Out of nowhere, HTC just announced a new mid-tier phone. In a closed event limited to members of the press alone, HTC announced the HTC Desire 816 mere hours before Samsung shines the spotlight on its new lineup of devices.

The Desire 816 borrows design cues from the rest of the HTC One family, will be available in black, green, white, red. It’s definitely not a flagship hset like the One, but it could help buoy HTC’s lagging smartphone effort, reaching the ever-growing market of price-conscious smartphone buyers, especially in Asia. Its form factor should also appeal to folks who want some something in between a “normal-sized” large phone a full-on phablet.

oto:

It’s a mid-tier phone with a giant, 5.5-inch display, front-facing speakers (like its siblings, the HTC One HTC One Max), a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, a 13 megapixel rear-facing camera, a 5 megapixel front-facing camera. The phone will be available in h in China, rolling out everywhere else afterward.

’re still waiting for HTC to announce its flagship product for the year. Cher ng, the co-founder chairperson of HTC, said at the beginning of the event that although she wished she could have revealed it at M, “we have to keep the surprise for just one more month.”