HTC Smartphones
|
Posted On :
Aug-20-2011
| seen (659) times |
Article Word Count :
1849
|
|
HTC Desire is the Android based smart phone having outstanding features offers at affordable price in India.
|
Show with the go, beauty with brains - that’s how we like our phones. Those who read the last sentence of the first paragraph must’ve gone “this guy on weed?” Seems like, doesn’t it – imperfections with its hardware? As it turns out, its strongest point is also one of its weakest. So HTC took a fast Snapdragon Q8250 CPU running at 1 GHz and added 576 MB of RAM to feed it with data and instructions – no complaints. The Desire is lighting quick – the interface, switching between applications, switching through photos, browsing – you just cannot slow the phone down. Admitted its overkill for a phone, but then Android is all about applications and this is one Android platform that will gobble up all the apps you can throw at it, sans burps.
The Desire features HTC Sense, their interface first made available for the Jurassic WM 6 platform. Sense is akin to jewellery on a gorgeous woman – the living wallpapers, easy shortcuts, weather animations – gimmicky and a very welcome part of the experience of owing a powerful, high-end handset. Although Android has a fairly good menu system, and the Sense UI is not as omnipresent as it was on the HTC Touch HD2, it’s still welcome, if not totally necessary.
Initially the Desire came with Android 2.1, but we noticed no slowdowns. In fact, updating to Android 2.2, (a 93-megabyte download), didn’t make a noticeable impact on performance. One of our gripes with the Desire’s hardware was the battery. Run apps and fiddle around with that gorgeous slab of glass, and the battery level nosedives. And here lies our only bone of contention with the Desire’s hardware – its battery. Although an on-paper spec of 1400 mAh might sound fine, it’s a little on the skimpy side. A bigger battery would mean the appearance of less-desirable love handles, figuratively speaking. Oh did we mention the lack of a hardware QWERTY? But then, this would add bulk too.
Interface: and then there were applications
Interfacing is a strong point. The on-screen keypad on the HTC Desire is a QWERTY and works pretty well. If you’re looking for applications totinker around with, you’ve come to the right place. There is a wealth of applications to play with, and the Android platform has detailed settings that allow you to mess with literally everything. Little things like monitoring applications that are eating up the most resources, and personalising each of the seven home screens will have you riveted to the lively interface for hours. The icons, the interface itself and the beautiful display add to a highly usable experience that is gimmicky yet practical and satisfying. Owning a high-end device is more than just a sum of its features and performance, there has to be a zing factor, and in this regard, the Desire’s interface doesn’t let down.
The bundled Facebook and Twitter clients work very well. There are a lot of options to try out, and loads of applications can be downloaded from the Android store. Incidentally (and quite expectedly) syncing with Gmail is a snap. Browsing is also a wonderful experience on account of the snappy response, quick browser and lovely display. The browser supports pinch zooming, and frankly this is quite useful. Browser performance is good – it is fast, and when zooming in, text aligns/reflows with the display dimensions very quickly.
The address bar is locked at the top of the screen and isn’t visible when scrolling down – this minimalist interface is nonetheless pretty powerful thanks to the menu button that allows access to a lot of options in the browser. Although the browser boasts of Flash support, its support for Flash videos is rather dubious. A document/spreadsheet/presentation viewer is also part of the deal, as is a pretty sweet PDF reader. We tried using the Desire as an e-book reader and came away quite satisfied.
Performance: shades of brilliance
The display is stunning in every aspect. Enough said. The touch interface is very sensitive, but even then, the on-screen keypad is not perfect. Sure it’s usable, but the iPhone might just be a smidgeon better. And no on-screen keypad will ever make up for a great hardware one. Video playback is about as good as it gets. The display and fast innards combine to ensure as good an experience with video, as we’ve seen on a cellphone. With the Froyo update, the camera records videos up to a resolution of 720p. The videos are clear, although there is blur when moving due to the lack of a proper image stabilisation system. Colours are rich, and in bright light, you won’t complain. Indoors the quality drops.
The five-megapixel clicker provides decent clarity for a cellphone camera, but it’s not the best around. There is a loss of fine detail, even with indoor lighting, and only in bright sunlight does the camera perform really well. The flash unit is very intense, and illuminates a dark room, up to a distance of eight feet pretty well. It’s not exactly as good as a Xenon flash, but not too far off. The problem is not with the flash intensity, rather the flash doesn’t tone down for close shots and these appear overblown with artificially bright highlights; the flash algorithms appear to be screwed up.
After the Froyo (Android 2.2) update, the booting time from button press to home screen took 36 seconds; four seconds faster than Android 2.1. Although, we seemed to get a little more battery life after the upgrade, we couldn’t be sure, but the difference is no more than five per cent. The battery performs well, it’s just that it’s a small unit – 1400 mAh is not sufficient for a phone with such hardware and a large display. Even Nokia’s archaic E71 ships with a 1500 mAh battery.
