Back in September, HTC announced the Desire 601 as a variant to its former flagship Android-powered smartphone, the HTC Desire, which made its debut back in March, 2010, and now Virgin Mobile have officially launched the mid-range handset in the U.S.

The Desire 601 is a fairly-impressive affordable smartphone, which packs a 4.5-inch TFT capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 540 x 960, a 1.4GHz dual-core Snapdragon 400 processor, an Adreno 305 GPU, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage (expandable up to 64GB via microSD), a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, dual front-facing BoomSound speakers enhanced with Beats Audio and a 2,100 mAh removable Li-Po battery.

The device ships running the latest build of Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean skinned with version 5.0 of HTC’s Sense custom UI, with the same BlinkFeed news interface that can be found on most high-end HTC smartphones.

Virgin Mobile is offering the handset for $279, with pre-paid plans starting at $35 per month for 300 anytime minutes, unlimited SMS messages and unlimited 3G & 4G data. The full list of the operators plans can be seen below:

• $35/mo – 300 anytime minutes, unlimited SMS messages and unlimited 3G & 4G data
• $45/mo – 1200 anytime minutes, unlimited SMS messages and unlimited 3G & 4G data
• $55/mo – unlimited anytime minutes, unlimited SMS messages and unlimited 3G & 4G data

If you like the sound of the Desire 601 and want to pick one up on Virgin Mobile – click the source link below.

• SourceVirgin Mobile