Preview of the HTC Desire
The HTC Desire is the latest addition to an ever growing army of phones running on the Android operating system, a smartphone platform co-developed by search engine giant Google. Formerly known as the Bravo, the Desire carries with it a rather large amount of expectation thanks in part to the existence of a near-identical twin; the Google Nexus One. But, whilst HTC manufacture both devices, it is the Desire that remains in-house, nurtured from start to finish resulting in an Android phone that is unmistakably an HTC product. Already being tipped as a contender for phone of the year and the best device to run the exciting Android operating system, can the Desire possibly live up to the hype? Here we take a first look in our hands-on preview of the HTC Desire.
As a touchscreen phone toting a 3.7 inch display, HTC were always going to find it difficult to design a pocket-friendly phone when making the Desire. Despite this, the Desire is just that; a sleek phone that fits comfortably in the hand and unassumingly when tucked away in your pocket. The design of the phone is fairly straight forward with the front naturally dominated by the screen. Surrounding the screen is a nice brushed metal, finished in bronze, which borders the entire screen. The remainder of the phone is comprised of a matte plastic which feels great to touch and also does an effective job of avoiding day to day grim such as finger prints and smudges. Back to the front and beneath the touchscreen, we find four physical buttons; home, menu, back and search. In contrast to the Google branded Nexus One, which features touch sensitive buttons, the inclusion of physical keys is far more reassuring, offering physical feedback with a good tactile click confirming commands. The other area, in terms of design, where the Desire stands out is the inclusion of an optical track pad, rather than the track ball used by the Nexus One. The track pad proved incredibly responsive when navigating menus and web pages. One criticism that often gets raised of track balls is the tendency to get bogged down with dirt and grease which can, over time manifest itself in other problems such as hardware faults, so the inclusion of an optical track pad in the Desire is a welcome one.
On the back of the phone, HTC have opted for a fairly minimalist approach and so we are greeted by a single HTC logo, the 5.0 Megapixel camera, LED Flash and speaker which all sit at the top and the now familiar "With HTC Sense" logo which sits at the bottom, a sneak peak at the HTC software lurking within. From a design point of view, the Desire is easily the best Android phone to date, boasting smooth, rounded edges making for a phone that you'll just want to pick up and play with. Compared to its stable mate, the Nexus One, the Desire looks and feels a more mature, high quality device. The re-placement of the shortcut keys to the main frame gives the touchscreen an uninterrupted dominance whilst the switch to physical keys and an optical track pad should prove more durable and robust in day to day use.
The touchscreen on the Desire is a 3.7 inch AMOLED display that, first and foremost, looks stunning. The use of AMOLED technology allows for a slimmer form factor (which HTC have taken full advantage of with the Desire measuring a mere 11.9 mm thick) and improved battery life. The bright vivid icons leap off the screen and reading text in messages/ emails/ web pages etc. is a doddle. Even more encouraging is the Desire's legibility under direct sun light, something AMOLED displays are often criticised for, with the same level of quality still on show. In terms of usability, the Desire employs a capacitive touchscreen. Whilst this does rule out the use of a stylus, the level of responsiveness is unparalleled. The Desire also supports multi-touch in the web browser, maps and photo gallery (as well as some apps to boot). Pinch to zoom is a great addition but one that, in every day use, you'll probably end up using quite sparingly what with the ability to double tap to fit to screen in the web browser. The important aspect is of course the general navigation so we're happy to report that the touchscreen on the Desire is fantastic to use.
The home screen is your first encounter with the touchscreen; using it so swipe between one of the seven customisable home screens is ultra responsive and switches effortlessly. The smooth transition is thanks in part to the 1GHz processor on board but the touchscreen itself deserves the lion's share of the praise. It's a similar story when opening up the main menu; scrolling through icons is so slick it's arguably a smoother and therefore more enjoyable experience than anything else we've seen before. Icons stick to your fingers like glue and respond instantly to your pokes and prods whilst the on screen keyboard used in texts and emails is equally fast and responsive, yet retains auto-correct to eradicate errors. In short, the touchscreen on the Desire is easily the best Android has to offer, both in the looks department and usability and from our brief play test, better than the iPhone 3GS, the phone that's widely regarded as the best touchscreen phone on the market.
On to Android and the Desire, like its stable mate, runs version 2.1 of the operating system. However, as this is an HTC device rather than a Google experience phone, we're treated to Sense UI. This sits on top of Android so, rather than the 5 home screens of the Nexus One, we're presented with 7. The first is a shortcut hub, resembling the home screen found on most Android phones, with all your favourite apps, the local time and weather at your finger tips, though these can all be customised with a long press on any blank space of the home screen. From here the Sense user interface takes over. It's pretty much a carbon copy of the experience found on the HTC Hero with the addition of a few tweaks, the best of the bunch being Friend Stream which brings in the latest Tweets and Facebook status updates from friends. The powerful 1GHz processor keeps the Desire ticking along at an impressive speed. Everything we asked the phone to do was actioned almost instantly and the addition of Sense UI has done nothing to hamper the Desire's performance.
The added size of the Desire's display means the phone really comes into its own when browsing the web. The added dimensions mean text and photos are crystal clear whilst the afore mentioned pinch-to-zoom makes navigating web pages simple. The Desire even offers Adobe Flash support opening up a vast collection of online video and gaming resources. Whilst we weren't able to test the latter, video content launched in the browser effortlessly and loaded in no time at all using the phones Wi-Fi functionality. For those times when you're not in a Wi-Fi hot spot, the Desire also benefits from HSDPA connectivity allowing for high speed web on the move.
The Desire boasts a 5.0 Megapixel camera accompanied by an LED flash, autofocus and video capture. Resulting photos are impressive, with good levels of detail and bright vivid colours which look great on the AMOLED display. Once a photo has been captured, you're given a short preview of the photo before it drops down to the corner of the view finder. Clicking on this small thumbnail will open up the photo in the gallery and from here, the Desire lets you Geo-tag the photo with Sense UI's footprints menu, post it to Facebook or Flickr or share via email or MMS. Video quality is equally impressive, recording at 720 x 480 pixels at 30 frames per second which results in smooth videos that maintain excellent audio and visual quality. The addition of an LED flash not only aids in low light photography but also acts as a video light to keep video quality to a maximum.
From our first play-test with the HTC Desire, it's easy to see why the phone is gaining so much attention. The Android operating system, in its v2.1 guise, has come of age making for a smartphone that is brimming with possibilities and just begging to be customised and played with. Combine this with HTC's intuitive Sense UI which brings key areas of your phone and the internet and places them on the home screen, a stunning touchscreen (in both looks and usability) and a wealth of features and it looks as though the Desire could quite easily exceed those weighty expectations.
Dan, Mobiles.co.uk
Pricing
Click here to keep updated on pricing and stock availability for the HTC Desire.
Your Comments
If you have an opinion on the HTC Desire then please do let us know. Or leave your own mobile phone review if you've been lucky enough to try this phone.