Our HTC Desire Review

Think of the hugely impressive HTC Legend, then double it. That’s about what you get with HTC’s new Desire. With its Android 2.1 operating system, AMOLED touchscreen, it’s a massive improvement all round – faster, bigger and more powerful underneath the impressive casing.

The 3.7 inch screen takes up almost the entire front of the handset, with just four useful navigation buttons set at the bottom. At the centre of these is the optical trackpad which accurately measures finger movement for precise navigation.

This is a pleasingly thin phone, but not so thin that it feels like it might break in half at any moment. It measures 119mm x 60mm x 11.9mm and weighs 133 grams, surprisingly light for everything that’s going on inside. The size and shape make the handset easy to operate with one hand.

The screen itself is a pleasure to use. Responsive and simple with fantastic, warm colour display.

Data transfer is enabled by the unfussy micro USB port that doubles as a charger input. The headphones supplied are adequate and also double as a hands-free kit.

Using the phone is a simple delight, too. It comes with seven customizeable homescreens; probably more than you need, but nice to know you have the options. Any of them can be loaded with various widgets and the weather in your area is displayed via a bright screen for sunny, a slightly blurred screen for fog and even a cute windscreen wiper when it’s raining. The Desire’s sense of humour appears in the most unlikely places.

For social networkers, there’s the useful Friendstream app, which gathers together info from Twitter and Facebook and other sites.

Searching through the phone is simple. A double-click on the search button brings up a quick search function, similar to Spotlight on a Mac. It’s a great way to find pictures, music, text files or any other file format.

The Desire has lots of other useful functionality inside. Leap View is another timesaver. Just pinching the screen using multi-touch and all seven home screens are displayed at once. This is another similarity to Macs – the Desire does what you tell it to and won’t argue back as some Windows operating systems are prone to.

What We Liked

Its ease of use is a sheer delight. There’s obviously a lot of time and thought invested to make the desire that owners will want to use, because it’s just a fun environment to work or play in. While the rolling weather and other widgets and gadgets are cool, you can always turn them off if you want to get on with some serious work.

What We Disliked

Photo quality was perhaps not as good as some comparable phones, but good enough for snapshots. Video also suffered from reduced frame rate in lower lighting conditions.

Our Final Verdict:

Overall, the Desire delivers more than it should. With deals (at the time of press) from around £25 per month you’ll get a lot for your money.

Compare Handsets

	Read Review
	HTC Desire
General
Form Factor	Candybar
Dimensions	119 x 60 x 11.9 (mm)
Talk Time	400 mins
Standby Time	360 hours
Weight	135 g
Quad Band	Yes
Accelerometer	Yes
Photo and Video
Camera	5.00 megapixels
Video Player	Yes
Phone
Polyphonic Ringtones	Yes
Smart Phone	Yes
Internal Memory	512MB
Memory Card Type	MicroSD (max 32GB)
Screen
Colour Screen	Yes
Touch Screen	Yes
Connectivity
3G	Yes
Bluetooth	Yes
Email	Yes
HSDPA	Yes
WAP	Yes
Web Browser	Yes
Wi-Fi	Yes
GPS	Yes
Music and Radio
MP3 Player	Yes
Additional Content
Downloadable Content	Yes
Downloadable Games	Yes
Downloadable Ringtones	Yes

HTC Desire Full Specification

General

Photo and Video

Phone

Screen

Connectivity

Music and Radio

Additional Content