTC Evo 4G. The Desire HD features most of the same features as the Evo, and the Desire Z features a pop hinge that opens to reveal a qwerty keyboard.
The Desire HD features a 4.3-inch LCD display, 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, 720p HD video recording, 8-megapixel camera with dual-flash and the same unibody heritage of the HTC Legend, which is sculpted from a block of solid aluminum. It also includes the new HTC Fast Boot, which is supposed to shorten the time taken to complete the power-up sequence.
HTC Desire Z includes a few downgrades from the Desire HD. The Z features 720p HD video recording, a 5-megapixel camera with automatic flash, an 800MHz Qualcomm 7230 processor and HTC Fast Boot.
The Desire HD and Desire Z will be broadly available through mobile operators and retailers across major European and Asian markets in October, with the HTC Desire Z shipping in North America later this year.
While HTC was showing off the Desire devices, Nokia was apparently fuming. According to reports from Tech Crunch, Nokia was bothered enough by HTC’s conflicting press event, which HTC scheduled just weeks before the kick-off of Nokia World, that it sent people carrying red balloons to stand outside the entrance of HTC’s event. The balloons bore the message, “I know where I’m going with Nokia’s Ovi Maps.”
To add even more venom to the statement, Nokia handed out HTC press event “survival kits,” to those who were leaving Nokia World to attend the HTC event. The kits included such items as ear plugs and an eye mask, “in case you feel snoozy.” The Nokia survival kits included a message that noted HTC stands for “Ham, Tomato & Cheese (not the most exciting) sandwich.”
When reached for comment, a Nokia spokesman pointed to a tweet posted on Nokia’s corporate Twitter account, which read: “HTC drives buses up to our front door to hijack #nokiaworld – so we give out red balloons plus lunch…and u call us “dirty”!? LOL!”
Indeed, more than one outlet reported that HTC sent transportation to the Nokia World event to draw reporters to its event. It’s worth noting that Nokia’s event was scheduled a year ahead of time, and HTC scheduled its event only weeks ago.
HTC could not be reached for comment on the matter before press time.
