With the HTC Desire HD, the Taiwanese manufacturer proposes a smartphone with its 4.3 inch screen. Well finished and equipped, Desire HD truste high range of smartphones sector. Sufficient to impose to the Samsung Galaxy S? Response in this test of the HTC Desire HD.
More : Well designed, bright screen, aluminum, graphic HTCSense.com, performance improvement service package, good integration of social networks, Web browser rapidly with implementation of the Flash interface Sense which adds features, robust configuration
Less : Imposing and heavy, not video appeal, no screen AMOLED, light autonomy with its battery 1230 mAh
If you are looking for the ultimate smartphone, you come to find it. The HTC Desire HD is a large piece for an average user, but if you look on top of mobility, you will not be disappointed. With the best sector Web browser and a screen that grows on the territory of the Internet bars, the HTC Desire HD is more than smart, is a genius.
Hand
The most obvious difference between the HD Desire and his little brother, the HTC Desire comes from the screen. It is passed a 3.7 AMOLED comfortable inches to a 4.3 inches huge LCD. The definition WVGA 480 x 800 pixels remained the same, but the larger screen do not blur or even low resolution. He is not the Samsung Galaxy S (Super AMOLED) saturation or sharpness of the iPhone 4 (Retina), but it presents a very nice quality for a “simple” LCD display.
The touch interface is fast and responds well. To quibble, we will say that it is not as fluid as with the iPhone or HTC HD7.
Since the components and the Desire HD processor are roughly the same that for the HD7, we are tempted to blame Android for the fact that sometimes, scrolling of pages and the scanning of the items are a bit more split with the references of the type. Nevertheless, it is easy to use.
Black Aluminum casing offers a feeling of great strength. It is better to let him fall on the concrete, but it seems more likely to survive such a shock that many other smartphones, as well, alu enclosure surrounds the edges of the screen. To make this compromise is weight since with its housing and its giant screen, HD Desire weighs 164 grams.
Inevitably, it is solid in the hand. Of course, you can drag it into a Pocket, but losing the ability to sit comfortably. If you accept the weight for the benefit of the giant, so much the better screen for you, but if you are looking for something smaller, the HTC Legend makes more sense.
Despite its large surface, HTC made a few cuts from the original Desire on Desire HD. The optical trackpad and four physical keys at the bottom of the screen thus disappeared, replaced by tactile keys. We prefer the physical buttons, but we must recognize that in our test, the tactile buttons have worked very well.
The absence of trackpad can be more embarrassing, particularly since Android is not very practical to move the cursor around text of small size, which is cruelly felt on the Samsung Galaxy S.
But HTC circumvents the problem with an iPhone user manual from tip: leave your finger on the text and you will see a box allowing you to easily place the cursor where you want. The function copy – paste works the same way.
Performance
The HTC Desire HD adopts a 1 GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 CPU. If the clock speed is the same that on the classical Desire, there are improvements over the 8250 Qualcomm that animated it. The Desire HD chip is supported by a new GPU, Adreno 205. We did a test with the application of benchmark Néocore which gives an indication on the graphics performance. Desire HD gets 57fps there where the Samsung Galaxy S pointe 55 7fps.
In our previous benchmark, the Samsung Galaxy S issued a two times higher than the classical Desire fps. The new configuration of the HTC Desire HD powered by Qualcomm MSM8255 and Adreno 205 couple therefore competing with the Hummingbird processor and the graphics engine PowerVR SGX of Samsung Galaxy S.
Overall, we did not have problems with the overall performance of the device. Not notable slowdowns, even when loading large Web pages with Flash content.
Unlike the Samsung Galaxy S, HTC desire HD does not come with a large amount of internal storage, you cannot count on 1 GB of free space (1.5 GB) to store your applications. You can of course store more with slot microSD HC (32 GB max, 8 GB card delivered original).
The HTC Desire HD welcomes an 8 megapixel camera capable of capturing HD 720 p videos. It comes with a number of fun effects to photos and also offers a function for the detection of faces. Inform subjects in dimly lit environments, is found with a dual LED flash. Quality photo and video has been generally good in our tests.
It takes all its Sense
Increased entry cursor is a simple example of good additions made by HTC on Android with Sense interface. Many manufacturers are struggling to improve Android and simply paste functions which are struggling to impress.
