The HTC Sensation XE and the HTC Bass/Runnymede might not be the only fruits of the Taiwanese manufacturer’s collaboration with Beats by Dr. Dre. While there might be more phones coming soon, the phone-maker is reportedly preparing an Android-based media player too.

The image above might look familiar, right? We’ve got HTC Sense running on top of Android. Check the bottom-middle soft button; it should normally say “Phone” but it says “Music”. It is Sense 3.0 alright but it’s not on an HTC phone but on the HTC Beat, an alleged upcoming media player. According to reports, its radio will leave the 3G and all the other networking compatibility out; in are though WiFi, Bluetooth and DLNA. Also, allegedly on-board is a DSP chip for better audio decoding and, of course, Beats by Dr. Dre headphones/in ear buds. The rest of the specs are so far unknown.

All the rest seems to point towards Android 2.3 Gingerbread (all the other Sense 3.0-enabled HTC devices run on this platform) and there’s even a Market application, as on any respectable Android device. Needless to say that there will be heavy competition from Apple’s iPod and Samsung’s Galaxy WiFi but with HTC’s experience in building mobile devices and the Sense UI on top of Android they might pull it off.

Source: HTCInside

Thanks: Eugen