New flagship of the Taiwanese manufacturer, HTC Desire has a muscular configuration and a wrapper HTC Sense well designed. The Google Phone of maturity? Response in our test of the HTC Desire.
More : Fluid and fast, advanced hardware configuration, interface HTC Sense intuitive and comprehensive screen AMOLED and reagent, integration of Flash Lite, Android 2.1
Less : Disappointing autonomy of less than a day of intensive use, banal design, screen glare and finger
Formalized at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona at the same time as the HTC Legend, HTC Desire we had strong impression. If the HTC Desire is very close to the Google Nexus One, he was awarded some hardware and software improvements.
Thus, RAM memory is reviewed upwards with 576 MB for the HTC Desire against 256 MB for the Nexus One which gives it faster. This gain in terms of RAM combined with the 1 GHz Snapdragon processor delivers an experience without slowing under Android 2.1 and fluid.
Next to the robust configuration, the implementation of the overlay HTC Sense V2 facilitates the use of the HTC Desire and integrates tools well designed for the management of social networks, the copy and paste smart and customization opportunities.
Well designed, but a conventional design
Despite a large screen of 3.7 inches, the HTC Desire remains relatively “compact”. Barely longer than an iPhone, it remains as large and thick that the Apple Smartphone. Under Android Smartphone requires, you will find the traditional management keys: Home, Menu, back, and research and an optical mouse to use the Desire of one hand. A micro USB, making jack port is a slot for microSD cards complement the equipment of the Desire.
Unlike the Nexus One, HTC Desire will deprived a second microphone designed to reduce background noise. The quality of listening to the interlocutor remains very good, may be less than on a Nexus, the difference being very sensitive.
The finishes are good, the HTC Desire takes advantage of a shell combining metal, plastic quality. So far, far too conventional design lacking FIFO and originality. The HTC Legend with its unibody aluminum hull is much more design and attractive.
HTC Desire : a manned Phone Google
Top Smartphone range, the Desire has the latest. Its screen of 3.7 inches forward a high resolution of 800 x 480 pixels and relies on technology AMOLED providing an excellent return of colours and contrasts. Bright, screen capacitive and multi-point (multi-touch) of the Desire is always also reactive and responds perfectly to the touch of a finger.
Screen treated anti scratch, it is however very sensitive to finger traces and fits well evil of the Sun. The reflections are too present and the Desire screen is almost unreadable in full sun.
To turn without slowing down Android 2.1, the HTC Desire home as the Nexus One a Spandragon of 1 GHz supported by 576 MB of RAM and 512 MB of ROM. Performance is obviously at the level, despite intensive use (Push, notification, video in Flash, multitasking) difficult to take the Desire in default, the Google Phone of HTC remains stable and fast in all occasions.
What delight impatient and demanding users. Connectivity are classic with HSDPA, Wi – Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, accelerometer, digital compass and FM tuner.
The Google Phone of maturity?
Next to the configuration of the HTC Desire that provides a fluid and fast, use Android 2.1 supported by the brilliant HTC Sense interface v2 delivers a comfortable user experience.
The possibility to customize with shortcuts, widgets and programs home pages to cut the Desire its needs. We also appreciate the Friend Stream application that aggregates social networks that is available from the home page and the news app that offers the same convergence by retrieving the RSS feed. Always in chapter ergonomic enhancement, shortcuts Wi – Fi and GPS to manage connections without going through the menus.
Android 2.1 better exploits the resources of Google Phone as we had already seen the HTC Legend test and the copy and paste smart of HTC Sense V2 is still as attractive. A the help of the magnifying glass, it selects the part to copy, which can then share by email, sms, Twitter, copy it to press paper, perform a search on Wikipedia, translate in many languages through Google translation or search via Google dictionary definition.
The solution of navigation Google Maps Navigation is always absent right and mapping, but it appreciates the management of multiple mail accounts and native compatibility with Microsoft Exchange.
Capitalizing on these achievements, the HTC Desire has also well seduce the Geek that the general public for a Smartphone relatively simple to access and able to evolve via the Android Market applications. Attention all the same, because the screen high resolution of Desire, all applications on Android Market will not compatibles…
Web and multimedia
With such a screen, the Desire can be a good video player. Las, contrary to what had been announced at the MWC in Barcelona, the Desire handles not for the moment the Divx. Must await a possible update for this format, 720 p is it you please read. In the meantime and native, the Desire reads only 3gp, 3 g 2, mp4 and wmv.
5-Megapixel auto-focus sensor supported by a LED flash has gadgets to fashion as the recognition of faces and many options such as management of brightness, contrast, saturation and sharpness. If HTC requests is not a camera phone, HTC has made progress on this point and starts at the level of competition. Video mode offers a WVGA 800 x 480 pixels resolution. Note that the video sequences are recorded in 3gp.
For audio, you will find a jack and management of standards aac, amr, ogg, m4a, mid, mp3, wav, wma.
Web navigation is very good for a mobile, Chrome Lite is fast and has, thanks to the wrapper HTC Sense of Flash Lite to read the content in this format. Playback of Flash content is correct, most of the videos and games are readable and it is noted that very little latency. The integration of Flash Lite is still perfectible, but lets wait until the integration of Flash 10.1 for the second part of the year…
The implementation of Flash Lite remains not value competition, both among the Google Phone that other smartphones on an another mobile OS.
With its large screen high resolution and its muscular configuration, the Desire is not a model of endurance. The Snapdragon limit consumption, the AMOLED screen is less greedy, but 1400 mAh battery will provide 10 hours of autonomy, at best! The stage of the day of intensive use with emails in Push notifications, Web navigation and playback of video will clearly not be achieved. Even if it should be tolerant with this type of smartphones, HTC Desire us disappointed at the level of autonomy, it is surely its major flaw.
HTC Desire is a Google top range Phone. As such, it is remarkably equipped and offers a rapid and fluid use in all circumstances. Android 2.1 and HTC Sense v2 facilitate use to be developed between all hands. Flash reading is an asset as the reactivity of the AMOLED screen and multipoint the desire. We would have liked greater autonomy, more inspired design and treatment of the screen to avoid finger trace and reflection, but overall, we can only recommend this effective and intuitive Smartphone.
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