HTC may come out with a selfie phone, but it's going to be the Desire EYE

As the selfie trend continues to evolve, smartphone manufacturers seek to gain customers' acclaim by either upgrading the front-facing cams on their flagships, or creating more budget-friendly devices with quality frontal snappers and corners cut elsewhere; some even go as far as creating weird smartphone-holding hats, or perfume-shaped cameras with rotatable heads.

As far as selfie smartphones go – Sony came out with the Xperia C3, Microsoft launched the Lumia 730 / 735, and Samsung has the Galaxy Grand Prime rolling out – all phones with less-than-impressive hardware, but with pretty adequate front-snappers.

Now, we've been hearing about HTC jumping in the selfie mix, with rumors about a One (M8) EYE model popping here and there that is supposed to cater to the new trend. This begged the question – what would HTC do with the One's 5 MP front-facing camera in order to make it better? Well, it seems the answer is “nothing”, as the (M8) Eye just passed certification in China yesterday, and it seems it retains most of its hardware. In fact, the only change seems to be to the main camera – HTC decided to do away with the not-so-well received 4 MP UltraPixel Duo camera and equipped the device with a 13 MP Duo camera.

However, do not think that the HTC selfie phone rumors are done! Leakster @upleaks posted a collage of pictures of what he calls the HTC Desire Eye. The pictures show a simple, thin, colorful device that sports a flash not only on its back, but also next to its frontal cam. The leakster also posted specs – quad-core Snapdragon 801 clocked at 2.4 GHz, 5.2” FHD display, 13 MP sensors for both cameras, 2 GB RAM, 32 GB internal storage, 2,400 mAh battery, and BoomSound speakers. The tweet also mentions an IPX7 certification, which means water-proofing for up to 30 minutes at a 1 meter depth. These specs sound great, but considering that the Desire line takes up the mid-range of HTC's devices, we'd say that this info should be taken with a grain of salt.

Furthermore, @upleaks says that the One (M8) and Butterfly 2 will be getting selfie-specialized software updates soon; and that the One (E8), One Mini, One Mini 2, One (M7), One Max, and Desire 816 will be getting the same updates when Android L rolls out.

What do you think about the Desire EYE's specs? Does it sound too good to be true?

HTC Desire Eye(a.k.a EYE); S801 2.3GHz*4, 5.2" FHD, 13MP/13MP, 2GB/32GB, 2400mAh removable, Sense 6 for EYE, IPX7

— @upleaks (@upleaks) October 3, 2014

source: @upleaks via Android Central