HTC’s flagship device, the HTC 11, is rumored to come with the powerful Snapdragon 835 SoC and is one of the most awaited smartphones of 2017. Rumors are aplenty suggesting different release date for the device. One such news is the launch of HTC 11 at MWC 2017 press conference. However, this seems unlikely. Why? It’s a merry-go-round story.
The majority of Snapdragon 835 processor’s supply has been booked by Samsung for its Galaxy S8, leaving Qualcomm short on meeting the demand of their flagship processor chip for devices by other manufacturers. And for HTC, the 2017 flagship must carry the Qualcomm’s flagship CPU on board. So, logically its release during the event is out of question.
Chialin Chang, President of Smartphones and Connected Devices at HTC, was also quoted as saying that “[they] want to have a couple of months of leadership before the next flagship CPU comes (…) but that will be in another period of time — not at MWC.” This means that devices being released at MWC will not come with a Snapdragon 835 processor.
Now, it is no longer a secret that Samsung Galaxy S8 will come with the new Snapdragon 835 processor and is slated to be released on March 29 in the US and the UK. But it is not the only one to have the new chipset. The likes of Xiaomi Mi6, Oppo Find 9, Meizu MX7 and PRO7 are also in line to utilize the Qualcomm’s best.
“When the next CPU flagship comes, HTC will be one of the very first tier doing that,” Chang stated and Snapdragon 835 processor is already in so much demand. Undoubtedly, this brings us to believe that we may have to wait a bit longer for launch of HTC 11 until the availability of Snapdragon 835 or Snapdragon 840/845 becomes certain.
