2009 seems to be the year of the underdogs. While "mainstream" mobile phone manufacturers like Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola have been hit hard by the recession, some others like RIM, HTC, LG and Samsung have been hardly hit by it and are going great guns. Apart from Samsung and LG, another far eastern manufacturer that has managed to create a niche for itself on the global stage is HTC.

Like Samsung, the company has been on a steady new model-churning spree. The latest amongst the new handsets that are set to come from HTC are two devices codenamed "Leo" and "Mega". The specs related information on either of the two devices is still unclear. However, what we do know is that the HTC Leo might turn out to be a variant of the HTC Touch Diamond 2, laden with Windows Mobile 6.5. This means that the Leo, will be positioned above the Mega. As for Mega, this one would be a mid-range device complete with a QVGA screen and Windows Mobile 6.5 support.

There has also been talk of the Leo being none other than the HTC Firestone, which was leaked earlier this year. In any case, we would need to wait a while till we get to know more about these two devices.