Reports emerged earlier this month that Google was preparing a special low-cost Pixel phone for India and other emerging markets. Now, new evidence has surfaced online revealing that the device has some influence of HTC in it.
Chinese blog Qooah has claimed Google is developing an affordable Pixel phone under the codename "Desire".
Does it ring a bell?
Anybody with a keen interest in smartphones for last decade would have already remembered by now that the Desire series was one of the most popular mid-range phones of the now-struggling HTC.
Last year, Google acquired a major chunk of the mobile division of financially-strained HTC and also moved most of the new workforce to its Pixel R&D team in the US. So, it comes as no surprise for us to know that the upcoming device is being called "Desire". But it has to be noted that this is a codename and not the commercial name for the Google phone.
The device is most likely to come with the Pixel series tag, probably with an alphabet like "M" for medium or "S" for small, similar to company's current naming strategy — "XL" for the big-screen top-end model.
Sources have also said the mid-range Pixel phone will run the Android Go edition OS. For the uninitiated, it is a special mobile software designed specifically for budget smartphones with bare minimum hardware — like 1GB RAM (or less) RAM. It is very light in size, but does not compromise in terms of performance.
The Android team has also tweaked the preinstalled Google apps (like Files Go, Google Go, Maps Go and YouTube Go) to take up 50 percent less space, making sure users of low-end smartphones get more space for music, apps, photos and other activities.
Also, like all the Pixel-series phones, the new mid-range Android Go edition phone is guaranteed to get software support for a minimum of three years, and also get the latest updates and security patches before any other rival brand in the market.
As of now, there is no word on hardware details of the mid-range Google Pixel. But rumor has it that the Android phone will be launched first in India, around July-August, so we can expect more details making its way to the Internet sooner than later.
