HTC to launch mid-range Desire 500 Android smartphone in August

We have all been preoccupied with HTC’s current One range of smartphones lately and just when we are looking the other way the Taiwanese company reveals a new mid-range Desire model in the form of the HTC Desire 500.

The new model will be a mid-range smartphone that will be initially released in Asia before it lands on our UK shores at the end of the month.

The Desire 500 comes with some decent features including a 4.3-inch WVGA LCD display with a 800 x 480 resolution. Inside it runs the Android Jelly Bean OS with HTC Sense 5 interface on a 1.2GHz quad-core processor with 1GB of RAM. One surprise with the Desire 500 is the inclusion of a large 8 megapixel rear camera with a dedicated HTC ImageChip processor and f/2.0 28mm lens which belies the phone’s middle of the road look.

See also: Entry level HTC Desire 200 launched with Beats Audio

Internally there is 4GB of internal memory which can also be expanded by up to 64GB via the micro SD slot, with a 1800mAh battery which should tide the phone over power wise. There will be dual-SIM and NFC versions of the handset  available in some countries but there is no definitive news on just where and how much each model will be available for at the moment.

The Desire 500 will also come with some of HTC’s headline features such as Beats Audio processing and the Blinkfeed system which gives the user a tile-based homescreen with updates from websites and social sites.

The Desire range of smartphones – currently the Desire 200 and Desire 600 are the newest out –  is now associated with the budget to mid-range smartphone market for HTC but they are normally decent Android running phones with lower price tags. The Desire 500 will be available in ‘Lacquer black’ and ‘Glacier blue’ when it’s released in August in the UK.