Vodafone adds HTC Desire 650 to its prepaid range
This HTC smartphone is a distinctly budget buy.
There’s been significant growth in the Australian market for SIM-only plans, whether you opt for a month-to-month postpaid contract or a classic prepaid-style plan. Such plans presume that you already have a handset because they’re explicitly built around the idea of just selling you a SIM, which has then led to many carriers offering a whole range of low-cost prepaid phones in conjunction.
The latest prepaid phone to land at Vodafone is HTC’s Desire 650. There was a time when the Desire branding denoted HTC’s most premium devices, but that was some time ago, before both the HTC One phones and the more recent HTC U devices (including the HTC U Ultra and HTC U Play phones).
The HTC Desire 650 isn’t a premium device, but you wouldn’t expect it to be with an asking price of only $199 upfront. What you get for that kind of money is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of onboard storage, expandable via microSD up to 2TB. Although, a 2TB card in the Desire 650 would be somewhat lunacy, given that it would cost a great deal more than the phone that you’re throwing it into.
The Desire 650’s screen is a 5-inch 720p TFT LCD, while on the camera front it features a 13MP f/2.2 rear camera and 5MP f/2.8 front selfie shooter. In network terms, it supports CAT4 LTE for up to 150Mbps download speeds. The Desire 650 runs on Android 6.0 ("Marshmallow"), which is slightly disappointing when you consider that Android 7.0 ("Nougat") has been available for some time now. Then again, the key takeaway for this particular phone is that you're really not paying much for it at all.
HTC Desire 650: Specifications
| Feature | Specifications |
|---|---|
| OS | Android 6.0 ("Marshmallow") |
| Screen size | 5.0 inches |
| Resolution | 720x1280 TFT LCD |
| Display density | 294ppi |
| Storage | 16GB |
| Weight | 140g |
| Processor | Snapdragon 400 |
| Rear camera | 13MP |
| Front camera | 5MP |
| Battery | 2200mAh |
