HTC Desire 12 family debuts w/ striking ‘liquid’ designs, 18:9 displays, mid-range specs

Ben Schoon | Mar 20 2018 - 7:14 am PT

HTC has been pretty quiet for the past several months in the smartphone space, but as we approach the debut of the upcoming HTC U12+, the company is launching two new mid-range options in the Desire family…

Today, HTC has officially launched the HTC Desire 12 and the HTC Desire 12+. These two devices don’t exactly impress in the spec department, but they certainly get some attention for their unique designs.

Both phones feature 18:9 displays that land with 1440×720 IPS LCD panels. The smaller Desire 12 has a 5.5-inch display while the Desire 12+ ups that to 6-inches. The body of each phone is built to look like the glass-clad “liquid design” of the HTC U11, but drops some cost and adds some durability by swapping the glass for acrylic.

The smaller Desire 12 offers a MediaTek MT6739 paired with 2GB or 3GB of RAM and 16GB or 32GB of expandable storage. The larger Desire 12+, on the other hand, offers a Snapdragon 450 processor, 3GB of RAM, and 32GB of expandable storage.

Both devices also ship with the same 13MP primary camera on the back, but the Desire 12+ offers a secondary 2MP sensor alongside it on the rear. For selfie fans, the front-facing cameras land at 5MP and 8MP respectively, both with facial recognition capabilities.

HTC is staying quiet on some important details, like available colors (which do include a crazy good-looking gold), regions the phones will be sold in, their prices, or even a launch date, but we do know a few more specs.

Both will (unfortunately) offer microUSB ports for charging, a headphone jack, a standard array of LTE and GPS radios, and respectable batteries. That’s 2730mAh on the Desire 12, and 2956mAh on the Desire 12+. The larger 12+ is also the only one with a fingerprint sensor.