Update: Unsurprisingly, the video's now been pulled. We've got a selection of screen grabs after the break in case anyone missed it.
Original story: Behold, the HTC Ville, seen here with Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich and HTC Sense Version 4.0.
The Ville (that's more than likely still a codename, which has been around since early November)
appears to be done in the usual HTC fashion -- a rounded-off rectangle
with a mix of soft-touch and metal. We can't help but be reminded of the
HTC Desire and, of course, the Nexus One, but it's also pretty
reminiscent of the newer Sensation as well.
It's a pretty extensive video walkthrough. The first
thing that stands out is the 4.3-inch screen at qHD resolution, with a
front-facing VGA camera up top. Then there's the fact that it has just
three capacitive buttons below the screen -- back, home and menu --
exactly like the LG Spectrum. While the Spectrum's still running
Gingerbread, we opined that the removal of the search button was to make
way for the search integration in the ICS UI. We're not seeing quite
the same search bar in this latest version of HTC Sense, but it still
lines up. An interesting note -- what you see here doesn't quite match
up with a render that leaked back in November,
when it had four capacitive buttons. Figure it's easier to change a
render than a device, so we'll expect three buttons when it gets
official.
Other specs seen in the walkthrough include a 1.5GHz
dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel camera, with Beats audio
thrown in for good measure. The Sense dock has given way to a more
traditional Android dock -- here we see icons for the phone dialer,
e-mail, app drawer, text messaging and camera, and there are app icons
for Fruit Ninja and Antivirus, among a slew of other third-party apps in
the app drawer.
We're kind of starting to salivate over the Ville
(figure we'll get to see it at Mobile World Congress in a few weeks),
but, man, it's tough to go back to a qHD display once you've tasted
720p. We'll just have to see.