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FROM A COMPANY that has a history with Android mobile phones, where the OS is really only a few years old, now comes the sixth handset and its flagship model the HTC Desire. This mobile phone is not dissimilar to another of its recent handsets, the Google Nexus One, which it made specifically for the Internet search giant. The HTC Desire has the latest version of Google's Android OS, a fast 1Ghz processor and a large bright touchscreen to go along with its humble moniker.
Read more: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/review/1603638/htc-desire#ixzz1O6LRr8fx
The Inquirer - Computer hardware news and downloads. Visit the download store today.
The Desire's size, weight and dimensions are fairly comparable to the Iphone, although it feels a lot sleeker and a more professional design thanks to the black executive backing, the matte finish and the rounded edges of the metal case. The HTC Desire is 119mm x 60mm x 11.9mm thick, compared to the Iphone dimensions of 115.5mm x 62.1mm x 12.3mm thick.
HTC is not backwards about naming its handsets. With names such as Legend and now Desire for its phones, you can certainly say HTC is confident about its smartphones and their attractiveness.
HTC has opted for an AMOLED screen in the Desire, moving away from the TFT screen which isn't as bright nor as sharp displaying images and colours. HTC used the same type of screen in its Legend phone and the Desire's twin, the Nexus One. The 3.7-inch 480x800 capacitive touch screen happens to be one of the most responsive screens we've ever seen or used on a mobile, so much so that a good deal of this review was written on the handset. The onscreen keyboard in landscape mode was very receptive in interpreting touchscreen inputs, with exemplary auto-correction for misspellings.
Read more: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/review/1603638/htc-desire#ixzz1O6LVV7FM
The Inquirer - Computer hardware news and downloads. Visit the download store today.
The latest version of Android 2.1-1 ‘Eclair' is loaded on the handset. Older smartphones have not been updated to this version, nor have some newer phones. HTC has taken away some standard Google features of this iteration of the Android OS while adding some of its own. Noticeably missing is the voice recognition feature that was seen in the Google Nexus One for email and text dictation. Support for multiple Microsoft Exchange accounts is also missing, as is the Google Maps Sat-nav turn-by-turn feature though this has been re-introduced with a downloadable update - it wasn't previously available in the UK.
There is a downside to AMOLED screens and that shows up trying to use them in bright sunshine, where the display almost disappears from view. We found this to be the case with the Desire, much to our disappointment, as it rendered the handset almost completely unusable outside in full sunlight.
HTC has bundled in its own customised theme or user interface for the Desire in much the same way as it has previously in its Windows Mobile handsets since 2007. Its UI is called HTC Sense on the Android platform, which first appeared in the Hero handset from mid last year and now competes with Motorola's Blur and also Sony Ericsson's User Experience. Sense offers a friendlier user interface for the Android OS, with seven home screens as opposed to the basic three. All of these screens can be personalised with widgets and applications, or you can just use the default themes that are already on the phone. It's a fairly decent UI, although other players in the Android market offer more functionality in their overlays and we would have expected more from over a year's development of HTC Sense.
Read more: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/review/1603638/htc-desire#ixzz1O6LYBBpa
The Inquirer - Computer hardware news and downloads. Visit the download store today.
Due to the involvement of HTC and its Sense overlay, future updates to the Desire won't be a free and easy affair to roll out. There won't be the simple deployment of over the air updates that vanilla versions of Android benefit from, instead it will be a somewhat clumsy effort to update it from the HTC website, as the Sense overlay is far too wrapped around the Android OS to make it easy.
HTC has updated its original Sense with social networking functionality. HTC Friend Stream is the go to application on the handset for aggregating all Twitter and Facebook updates into one stream. The social notworking functions aren't as thoroughly worked into the phone's user interface as they are in the Moto Blur overlay or TimeScape by Sony Ericsson. But all the bells and whistles of the Desire can be found in various applications on the Android Market repository, or on a decent cooked ROM from Xda-Developers, only HTC has taken away the leg work for the average user.
