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HTC Desire 200 pocket-friendly in size, probably price too

The HTC Desire 200 is a smart phone roughly the size of a credit card, with specs that suggest a credit card-friendly price.

Richard Trenholm Former Movie and TV Senior Editor
Richard Trenholm was CNET's film and TV editor, covering the big screen, small screen and streaming. A member of the Film Critic's Circle, he's covered technology and culture from London's tech scene to Europe's refugee camps to the Sundance film festival.
Expertise Films, TV, Movies, Television, Technology
Richard Trenholm
2 min read

The HTC Desire 200 is a compact little phone roughly the size of a credit card that wants to make sure you never leave home without it.

As high-end phones balloon in size into vast slabs of keck-stretching glass and plastic and aluminium, the Desire 200 goes the other way: it's a new 3.5-inch Android smart phone. 

Weighing 100g and measuring 2.39 inches by 4.24 inches, the Desire 200 is only slightly larger than a credit card -- check out the picture above for the measurements.

Inside the Desire 200's compact casing is a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of memory for your movies and music, photos and games.

The Desire 200 has a 5-megapixel camera and Beats Audio to give your choons a bass boost. The battery is a 1230mAh job that gives you up to 10 hours or a whole month of standby.

All of which suggests the Desire 200 not only sits nicely next to your credit card in terms of size, it won't cause your credit card too much pain in terms of price either. HTC hasn't confirmed prices or release dates -- or even if it's coming to the UK at all -- but we expect it to be free on contract or very cheap on pay as you go. Update: The Desire 200 will launch "in selected markets in mid-June," but there's still  no word on whether that includes good ol' Blighty.

The software is Google's Android, although HTC hasn't specified which version. HTC's Sense interface forms a new front end on top of the Android experience, with features such as a browser that adjusts the size of websites for the small screen and strips out adverts.

Another useful feature is the HTC Data Manager, which shows you just how much data you're using, in real-time. By checking how much Internet your phone has gobbled up, you can adjust your habits or your data plan to suit the amount of data you actually use.

Will you be whipping out your credit card for the HTC Desire 200, or is it more likely to be declined? Tell me your thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook wall. That'll do nicely.