HTC Beat is an Android portable media player?

Over the weekend, an image of a new HTC device called the HTC Beat turned up on the internet, and there were speculations about yet another Android phone from the company. I mean, after HTC Rhyme and HTC Bass – HTC Beat fits in with the naming scheme right? Well, because the first screenshot had the phone’s screen turned off, it was assumed that the device was a phone… until today.

A new screenshot of the HTC Beat has turned up, and this time it has the screen on, which hints at some interesting details. The sceenshot shows the HTC Sense screen with some noticeable changes. Firstly instead of the telephone bar at the bottom of the screen, we see a button to launch “Music”. And also, missing from the top of the display is the Android notification bar which is used to tell the phone’s battery life, signal strength and wireless connection.

Because of those details, there is speculation about the HTC to be a portable media player (PMP) instead of a regular smartphone. Well, there’s no way to tell for sure – after all, it could be a modified version of HTC Sense, and we all know that you can easily hide the notification bar with a custom Android launcher, so nothing is confirmed for now. Plus, judging by the device’s design, it looks like it has a speaker placed at the top, where people normally put their ears at when talking on a phone (though it could just as easily be part of the design, or function as something else).

Anyway, if HTC does enter the Android PMP market, it could do well, seeing how there aren’t really many competitors in the market so far (Samsung and Cowon come to mind). What are your thoughts on a HTC PMP? Especially since HTC does have Beats technology, the company is making sure that all it’s new products make use of the acquisition.

George Wong
Categories: Audio, Cellphones
Tags: Android, HTC, pmp