HTC Desire Review – Verdict, Pros and Cons

You’ve seen it all and experienced the HTC Desire from my point of view. This is the final chapter of this review. This part of the topic consists of mainly the reasons of getting Desire, verdict, rating of the elements, pros and some cons. This should eventually give you a clear picture of the product and distinguish itself as one of the best Smartphone available around at this time.

Personal Rating

Here I’ve rated the specific parts of the phone and features from my personal experience, the links are the re-cap of this phone topics.

1. Pricing   (medium range price)
2. Boxed contents  
   { Learn more about boxed contents }
3. Interface  
   { Learn more about interface }
4. Hardware and Performance  
   { Learn more about hardware }
5. Telephony feature  
   { Learn more about telephony features }
6. Multimedia features  
   { Learn more about multimedia features }
7. Camera and Camcorder  
   { Learn more about camera and camcorder features }
8. Connectivity and Applications  
   { Learn more about connectivity and applications }
9. Battery Life  
   { Learn more about battery life }
10. Value for Money  

10 Reasons Why You Should Get HTC Desire

1. OLED screen : The OLED serves up vivid colors, helps make the Desire a little slimmer and may save battery.
2. Processor : The 1GHz Snapdragon processor lives up to its potential, making every action fast and judder-free; every transition smooth.
3. Sense UI : The HTC Sense user interface adds extra gloss to Android, with more home screens, widgets and simplified navigation.
4. Flash support : The HTC Desire is capable of playing Flash games, It might not perfect but at least they have it.
5. Web wonder : Browsing the web is speedy and the mix of Flash and 3.7-inch screen means websites render well.
6. Camera : The five-megapixel camera is the best yet from HTC, capturing reasonably sharp images. It throws in a decent LED flash too.
7. Video : The Desire features excellent video capture at 800×480 pixels and a superb screen to view it on. Supports up to 32GB microSD for adequate storage.
8. Social networking : Facebook, Google and Twitter are integrated with HTC Sense, meaning you can sync your Facebook, Twitter, Google Contact/buddies with their phone book entries, giving a very easy way to check their status updates.
9. Messaging : Push email over Exchange as well as Gmail and other webmail accounts is supported. You’ll never be out of touch again.
10. Value For Money (VFM) : The Desire is better equipped and cheaper than the iPhone 3GS or Nexus One, whether bought SIM-free or on a contract.

HTC Desire Pros (Things I Liked)

The HTC Desire is a feature-rammed phone with the hardware to support it. It’s got a huge screen with the 1GHz processor underneath, and the Sense UI is a system that keeps getting better with every iteration. HTC Desire – it just works as you want it to as a phone and an internet tablet pc at the same time.

The Sense UI, Leap View and social network integration is all seamless and useful and the internet browser with pinch to zoom is simply fabulous. Awesome customization options on the home screen makes it even more personal.

The camera is probably the best I’ve seen from HTC series of phones. Overall experience was fast and intuitive.

• Smooth edges mean comfortable for long phone calls
• Rubberized edges give the phone more grip
• Inclusion of Leap View which gives you top down view of home pages
• HTC Sense customization options and widgets
• HTC Sense rich contact integration
• 3.7 inch AMOLED screen is bright and vivid
• Internet Browsing is most satisfying than on any other phone
• Flash videos supported (partially)
• Speed and power which launches applications in a jiffy
• HTC keyboard is fast and accurate and has adaptive learning capability
• Photos from the 5 megapixel camera
• Photo editing options on the HTC Desire like “Solarised”
• Media player is decent
• Huge collection of Free applications at Android Marketplace

HTC Desire Cons

Let me be honest – there’s not a lot wrong with this phone. Just found out that the Bluetooth music playback is a little patchy and the battery will drop a little easily if you leave everything updating in the background.

• Limited application storage (if you are application junkie)
• The screen is fingerprint magnet (but a proper screen protector can solve this issue)
• The screen is less visible under the direct sunlight
• HTC Sense widget auto-refresh time can drain battery
• No HD video recording (not really a big deal)
• Video playback could be better
• Battery only lasts for a day with active use
• Video frame rate (fps) could be better
• No DIVX decoder, HTC Should upgrade this as soon as possible because Samsung Galaxy S I9000 already comes with DIVX Decoder.
• Usability for camera could be better in UI and Image Stabilization is not present, you really need a steady hand

Verdict

This is a phenomenal device – one of the best you can get your hands dirty on. Usually when I like a phone on the first use, I get disappointed after a little time with it, but the HTC Desire kept on performing and achieving when I thought it would not be able to.

The screen is lovely, the design is slick and processor makes everything happen in a flash – all you’d want from a Smartphone.

A stunning phone, and one that will show the world that Android isn’t just for the hackers and phone geeks any more. It’s for YOU!

Sure, some people will want slightly nicer design a simpler home screen and richer app store  (iPhone 3GS) but as a piece of hardware HTC Desire without par in the mobile world.

The Desire is confidently taking charge of the HTC Android lineup (right beside the Incredible) and I have no reason to be disappointed. This is one of the most impressive among the droid fleets these days.

Acknowledgement

Thanks to Maxis Telecom for providing such wonderful opportunity for me to do this extensive review about this phone. If they didn’t provide the device I won’t be able to test it out in this much detail. This topic is a part of Maxis 10 Reviewers Programme.

This phone is available in Malaysia from Maxis Telecom and priced at RM2199 as retail price. Even more interesting is that you can get this phone for RM1499 if you subscribe to any of the Maxis voice and data plan. Now that is what I called affordable.

• HTC Desire Review – Part 7 – Applications
• HTC Desire Review – Part 3 – Under the Hood
• HTC Desire Review – Part 1 – Unboxing The Desirable
• HTC Desire Review – Part 6 – Camera
• HTC Desire Review – Part 2 – The Interface
• HTC Desire Review – Part 5 – Multimedia
• HTC Desire Review – Part 4 – Telephony
• Best Social Media Enabled Smartphones of 2010

About Ruhani Rabin

Ruhani Rabin is the original owner and author of this blog. He also reviews web 2.0 startups at Tech2all.com. Largely interested in web 2.0 apps & Social Media. Currently the Vice President of MOL Access Portal (MOL is owner of Friendster.com). Also he is Web 2.0 & Social Media Researcher and a Total fun Geek!.. There you have it ;)

Twitter Profile: http://twitter.com/ruhanirabin