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Why the HTC Sabor is Fake

Filed under Rumors by Kenneth Pennington on July 1, 2010 at 2:31 AM

OzcarGuide has laid out a pretty massive rumor from a source they call Supersonic. The rumor says, a new Sprint device called the HTC Sabor is going to launch “by the end of the year.” Now, OzcarGuide is the same site that said the EVO 4G would be over-the-air updated to Android 2.2 Froyo upon customer activation of the device. So, right off the bat we have a source that’s proven to be less than credible. Don’t just take our word for it: XDA, Android Central Forums, Android Central administrator Cory Streater. Here’s a quote from the tipster:

“The upcoming HTC smartphone destined for Sprint packs a 2GHz processor, over 1000 resolution display, Android OS 2.5 (gingerbread), 2 cameras with one being a 10-megapixel, 1080p video recording and built-in kickstand.”

In addition, the tipster says that HTC is working on its own version of the Samsung Super AMOLED display… possibly used in the device.

So, is it true? Well, let’s check everything out… piece by piece.

  • “The upcoming HTC smartphone destined for Sprint packs a 2 GHz processor”
  • “over 1000 resolution display”
    • We highly doubt the phone will be a display with a 1000 pixel width. Why? It would be ridiculous for a phone. There’s a reason Apple calls its 960 x 640 resolution display the “retina display.” Now, we don’t think Apple’s retina display is the true limit to phone resolutions seeable by the eye. But, certainly a phone display with an almost full 1080 high definition resolution would be way too high res. A phone with this high of a resolution would make natural text in the browser extremely small.
    • Now, you might say… well what if he meant 1000 width? Anyone who’s in the phone industry knows at least a little bit about displays. And, almost everyone knows that you never call a display by its width. For example, we call 1280 x 720 — 720p/i. And 1920 x 1080 — 1080p/i. So, if he did mean a thousand pixel wide resolution, then his phone knowledge should be seriously questioned. Anyone who’s familiar with smartphones would probably use the correct naming, or say the full: 1000 by _____.
  • “Android OS 2.5 (gingerbread)”
    • This is one of the most troubling pieces of information quoted. Android 2.5? All sources have previously said that Gingerbread would be Android 3.0. Not version 2.5. Mobile-review.com’s Eldar Murtazin called it version 3, for example.
    • In addition, version 3.0 does make sense. Google is definitely preparing some new user interface stuff for Gingerbread. It makes perfect sense to revamp the user interface on a major Android update like version 3.0. Revamping the whole interface for version 2.5? Not quite as easy to believe.
  • “2 cameras with one being a 10-megapixel”
    • This makes sense for the most part. But, we do question whether or not HTC would continue to upgrade the megapixels. 8-megapixels is fairly high already and we think carriers might stick between 5- and 8-megapixels and attempt to improve overall camera quality. Overall, this isn’t too troubling. It wouldn’t be strange if a device came out with a 10-megapixel camera.
  • “1080p video recording”
    • Again, not too troubling. But, it does make us wonder. Would HTC really choose to bump the video resolution when the 720p quality on phones is still in a stage of infancy? We think HTC and other manufacturers will stick with 720p for the rest of 2010 and focus on improving color quality and sharpness.
  • “built-in kickstand”
    • Will more phones have a kickstand past the EVO 4G? Probably. We think this isn’t out of the question.
  • HTC Super AMOLED variant
    • HTC doesn’t manufacture any of the screens on their Android phones, that we know of… so this is looking pretty odd. Although, we hear HTC is getting fed up with the lack of AMOLED availability.
  • HTC Sabor name
    • Sabor?? Very unlikely. HTC does have some odd codenames like Mondrian, but for the most part they stick to codenames that make sense: Supersonic, Bravo, etc.
    • A probable explanation: the person who made this all up took the word “saber” (also spelled “sabre”) and butchered the spelling. Maybe they were thinking light saber reference? We assume a company as large as HTC wouldn’t spell their codename incorrectly. Maybe it really is the “Sabor.” If so, what the heck is it? Well, check out Google’s definitions: Click Here. Yeah, probably not.

So, overall Supersonic has given us this rumor of the HTC Sabor. But, is this a true device? Only time will tell. As of now, we’d have to say: no. The fact that OzcarGuide is an unreputable source is troubling. And, when you add in the fact that the tipster doesn’t seem to pinpoint the Android version or the right display, it becomes even more questionable. Overall, we’d say the HTC Sabor is probably a fake device.

Any thoughts? Do you guys believe in the HTC Sabor? Tell us in the comments below.

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