HTC Desire Review

Ever since I first saw the HTC Desire, a week before MWC, I've been thinking that it could well be the handset that I'd use on a daily basis. Indeed there has been some discussion here at tracyandmatt about who will be doing the review. However, as I was the one to review the Nexus One I've pulled rank and it'll be mine to review!

I'm sure that many will look at the HTC Desire and think of it as being simply HTC's own version of the Google Nexus One and I guess in some respects that could be a fair assessment but is it as simple as that? There are a few differences under the hood and plenty within the user interface that make the HTC Desire look and feel quite different. We'll talk about those differences as we go but probably the main differences are the optical trackpad and buttons on the HTC Desire where the Nexus One has a trackball, single mic on the HTC Desire vs the dual noise-cancelling mics on the Nexus One and finally HTC's own sense UI on the HTC Desire where there is a more 'vanilla' Android experience on the Nexus One.

HTC Desire Review

Highlights

• Fast Web browser, with Flash support
• Integrates your contacts across social networks
• HTC Sense user interface makes Android better-looking and adds handy features
• Big, high-res touchscreen
• Great virtual keyboard

Lowlights

• Some home-screen widgets need polishing
• Android is still somewhat geeky
• Short battery life
• AMOLED screen is hard to see in sunlight

The 10 Second review:

• Device: HTC Desire
• Price: around £390
• Summary: The HTC Desire steals the top spot from the Nexus One as the best Android handset out there.
• Best of: Fabulous AMOLED screen, speedy CPU and Sense UI
• Worst of: Battery life, no multiple exchange support
• Buy it now from: Devicewire.com or Clove Technology
• Also consider: HTC Legend or Google Nexus One

What's in the box?

• HTC Desire handset
• Mains charger
• Battery
• MicroUSB sync/charge cable

Bear in mind that although our review unit is final ROM and final hardware we haven't yet seen the final retail packaging so you can expect to get more in the box if you buy one than we have with ours!

Don't forget to check out my HTC Desire unboxing video for a more detailed look at the device and my follow-up demo video too.

General

The HTC Desire is pretty similar in design to the Google Nexus One, not surprising perhaps as the Nexus One is also made by HTC, but they are not identical. There are some differences on the outside too so lets start by having a look around the hardware and I'll point out the differences.

Starting with the front of the device then we have a 3.7" capacitive touchscreen. Just like the Nexus One this is an AMOLED screen which makes it extremely bright, clear and also there is a depth to colours that has to be seen to be appreciated. Below the screen there are four buttons, physical on the HTC Desire where they were touch sensitive on the N1. The buttons are; Home, Menu, Back and Search. In the middle of the three you'll find an optical trackpad. Optical is much better than a trackball as with no moving parts optical lasts longer and wont get clogged up with dirt!

Just above the screen is the speaker. It's pretty neat up the top there. Just to the left of the HTC logo on the front is a small indicator LED. This lights up orange when charging, green when fully charged and will flash for notifications. You cant see it at all when it's not illuminated.

To the left hand side there is an up/down volume control rocker.

Nothing to be seen on the right hand side of the Desire but it does give you a good view of how thin the handset is and you can also notice the very slight upward angle at the bottom, just a hint of a 'chin'.

The design of the bottom of the HTC Desire is a little different to the Nexus One. Naturally the micro-USB sync/charge socket it there but unlike the Nexus One, there's no additional contacts for the device to charge in a docking station. The design is also different enough to mean that the Desire wont fit in teh cradle designed for the Nexus.

HTC Desire has a 3.5mm headphone connector which you can use for headphones (shocking) or the supplied wired headset. There has also been some discussion over TV-out on the HTC Desire but we're sure that it doesn't have it. Also on top there's the power button. I think you can guess what that does.

On the back there's a 5 megapixel auto-focus camera and an LED flash. The camera does stick out about 1mm from the back and means that it's the camera that the handset rests on when placed on a surface. Probably not ideal.

To the right of the camera is a small grille behind which you'll find the loudspeaker.

The whole of the back cover comes off to reveal the battery compartment, SIM card slot and microSD card socket.

Camera

The Desire's 5-megapixel camera takes decent shots in good light, and the LED photo light is handy when it's dark, although it tends to be quite harsh. We were particularly impressed with the Desire's video-recording capability -- low light and changes in lighting are handled very well.