The Desire is endowed with a loud, but tinny loudspeaker. Although volume levels are good, it distorts a bit, and sounds strained at peak decibels. The N95 8 GB still has the best loudspeaker on a phone we’ve tested till date, and the Desire is miles behind. That being said, it’s better than the speaker on the iPhone 3GS. The earphones sound a lot better. The bass seems decent, although the treble is a little sparkly, but overall, sound quality is very acceptable. On a side note, the earphone driver enclosures are too large to fit most ears comfortably. Bluetooth speed, that was measured when transferring an MP3 file, was 185.6 kilobits per second – higher than most phones we’ve tested.
Call clarity is good. But the antenna is not. In zone three, we faced disconnected calls on more than one occasion, accompanied by a loss in vocal clarity. In zone two, there were sporadic periods of silence, but this wasn’t happening with any regularity and that made us suspect a service provider issue. In zone one, as expected we had no issues – voices sounded natural, and there was no issue with clarity. Although a minor thing, it would be nice to have finer gradients on the tower indicator, for example, Nokia phones have seven. HTC has only four. The speaker is loud on-call, but at maximum volume there is jarring and the voice distorts. The earpiece is also pretty loud, but doesn’t distort. When using the loudspeaker, the battery cover vibrates.
Conclusion: perfection is a flawed concept
At this point, I took a few minutes to stare into space and contemplate. I’d been yearning to purchase a touch-screen device for the last six months, but have been biting back the temptation because I haven’t come across the perfect one. Or, let me rephrase: the right one for me, just so that you don’t get the impression that I’m hard to please, because I’m not. But it’s difficult to find a touch-based cellphone sans quirks. As desirable as the, err…Desire is, it’s not without the odd annoying hiccup/flaw/quirk. And I’m not talking about the simple addition of a slide-out QWERTY keypad. Yes, that would fix a couple of things, but it would also add weight and bulk, while leaving other issues unresolved.
A higher capacity battery would also be nice, but this too, isn’t without demerit. Then there’s the issue with the mediocre antenna performance – how can manufacturer drop in a sub-par performing antenna into a 25,000 plus rupee handset? And why neuter a device’s multimedia capabilities with a poor loudspeaker? Why ruin aesthetics with a poorly constructed battery cover? It seems some capers have been cut on the way, and this totally detracts from the overall appeal, (not to mention the concept), of a flagship.
The price we got for the Desire was an MOP of Rs. 28,900. This is the price being offered by Tata Docomo, who is bundling the device with a data plan that offers 500 MB of free data usage every month for the first six months. Not a bad deal, since the Desire was selling for the same amount via ahem…questionable channels.
So it isn’t cheap. But for the most, besides the quirks mentioned above, it is an excellent device. Don’t get our nitpicking wrong, and don’t go off taking only what you read in the conclusion or the scoring beneath it.
A beautiful display, a nearly flawless interface and lightning-quick hardware, in an attractive body – the Desire exemplifies its name. If only the handful of quirks were ironed out, we’d be pleased to live with it. HTC has just announced the Desire HD and the Desire Z. The latter has a slower CPU than the Desire, but features a slide-out QWERTY keypad and might just be what the doctor ordered, if the Desire isn’t quite your cup of tea. There is also the Nexus One, with its metal body, but then track-ball sensors spoil easily in comparison to optical trackpads.And the Sense UI, (absent on the Nexus One), has matured into a tasteful and functional embellishment that is fun to work with.
Sadly recommending the Desire is not easy, despite its frequent brilliance. The high-end segment sees hardware getting outdated every other month, and three months from now, we could well see another device thrash the Desire in all respects, in fact the new arrivals could well do that. But this by itself, doesn’t make it any worse a device, and obsolescence in inevitable. The jury is out on this one. The Desire is a worthy device, but you’ll see a new crop of Android 2.2 devices soon, and feature sets and hardware will only get better. We recommend waiting and watching, unless you have to buy a high-end handset now – in which case the Desire will make (most of) yours come true.
Specifications: OS: Android 2.1 (upgradeable); Display: size: 3.7-inch; colours: 16-million; resolution: 480x800 pixels; CPU: Qualcomm QSD8250 (1 GHz); RAM: 576 MB; ROM: 512 MB; expansion: microSD; Camera: 5-megapixel (720p video recording); battery: 1400 mAh; weight: 135 grams
|
|
Article Source :
http://www.articleseen.com/Article_HTC Smartphones_75331.aspx
|
Author Resource :
Robert Blume is a well known author and has written articles on Digital Camera, nokia c2-01 price in india,HTC Desire, nokia x3-02 price in india and many other subjects.
|
Keywords :
htc desire price in india, htc desire price, htc mobile,
Category :
Communications
:
Mobile Phones
|
|
|