Following its international debut in early September, the HTC Desire 601 has now made its way onto U.S. soil. Virgin Mobile announced this morning that it's now selling the HTC Desire for $279.99 without a contract. Just like the global Desire 601, Virgin's HTC Desire sports a 4.5-inch qHD (960x540) touchscreen and a pair of BoomSound speakers on its face, a 5-megapixel shooter around back and a 1.4GHz dual-core Snapdragon 400 processor under its hood. Also included is 8GB storage, a microSD slot for additional memory, Android 4.2.2 and 4G LTE connectivity.

The arrival of the HTC Desire on Virgin's shelves is kind of a big deal for the Sprint MVNO. Not only is it a new smartphone that helps to grow Virgin Mobile's 4G LTE lineup, it's the first HTC-made smartphone that we've seen on Virgin in quite a while and is currently the only HTC handset available from VM, meaning that Virgin subscribers are getting their first chance to experience recent HTC features like BlinkFeed and BoomSound. If you're a Virgin Mobile customer that needs some Sense in your life, you can buy the HTC Desire by hitting up the link below.

Via Virgin Mobile: HTC Desire