The camera is fast to start, with hardly any shutter lag. It also writes speedily to the microSD card. These facts are all testament to the phone's muscle-bound processor and 512MB of RAM. Note, however, that Android phones can slow down significantly once you've got loads of apps running on them -- it's the curse of multi-tasking -- but we had no complaints with our fresh-from-the-oven Desire.

Software

We don't need to say much here as we've already praised the latest Sense UI's new features -- the Friend Stream app, Leap (homescreen switcher, as pictured below), great keyboard and the enhanced text highlighting tool -- in our Legend review. Similarly, the Desire and the Legend both support the same wide range of audio file formats (AAC, AMR, OGG, M4A, MID, MP3, WAV and WMA) -- note that the Nexus One doesn't support Apple's M4A. Update: turns out the Nexus One supports M4A as well, but this wasn't mentioned on either Google's or HTC's spec pages. Given how smooth the general Sense experience was for us last time, we haven't noticed any significant performance increase on the HTC Desire. That said, with the Desire packing 576MB of RAM while the Legend only has 384MB, it's safe to say that the big daddy can handle more apps at any time. We've also spotted some minor differences between the Desire's build of Android and the Legend's -- like the Nexus One, you can apply live wallpapers on the HTC Desire as well, whereas the slower Legend lacks such option (although the Legend is the only one out of the three that lets you have a dedicated lock screen wallpaper). As with most sophisticated eye-candies, the live wallpapers do make the OS slightly choppy from time to time, and needless to say they'll have an impact on the battery life as well, so it's not something you'd want if a charging source is out of reach for some time. Like the Legend, you'll also get the Flash Lite plugin on the HTC Desire. As you might've already seen in the video earlier, Flash definitely performs better on the HTC Desire thanks to the faster Snapdragon processor, but there's still a lot of work to be done here. Out of the several sites that we tested with, only the videos on BBC News' website had an acceptable frame rate, so using Flash on the HTC Desire is pretty much a gambling game on the video data rate. (You can see our Flash plug-in hands-on in the first video.) On a similarly annoying level, the Desire lacks voice-to-text input as found on the Nexus One and other "Google experience" phones -- not the end of the world for us but some drivers may miss it.

Media support

With a 94mm (3.7-inch) screen sporting a 480x800-pixel resolution, the Desire is a great choice for multimedia junkies. Unlike the iPhone, it will play Flash in the Web browser, and it supports 3GP, 3G2, MP4 and WMV video files.

The microSD card can be filled with up to 32GB of movie magic, and HSPA connectivity keeps your YouTube flicks streaming fast over 3G, although the on-board Wi-Fi is even faster. A standard 3.5mm headphone jack rounds out the media pleasure.

The Desire's stunningly bright and vivid AMOLED screen definitely has wow factor but, now that the sun's out again, our love affair with AMOLED is turning sour. Indoors, the screen's brightness is blindingly impressive, but the display is almost impossible to see in sunlight.

Wrap-up

The Desire is yet another fine piece of work from HTC – build quality is top notch as usual, and there's little to complain about the software except for the Flash performance. Some may argue that the Desire lacks freshness since the Nexus One's already shown it all, but we'd disagree – at the end of the day it's mainly about the software and service, plus the Desire is available from more carriers to begin with (outside the US, anyway). So, circling back to our earlier questions, for the extra cost of the Desire over the Legend you get a larger and sharper screen, faster processor, live wallpapers and video capture at a slightly higher resolution. On the other hand the Legend's button positions may provide better single-handed operation, and some may even prefer its silver metallic look and feel to go with certain Apple products (sorry, it's unavoidable), so you'd best get your hands on the two devices before handing over the cash. As for the Nexus One, despite the fancy dual-mic noise cancellation, unibody frame, touch-sensitive buttons and a trackball that glows, the only real advantages we see in it are its voice-to-text input and its slightly better camera (and this might only apply to certain batches since HTC might be sourcing from multiple sensor suppliers). We prefer the Desire with its more natural call voice (with its single mic), buttons that respond better, durable optical trackpad (which may not be everyone's cup of tea), and an excellent social networking aggregation service.