Sense helps to make the Desire more efficient HD, including through a series of widgets to display data in live on seven screens of hosting. The clock and the widget for weather are so successful that the Android Market is full of imitations which can be installed on smartphones are not the HTC. The calendar is another of our favorites and perfectly performs its function by presenting future appointments with a very pleasant style.
The integration of social networks on the HD Desire is excellent. The address book will search the photos and items updated contacts in their Facebook profile or Twitter and our tests have shown that this was done very easily and without problem. If you receive a call from a member of your address book, the screen displays his photo and the last update of its status.
Photo gallery also retrieves your images from Facebook and Flickr, even if we would have liked as it does with Picasa, Google service. Our Nexus One incorporated it native so we do not understand why this function is missing on the HD Desire.
The Sense interface has evolved since we saw on the Desire with for example the addition of several themes to decorate screens with different colours.Describe all functions of Android would take too long and in addition, HTC has added full.
For example, when the phone rings and you take it in hand, the ring decreases slightly until you answer. If a call you place the phone face against a table, the speaker automatically activates.
And, most importantly, all these functions are easy to disable if you do not want to. Because the list of the functions of the HTC Desire may be overwhelming if you prefer the simple life. After all, it is easier to turn the speaker by pressing a button on the screen when you want.
Although the interface shows all the options for intuitively, have so many choices inevitably leads to display menus very long. The iPhone and even the new Windows Phone 7 better control the flow of information with not all functions in one.
But if you like having everything under control, Desire HD will not disappoint you. And there is more pleasant and more pleasant to handle that many of its competitors such as the Nokia N8.
Sense seems to slow down the arrival of updates of Android from Google. Desire HD is powered by the latest version available at the time where we write these lines, Android 2.2 Froyo, but new versions will arrive soon.
Knowing that each update adds functions and corrects bugs, it can be painful to wait that HTC integrates them into Sense. And if you are engaged with an operator, this will be even less fast, the time that the latter adds its own elements.
HTCSense.com
HTC also offers a service compatible with the Desire, Desire Z and Desire HD online called HTCSense.com. This service accessible from any web browser allows you to find a lost phone and delete remote device theft. Registration for the service is simple you have to fill in some personal information. A verification email will be sent to your e-mail address and you will then be able to access the HTCSense.com Web site.
Once that you connect to HTCSense.com from your Web browser, different control options are available to respond to different scenarios. For example, if you left the House without your Desire HD, you can transfer calls and messages to another phone number. You will then be able to address all correspondence to your second phone so that you miss any important call or message.
In the unfortunate case of a lost phone, you can also use this free service to lock or even erase your HD Desire all the personal data.
Before taking this drastic action, you can also get an approximate location of the device via a map on the site. This requires you to activate the service telephone in the HTC Desire HD settings.
In addition to security features, HTCSense.com also aggregates your messages and contacts.
We tried all the possibilities offered by Sense.com and all does not always work well. We have noted some delay between actions to be performed on the Web of PC browser and telephone. Synchronization can take sometimes a few hours. So far, we have found the service easy to use in all.
Navigate site in site
If you are hooked to the Web to the point that being offline is worse that being unconscious, Desire HD is the best smartphone available.
The huge screen can fully display any Web page, even the finer, to the point that it fantasy on what it could give was the definition of the iPhone 4. It on-board Wi – Fi 802 .11n ready and modem HSDPA 14.4 Mbps for downloads in 3 G.
The software part is also high-level Web browser that displays pages quickly and correctly. In addition, Desire HD supports Flash with the Flash Player 10.1 plug-in, which is that each page is displayed in perfect conditions, without lack of element.
It has been said much about how Flash strike the autonomy and crashes phones, but in our tests, it was worth the shot to see how it was on the BBC iPlayer page, exactly as its creators had thought it.
We have only stumbled on a page that was half loaded crashes the browser, but we suspect more Javascript than Flash to be the origin of the problem. Unless the Desire HD hates the site on the study of the health system to the United Kingdom…
In the end, browsing works perfectly including to play a Flash game or show a video in full screen.
Surely, then, all these possibilities suck the battery as a camel down a reserve of water before a long walk, especially with widgets downloading data without push decision. In intensive use, with the surf and the viewing of videos full screen, a full battery does not take a day.But there is a way more Bursar who invites you to lift the foot when there are no more than 15% of support.
We encountered no problem to pass and receive calls during our tests. But a phone too big is not very comfortable to hold against his face and the speaker might be a more powerful hair.
If you plan to spend more time to update your status, surf the Web to pass beaten with wire, Desire HD fulfils its mission.
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