AT&T HTC Elite And LTE Windows Phone Incoming

Details on two of HTC's 2012 smartphone flagships have been reportedly revealed, including an Ice Cream Sandwich uber-phone and a 4.7-inch AT&T LTE Windows Phone, as the company apparently pares down its offerings from 2011's gush of devices. The HTC Elite will be an Android 4.0 device for AT&T, BGR's sources tell them, potentially launching as the "HTC Congressional" complete with Beats Audio in the first half of April. It will be preceded by what may well be the first LTE Windows Phone, scheduled for the beginning of February.

The name of the handset is unknown, though it's expected to launch on AT&T in the US. It will have a 4.7-inch display, like the HTC Titan - resolution unknown – and is supposedly set to be released on February 5, indicating a CES 2012 reveal is likely.

However, whereas 2011 has seen HTC pepper the market with handsets in the – perhaps desperate – hope that some of them will find favor, 2012 will supposedly see a more reserved, careful company. Q1 is said to be "shockingly quiet" for the most part, while there will be fewer devices overall through the year.

That, it's suggested, is the end result on a renewed focus on quality rather than quantity, something we've argued HTC desperately needed to do for some time now. The company's November revenues dived amid underwhelming me-too smartphones, while the two attempts at tablets have similarly fallen flat. HTC CFO Winston Yung has confirmed that a "focus on the product" is the Taiwanese firm's new strategy; ridiculous "Congressional" names aside it sounds tentatively like HTC is going about it the right way.