Cornered by financial woes, once thriving HTC is forced to reconsider its marketing strategy, as wearables and budget-conscious smartphones are now seen as potential box-office gold. Granted, there’s also the high-end, costly “M8” (aka One follow-up) in the pipeline, but if HTC is ever to recover from its current slump, devices like the Desire 8 will probably lead the comeback.

Or maybe the cryptic D616W, purportedly benchmarked in AnTuTu not long ago and believed to be joining the Desire family before long as well. In fact, since the Desire 8’s rumored spec sheet was fairly light, it’s not out of the question this D616W is one and the same with the sleek 5.5-inch One lookalike.

If the AnTuTu data is correct (big “if”, mind you), the D616W is to become HTC’s first ever octa-core handheld. “True” octa-core, that is, meaning with a CPU beneath its hood capable of having all eight cores chug along at the same time.

Too bad all signs point to this particular chip, MediaTek’s MT6592, being barely on-par with Qualcomm’s quad-core Snapdragon 800 in raw speed. But here’s the thing, unlike the S800, the MT6592 should find its way inside cost-friendly gadgets.

As is the case of HTC’s future Desire, an otherwise lackluster phone, touting a 1,280 x 720 pixels resolution display, 1 GB RAM, 4 GB on-board storage, 8 MP/2 MP cameras, and pre-loaded Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. Sounds too modest? Maybe, but a pre-release model was probably tested through AnTuTu, so the specs are subject to change.

Worst case scenario, it will land in this configuration, which would command a price south of $300. And octa-core power rarely comes so cheap.

Via [MTKSJ]