Read more: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/review/1603638/htc-desire#ixzz1O6LcHfja
The Inquirer - Computer hardware news and downloads. Visit the download store today.
Read more: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/review/1603638/htc-desire#ixzz1O6LRr8fx
The Inquirer - Computer hardware news and downloads. Visit the download store today.
The Desire's size, weight and dimensions are fairly comparable to the Iphone, although it feels a lot sleeker and a more professional design thanks to the black executive backing, the matte finish and the rounded edges of the metal case. The HTC Desire is 119mm x 60mm x 11.9mm thick, compared to the Iphone dimensions of 115.5mm x 62.1mm x 12.3mm thick.
HTC is not backwards about naming its handsets. With names such as Legend and now Desire for its phones, you can certainly say HTC is confident about its smartphones and their attractiveness.
HTC has opted for an AMOLED screen in the Desire, moving away from the TFT screen which isn't as bright nor as sharp displaying images and colours. HTC used the same type of screen in its Legend phone and the Desire's twin, the Nexus One. The 3.7-inch 480x800 capacitive touch screen happens to be one of the most responsive screens we've ever seen or used on a mobile, so much so that a good deal of this review was written on the handset. The onscreen keyboard in landscape mode was very receptive in interpreting touchscreen inputs, with exemplary auto-correction for misspellings.
Read more: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/review/1603638/htc-desire#ixzz1O6LVV7FM
The Inquirer - Computer hardware news and downloads. Visit the download store today.
The latest version of Android 2.1-1 ‘Eclair' is loaded on the handset. Older smartphones have not been updated to this version, nor have some newer phones. HTC has taken away some standard Google features of this iteration of the Android OS while adding some of its own. Noticeably missing is the voice recognition feature that was seen in the Google Nexus One for email and text dictation. Support for multiple Microsoft Exchange accounts is also missing, as is the Google Maps Sat-nav turn-by-turn feature though this has been re-introduced with a downloadable update - it wasn't previously available in the UK.
There is a downside to AMOLED screens and that shows up trying to use them in bright sunshine, where the display almost disappears from view. We found this to be the case with the Desire, much to our disappointment, as it rendered the handset almost completely unusable outside in full sunlight.
HTC has bundled in its own customised theme or user interface for the Desire in much the same way as it has previously in its Windows Mobile handsets since 2007. Its UI is called HTC Sense on the Android platform, which first appeared in the Hero handset from mid last year and now competes with Motorola's Blur and also Sony Ericsson's User Experience. Sense offers a friendlier user interface for the Android OS, with seven home screens as opposed to the basic three. All of these screens can be personalised with widgets and applications, or you can just use the default themes that are already on the phone. It's a fairly decent UI, although other players in the Android market offer more functionality in their overlays and we would have expected more from over a year's development of HTC Sense.
Read more: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/review/1603638/htc-desire#ixzz1O6LYBBpa
The Inquirer - Computer hardware news and downloads. Visit the download store today.
Due to the involvement of HTC and its Sense overlay, future updates to the Desire won't be a free and easy affair to roll out. There won't be the simple deployment of over the air updates that vanilla versions of Android benefit from, instead it will be a somewhat clumsy effort to update it from the HTC website, as the Sense overlay is far too wrapped around the Android OS to make it easy.
HTC has updated its original Sense with social networking functionality. HTC Friend Stream is the go to application on the handset for aggregating all Twitter and Facebook updates into one stream. The social notworking functions aren't as thoroughly worked into the phone's user interface as they are in the Moto Blur overlay or TimeScape by Sony Ericsson. But all the bells and whistles of the Desire can be found in various applications on the Android Market repository, or on a decent cooked ROM from Xda-Developers, only HTC has taken away the leg work for the average user.
Read more: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/review/1603638/htc-desire#ixzz1O6LcHfja
The Inquirer - Computer hardware news and downloads. Visit the download store today.
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