It hasn’t released a competitive flagship device in years, but HTC’s smartphone division isn’t throwing in the towel just yet. Today it announced the HTC Desire 22 Pro, a follow-up to last year’s HTC Desire 21 Pro, and the company’s big attempt at capitalizing on the so-called metaverse. In the UK, it’s listed at £399 and will ship on August 1st.

There are a couple of different aspects to the phone’s metaverse functionality. To start with, it’s designed to be the “perfect companion” to HTC’s recently announced Vive Flow VR headset and used to access Viverse, HTC’s take on the metaverse. The headset is designed to work with any Android phone, though, so it’s not entirely clear what the Desire 22 Pro offers that isn’t available elsewhere.

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