HTC making so many phones - mistake?

Y

Yourasssmells.

New member
Hi,

I made this thread on another forum, but that one moves a bit slowly, so I was hoping I'd get more opinions here.

Do you think HTC is making too many phones?

On the plus side, the many phones is a great thing because it provides both the consumers and mobile carriers with plenty of choice. However, there has to be a threshold, beyond which support from HTC (and even optimizations during the design phase) for each individual phone must suffer.

Right now, there are so many Android HTC phones out there, most of them begging to be upgraded to Eclair or Froyo. There are reported issues with battery life, unlocking tools, inconsistent touch response etc. I'm worried that this may reflect badly on the Android OS.

Do you think HTC should reduce the number of phones they release just a tad and concentrate on providing quality support to the fewer number of phones? Or perhaps you are not yet convinced that the aforementioned threshold has been passed yet and they can handle all the releases so far?

Thoughts? Cheers.
 
Froyo hasn't been officially released. Regardless of how many people are running it on their N1. Sure we HTC owners want the upgrade but you have to put some of this stuff in perspective. 2.1 Eclair is the latest and greatest right now no matter what anyone says. When Froyo has an official release we can talk about the fact that the Incredible and Evo don't have it yet.

HTC is being smart. Most of the internals are the same between these phones. There are some technical differences but once you find a pattern that works there is no reason you can't have 20 different types for different carriers.

I also kind of like that my Verizon phone is different from the sprint phone. The size is just right for me after testing both in my hands.
 
I agree 100%. The inner workings of most HTC phones are very similar, if not the same. Since not everyone has the same taste in looks or features, it's smart to create different models to suit different tastes.

If auto makers made only one model car, would you consider them smart for doing so? I think not, since one car does not fit everyone's needs. Yet, most cars by the same auto maker uses mostly similar parts. The same goes for phones and I think that HTC has recognized this and is capitalizing on it.
 
I agree with you 100%. The different sets of hardware running the same mobile OS is the strength of Android, and I would be last person to want HTC to standardize to only a couple of handsets.

I was merely wondering if there is such a thing as too many handsets by the same company, in this context, and if so, have we reached that number yet. I suppose Android is still quite new and still going through teething issues. Hopefully HTC can make the process of sending Android OS updates to their handsets much quicker in the near future.
 
HTC is playing it correctly. For every carrier, they've given a competitive phone. They're basically attacking on all fronts. On VZW their competition is Motorola. On AT&T it's obviously the iPhone. All other carriers they would be the "top of the line" phone. The goal is to get as many handsets out on as many carriers as possible -- and for that they're succeeding. The likelihood that someone switches providers is super low, especially if there's a similar phone on each carrier that the consumer likes.
 
I think variety is very Important because everyone have different taste and uses for their device if we just have less models or one model maybe we don't find devices that fit our use.
 
I think HTC biggest issue right now is quality controle.
If im going to buy their latest and greatest handset out that has android it better be jsut that. I dont want hardware caps, and touch screen issues....god damn it if you gonna call something ground breaking and the other stuff falls short becuase of minor quality oversite your'll have alot of pissed off consumers...esp if you trying to be viable competitor to the ip4.

HTC get your quality together esp on the higer end phones!!!

Other than that i dont care how many handset they put out...as long as the best work like the best. Like the Nexus One.
 
I agree with what other people have said. Internally they're very similar, and as they all run the same OS it's not really much of a big deal to support all these different handsets. They all work pretty much the same.

On the plus side, it does give consumers a large choice of phones, so you can get cheap or expensive, big screens or small screens, keyboards or not, good camera or crap, etc...

...but does it? HTC have a ton of phones out, but how many does your mobile network provide? I think my network has 2 HTC Android phones. But does that make any difference? If HTC made less phones I'd still have less choice, only that way I'd not have any better choice by buying contract-free or on another network.

Every new phone that comes out has some new hardware or leading feature. For example, we had the HTC Dream as the first Android phone, HTC Desire with its optical trackball, HTC Evo as the first with 4G, HTC Hero as the first with Sense UI. Each time this happens it sets a standard for what Android is capable of, and what future phones "must have". This pushes the evolution of the phones they release.

On the negative side, I keep putting off buying a new phone because every time I decide on "the one" something better is rumoured to be just around the corner.
 
Exactly... I have the same issue. Apple fixes that issue by having yearly releases. I wish HTC would launch their higher-end phones in a more predictable fashion. Who knows, maybe the Nexus Two (if it happens) will be on a predictable release schedule.
 
As long as they support their products, I don't see the volume as a problem. If they give you the 'what's that' treatment because your 6 month old phone is seven generations outdated, then that would be upsetting.
 
These 2 points are what I am primarily worried about. The speed of support and quality control.

Still, there's a lot of optimism in this thread which makes me much more confident than I was before I started this thread.
 
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