HTC has seen better times but more recently, it hasn’t been doing particularly well. There have been no major launch events held recently and no hints at upcoming projects either.
However, HTC’s recently appointed CEO, Yves Maitre, remains hopeful and sees the future of the company in virtual reality (VR) and 5G.
The CEO also confirmed that they will be coming out with a 5G phone later this year and will be closely working with Qualcomm to launch a premium flagship soon. There’s no word whether they will also cater to the mid-range market or not. Only time will tell.
Cosmos VR Headsets
Backing up the hopes and dreams for HTC, the company updated its lineup of VR headsets aimed at different markets such as entry-level and professional. The original Cosmos VR headset was launched last year but it cost $699 which was pretty steep.
With the trio of new Cosmos headsets, consumers now have a choice of different options to choose from. The entry-level Cosmos Play is a more affordable version and is aimed at beginners who are stepping into the world of AR/VR. There’s also a new and improved Cosmos Elite which is an upgrade over the Vive, a very popular VR headset from HTC.
And finally, there’s the Cosmos XR which is an experimental model. What’s interesting is that all 3 models share the same core and faceplates can be changed out meaning that even the Cosmos Play users can later upgrade to different faceplates to suit their usage.
Hopeful for the future
Yves Maitre believes that the future of the company lies in virtual reality and 5G connectivity. Now, this is not definitely separate; HTC has played with the idea of making a 5G enabled VR headset but test users have made it clear that they are not fond of the idea of having a 5G antenna so close to the head.
We do believe that it’s not reasonable to have a 5G antenna near the brain of customers, so obviously this is something that we don’t want to do.
In the future, Yves Maitre does want to see 5G smartphones power the Cosmos headset but they don’t have any yet. We’ll see 5G phones from HTC in the future as the CEO confirmed earlier, but we don’t know the exact release date yet.
