Skip to main content

HTC outs Desire 816 and Power to Give initiative

htc a11 64 bit smartphone news desire 816 allcolors
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Remember the HTC Desire 8 that we reported on recently? HTC decided to let the cat out of the bag and officially announce the leaked handset as the Desire 816. While that did not surprise us, the company’s Power to Give initiative sure did.

First, the handset. The Desire 816 packs a 5.5-inch 1280 x 720 pixel display. It is powered by a 1.6GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, backed up by 1.5GB of RAM. While the 8GB of internal storage might scare some users, that fear is remedied by the available MicroSD expansion slot, which supports up to 128GB MicroSD cards.

Recommended Videos

The back camera is of a 13-megapixel variety, interesting given HTC’s recent push with Ultrapixels. The front-facing camera, meanwhile, packs 5 megapixels. There is a reason HTC calls the Desire 816 the perfect selfie-taking device, after all. The rear and front-facing cameras are capable of 1080p and 720p video recording, respectively.

HTC did not reveal what version of Android the Desire 816 will ship with, though it will be all under Sense 5.5. The company did reveal that the Desire 816 would get the latest version of Sense via an over-the-air update. We have typical connectivity features — Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, and optional NFC — as well as 4G LTE capabilities.

The HTC Desire 816 will be available globally in April, though China gets first dibs in March. There is no word on pricing yet.

Now let us get to this Power to Give program. The program allows users to have part of their phone’s processing power diverted to research programs of their choosing. Using the volunteered processing power, these organizations can then further their research into whatever they’re analyzing, whether it may be AIDS or searching for extra-terrestrial life.

The HTC Power to Give program will be available to users by way of an app, which HTC will initially offer as a beta to owners of the HTC One, One Mini, One Max, Butterfly, and Butterfly S. To take advantage of the initiative, users will need to run the app while the phone is charging and connected to Wi-Fi.

Power to Give will be available to a wider array of Android smartphones in “the coming six months”, while owners of the previously mentioned handsets can download the app sometime soon, we presume.

Williams Pelegrin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Williams is an avid New York Yankees fan, speaks Spanish, resides in Colorado, and has an affinity for Frosted Flakes. Send…
2025 could finally be the year of a budget-friendly Samsung Galaxy Z Flip
A person closing the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6.

The idea of a more budget-friendly Samsung clamshell has gained steam as well-known leakers drop more and more hints that a new Galaxy Z Flip is on the way. Today, another leak from someone in the know adds even more credence to that rumor.

Ross Young made a post on X where he suggested that Samsung might release a Z Flip 7 FE in 2025 with the clamshell design fans have waited for. Young has a proven record for accurate leaks, and their work in the supply chain gives him a unique insight into what companies are working on.

Read more
Google just announced Android 16. Here’s everything new
The Android 16 logo on a smartphone, resting on a shelf.

No, that headline isn't a typo. A little over a month after Android 15 was released to the masses in October, Google has already announced Android 16 and begun rolling out its first developer beta of the newest Android version.

If this seems like a much earlier release than usual, that's because it is. We typically expect the first developer beta of the next Android update to arrive in February. For Android 16, however, Google has pushed the timeline up by a few months and launched Android 16 Developer Preview 1 in mid-November.
Why Android 16 is launching so much earlier

Read more
Here’s every Pixel phone that can download Android 16 Developer Preview 1
The Google Pixel 9 Pro XL next to the Google Pixel 8 Pro.

Even though Android 15 launched only recently, Google is already moving on to Android 16, which is much earlier than is typical. And if you have a Pixel device from the past couple of years, you can get the Android 16 Developer Preview 1 right now.

Typically, when Google releases a beta for Android, the Pixel lineup gets it first before any other phones. When Google announced Android 16 earlier today, we didn’t know exactly which Pixel models would be able to get the Developer Preview. But Google just revealed which models can run Android 16, and two of them are a bit surprising.

Read more