Posted by lukechris
Ok its time for the review of the HTC Desire, in black, the "cousin" of the Google phone, the Nexus One.
To start with, the Desire caught my eye when I spotted the press release earlier this year, and despite not having the rumoured DivX support and 720p video recording, the phone still ticked all the right boxes, 5mp camera, Wi-fi, GPS etc.
Some more basic specifications include:
3.7" AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with 16M colors at 480x800 pixels.
Android 2.1 with HTC Sense.
3.5mm audio jack.
576mb RAM and the Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250 1 GHz processor.
Optical trackpad which doubles as a button
microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v2.1
5 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geotagging
7.2 Mbps HSDPA and 2 Mbps HSUPA
Anyway, down to the review. Firstly, I must point out this is the Black version (extremely hard to come by at the moment). When I opened the box, I was shocked to find there was not much there, simply just the phone (mine had a 4gb MicroSD, however most get an 8gb), USB cable (which doubles as a charger), some instructions and a pair of headphones. Oh, and at last, HTC listened, and we now have a 1400mAh Li-Ion battery. At last, a high capacity battery for a high performance phone.
However, on first glance, you could see that it is a truly stunning phone, vibrant colours from the screen, well backlit by the AMOLED display, and the touchscreen is really responsive. The build quality seems strong, protected by what seems to be a layer of rubber, which feels like a silicone case. Here are some pictures
The phone is really easy to set up, as most of this is done using a wizard shown to you when you first turn on the device. From here you can set the ringtone, APN's and internet settings, add in account information to websites and more.
The phone has 7 fully customisable homescreens, which can be filled with shortcuts, widgets, programs and more. Here is a of the stock screen, I will upload a picture of mine later:
Again, the menu is easy to navigate through, and all icons can be seen easily, as can all text. The phone does come with quite a few demo's and network-specific applications, which sadly I cannot remove (without changing my ROM), which is ashame, however people mostly use the 7 homescreens as apposed to the menu anyway so most of it is hidden. Here is a picture of the menu:
The default browser in the phone, was not up to standard for me, slow, laggy, and the pages simply looked 'wrong', therefore I downloaded Opera Mini 5 Beta from the Android Market, and combined with OperaBridge (also from the Market which makes Opera Mini default), I will never need to see the default Android browser again.
Other new features include FriendStream, a widget from HTC, which downloads the latest updates from Facebook and Twitter, its GUI is nice, and it is pretty nippy, but I don't know how long it will stay there, as it is as easy to nip on Opera Mini and just go on the dedicated sites, and wastes one of my tabs:
Obviously, this is not the only widget, in fact HTC have been busy, making plenty:
This feature is not Desire specific, but something it really handles well is Speech recognition and Google's Navigation software, which coincidentally work together too. Combined with a headset (wired or wireless), this is going to be big, just say "Call Home" and it will read it out, confirm it too you, and then ring, easy! You may be thinking that this is nothing new, correct, however you do not need to pre-record whatever you want to say, so saying "Navigate to Westminster, London", really does the job.
As mentioned earlier, the HTC Desire runs Android 2.1, and as we have all heard recently, the Android Market is going to give the Apple Marketplace a run for its money, since Android Market now has 70,000 apps (at the time of writing). Also, because Android is free, it means people with nothing better to do (such as myself), can write apps and publish them, for just over £13, 20€, or 25$. I truly believe that the Android Market will keep going and going until they are extremely close.
I find the quality of the camera to be great, howver some critics around here will say it is over-exposed etc. All I want to say is if you want a camera, go and buy a camera. People sometimes forget that they are just phones.
Anyway here are some pictures out of my window, I have not been out to take any nice pics yet:
To sum up, I feel the only real competitors for this phone, are Google's Nexus one and Samsung's I9000 Galaxy S. Until (or if ever)
update from Android version 1.6 to 2.1 on the X10, then there is no real competition there. The phone is really, really powerful, with it's 1ghz processor and 576mb of RAM, we would have loved that for our PC's a couple of years ago. The design, camera and features are all outstanding, this is going to be a success.
However, admittedly the phone is still quite expensive at the moment, however, as with anything with a power button the price will come down sooner or later.
Thanks for reading.
Luke
[ This Message was edited by: lukechris on 2010-06-13 13:12 ]
Posted by titus1
4.3 Amoled capacitive?
Was it 3.7....
You're reviewing the Desire or EVO?
Posted by Bonovox
Nice review nice phone. I eat my words about HTC
Posted by lukechris
..... sorry about that, now updated.
On 2010-06-13 14:05:46, titus1 wrote:
4.3 Amoled capacitive?
Was it 3.7....
You're reviewing the Desire or EVO?
I am reviewing the desire, and the screen is 3.7".
[ This Message was edited by: lukechris on 2010-06-13 13:12 ]
Posted by masseur
nice write up. I'm really liking this phone too.
I read rumours that it will get andoid 2.2 (Froyo) on June 23rd which adds quite a few features and performance enhancements
Posted by lukechris
On 2010-06-13 14:20:37, masseur wrote:
nice write up. I'm really liking this phone too.
I read rumours that it will get andoid 2.2 (Froyo) on June 23rd which adds quite a few features and performance enhancements
That would be amazing to be honest, a finishing touch
Posted by titus1
Dolphin HD is a great browser too.
Posted by Bonovox
@titus1 the Dolphin browser is what Samsung uses in their phone. It's a good browser. Nice review Luke lovely phone. I have started enjoying my Android device now love browsing for Apps never used to bother
Hey Luke my LG Android phone has a 1500mAh battery 
[ This Message was edited by: Bonovox on 2010-06-13 15:28 ]
Posted by Alpha Trion
Hey, nice little review there Luke. You almost make me wish i hadn't sold it!!
Posted by Bonovox
Why did you sell it?
Posted by Alpha Trion
Nothing serious Bonovox, sold it to raise funds for the Galaxy S.
Posted by Miss UK
Hey Luke do you still have this Phone?
btw it was a Nice review you gave it, it was a nice phone but I hated the buttons on it
they should of went with the Wildfire touch ones
