SmartPhone News

The shipment delays for the highly anticipated virtual reality (VR) headsets from Oculus and HTC have led to an escalated selling price on eBay for these products. The prices now range between $1,000 and $2,000.

This is a sharp jump from Facebook's $600 Oculus Rift and the HTC's $800 Vive, which means that you just might be tempted to sell yours if it were a gift and double your profits through eBay.

"We're working as fast as we can to get Rifts to customers who pre-ordered," stated a recent Oculus blogpost.

The preorders that opened on January 6 for the Facebook products shipped on March 28. The makers attributed this delay to "an unexpected component shortage," which was not accompanied by any further explanation. In an effort to sweeten the deal, the company has declared free shipment for all the delayed headsets, while the new Oculus VR headset orders are supposed to ship out in July.

Meanwhile, the delay in HTC Vive is not because of any mysterious shortage of headsets, but things like disruption in payment processing and communication. Some Vive delays also pertained to certain banks perceiving the product being a potentially fraudulent charge on the credit cards, which HTC is striving to rectify. The company has also stated that it is handling its hot market products on a first-come-first-serve basis in different countries.

HTC claims to have stuck to its original date of April 5 for starting shipment. However, one shouldn't really expect their April 1 preorder to arrive before the end of the month, provided HTC has given you the green signal for an April delivery.

But none of the reasons really explain the massive delay the first-day preorders are facing. People who have ordered within 15 minutes of the rollout are still yet to receive their shipments. On top of that, it is rumored that people who have ordered an Oculus Rift bundle with a gaming PC (not necessarily preorders) will be prioritized over those waiting for their VR headsets for months.

While the two players deal with their delivery issues, you can, in the meatime, head over to eBay to take a closer look at Oculus Rift and HTC Vive along with their escalated prices.

Photo: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung | Flickr

Samsung has offered both wireless charging standards in its Galaxy S phones for the last two years, and claims to have managed wireless speeds that are faster than some company's walled charger methods - so perhaps it's high time HTC joined the party too.

This device, which runs Android Marshmallow and is powered by a Snapdragon 820 processor, follows similar design lines as its predecessors, but comes with a streamlined, simplistic approach in terms of messaging and user experience.

The body of the HTC 10 is carved out of a single piece of aluminum and its 5.2-inch curved-edge Gorilla Glass display blends directly into the body.

Earlier this morning, HTC announced its new smartphone, the HTC 10, revealing that the Android device will have the ability to wirelessly play audio through devices and speakers that support streaming via Apple's AirPlay feature (via SlashGear).

The HTC 10 is available for pre-order now starting at $700.

As for the cameras, the HTC 10 packs in 12MP (UltraPixel) unit as the primary that features an f/1.8 aperture, laser AF and OIS along with a dual LED flash. When you finally decide to charge it, you'll be able to get it back up and running quickly through the support of Quick Charge 3.0 through its USB Type-C port. Cameras come in the form of a 12-megapixel rear camera which is neatly coupled with a 5-megapixel front-facing option. That model comes with 32GB of built-in storage (you can add more with a microSD card) and a $699 price tag.

For starters the HTC 10 will have a new BoomSound technology; HTC skipped its BoomSound speakers with the previous flagship device, the One A9.

You'll notice that throughout this article we've referred to the next HTC flagship as the HTC 10. It could well be called the HTC One M10, but we'll have to wait and see. Like most devices these days, rumours were rife about the spec and it seems they were on the money for the most part.

 

The new HTC 10 is one of the most exciting new smartphones to hit stores in the next month. We already know that Verizon will start taking pre-orders on April 29, and they claim they will be the first US carrier to offer the device for sale in early May. Verizon will also offer a free ‘test drive’ in any of the Verizon Wireless stores on April 29 – get a real, hands-on look at the HTC 10 with their exclusive in-store preview.

Not only will you get a full preview of the HTC 10, but Verizon is also offering a few bonus promos during this period. For starters, Verizon just did away with their up to $650 promo to reimburse new customers switching from another carrier. However, if you switch to Verizon from another carrier and trade-in your old phone, you can get up to $650 to pay off your old phone or contract. When you purchase an HTC 10 on a Verizon plan, you will get three months of free HBO – catch the season premieres of Game of Thrones, Silicon Valley, Veep and more. You can also get this promo if you switch to Verizon, upgrade to a new phone or activate a new line. With HBO NOW, you can stream all of the great programs HBO offers directly to your mobile devices. If you trade-in your old phone, Verizon will immediately apply that value toward your HTC 10 purchase.

The new HTC 10 comes with an all-new metal body that looks like it was chiseled from a solid block of metal. It features a 5.2-inch QHD LCD display with a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels and 565 pixels-per-inch (PPI). The brains come from a new Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 quad-core processor and an Adreno 530 GPU that will handle any graphics you can throw at it. It packs 4GB of DDR4 RAM and 32GB of internal memory that is expandable via a microSD card. The power comes from a 3000mAh non-removable battery that offers Quick Charge 3.0. It is running HTC Sense UI over the top of Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow.

The HTC 10 does offer a fingerprint sensor in sort of a ‘home’ button position that can be used to authorize mobile payments. HTC did an excellent job in the camera area by using a 12MP UltrPixel primary camera and they even included OIS in the front-facing camera. The traditional BoomSound is changed with a woofer on the bottom of the device and the earpiece acting as the midrange and tweeter. It may be worth stopping by Verizon and take them up on a HTC 10 ‘test-drive.’

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