When HTC announced its new Desire 530 smartphone at Mobile World Congress this year, it's telling that the device's stand-out feature was its paint job. The 530's low-end components won't turn any heads, but HTC hopes its "micro-splashed" exterior — the industrial equivalent of flicking paint at something from a brush — will do the job instead.

Now, the Desire 530 is coming to the US, with HTC selling an unlocked version for $179 "later this month," and T-Mobile and Verizon offering the handset to prepaid and postpaid customers at some undisclosed time in the future.

Here are the specs:

• 5-inch, 720p Super LCD display
• 16GB of expandable storage
• Qualcomm 1.1GHz Snapdragon 210 processor
• 1.5GB of RAM
• 8-megapixel rear-facing camera
• HTC BoomSound

The Desire 530, 630, and 825 all have the same micro-splashed design. Yes, it's subtle.

The 530 is the littlest sibling in the affordable Desire family, with the Desire 630 and 825 offering slightly improved performance and the same paint-flecked designed. They're certainly not unattractive devices (if a little underwhelming in person), but really, HTC just isnt' making a big enough splash.