HTC does marketing the right way in new ad for Desire 816

No dark rooms, no rainy evening, and no celebrity musings about abstract concepts that dance around the subject at hand. Indeed, HTC gives up a solid promotion for the recently released HTC Desire 816, a mid-range, Android powered phone that has a nice 5.5-inch screen, dual-front-facing speakers, and ironically, “more megapixels.”

At under $400, you will be hard pressed to find a better value for a large-screen, solid camera, and smooth performance, all while zipping along an LTE network.

The front-facing "BoomSound" speakers that HTC is adopting as a common form factor is a net benefit, albeit at the expense of size of the device. For a 5.5-inch screen, the HTC Desire 816 is larger than a lot of other phablets out there, like the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and the Sony Xperia Z2, but at least you are not cupping your hands around the speakers to watch a YouTube video, or muffling the sound while playing a game.

The Desire 816 takes good pictures too, thanks to a 13 megapixel camera, a feature that HTC points out in its ad. In our review of the Desire 816, we liked the image quality and felt the camera performance was well above par for a device in this price range. The front facing sensor is a 5 megapixel wide-angle camera, great for selfies and video calling.

Of course, if this were an HTC One (M8) ad or promo, we would not be told any of this, and that is why this ad is so effective. Indeed, it takes a page out of Samsung’s book, but it is a really good book. The HTC Desire 816 is available now in Europe, and may make an appearance with an American carrier in the coming weeks.