HTC Desire

HTC Desire does not differ from its recent handsets, the Google Nexus One, which was designed specifically for the Internet search. At first glance, HTC Desire impresses with its large, bright, 3.7-inch AMOLED WVGA touch screen. The latest version of Google's Android OS and 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor allows this smartphone to perform many tasks simultaneously and enables to switch between different applications within seconds.
HTC Desire is made to adjust users' lifestyle - contacts, interests, entertainment. With the help of many widgets the main screen of this smartphone can be filled up with things that are important and interesting to the particular group of users. For example, if the owner is a fan of sports or just wants to keep abreast of events, for him there is an application "News". This widget allows collecting interesting articles from all over the network, creating own flow of news from a huge selection of channels and top blogs or simply getting news by subscribing to the interesting news sites. HTC Desire will help to stay in touch with different groups of friends, relatives and colleagues. The updated widget "Contacts" allows viewing complete information of one group or another at any time. For example, if the owner interested only in his colleagues, he selects this group and can easily track all direct communication with them (SMS, phone calls, mail, and social networks) on one screen. HTC Desire simplifies the approach to social networks. Through Friend Stream application it is possible to look through the entire activity of friends in social networks (such as Facebook ®, Twitter ™ and Flickr ™) in a single stream or to post an entry in Facebook and Twitter simultaneously. HTC Desire supports the security policy Exchange, such as password protection and remote data management. For example, easily to connect to a global base of the company's addresses, if it is necessary to find the address of someone who is not in the personal contact list or set the status “Out of Office” directly from the smartphone. There is a lot of content out there on the web that needs Adobe® Flash® to give the best viewing experience. That's why the HTC Desire comes with Adobe® Flash® support, so no websites are out-of-bounds.

HTC Desire review

You can certainly say that basically HTC Desire is only slightly updated Nexus One, right? But, definitely it is not true. Interface of HTC Sense, support of Adobe Flash and optical trackpad create a completely new experience.

Comparing Desire and Nexus One, it should be noted that both gadgets have capacitive 3.7-inch diagonal WVGA AMOLED-display. The cases of devices are of the same sizes (although the Nexus One barely thinner and has a touch button), they both have the same OS - Android 2.1 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and the same powerful processors Qualcomm Snapdragon. As a consequence, these two devices are extremely fast in operation. However, Desire has no mechanism for active noise control, but it holds more memory - 576 MB against entire Nexus One model with its 512. Add-on in the form of HTC Sense interface brings a serious difference. This is the thing, because of which Android is the best one. This shell completely changes the system and approach to it, and that is what gives Desire that breed, which Nexus One has not. The following features can be viewed and tried via Interactive Simulator

Display

The picture is bright and rich. Color reproduction makes happy with its natural colors and hues. The behavior of the screen in the sun is the same like in case of other models with this type of screen - the picture fade in the sun, but still readable, under the withering sun it is better to go with a maximum brightness of the screen, otherwise nothing will be visible.

Interface

At the top of the screen there is a service line that shows the time, the battery charge level and signal indicator. It also highlights the active connections and other data. By clicking on it, you can learn about the loaded applications, received postings or messages and files have been accepted via Bluetooth. As a home screen background it is possible to use pre-installed images or new added files. HTC have created many beautiful and functional widgets. Each function has several styles, such as clocks or weather. It is possible to choose between sizes and make convenient to you. Unnecessary elements are easily removed from the screen - just hold down finger on those for a few seconds and then drag them to the bottom of the screen. Application Manager is activated by pressing "Home" button. It displays six applications, and essentially it is not a usual task manager. On the bottom of the screen there is a panel with three keys. The Left one is responsible for launching the menu. In the center is a large button, which opens call service (dialing, contact list, call log). The last key is responsible for adding various elements (widgets, shortcuts, etc.) to the desktop.

Phone book

In general list there are displayed contacts stored in phone memory and SIM-card and also data of Google accounts. It is possible to choose among them, setting the option to display contacts only from the selected memory. Choosing a field intended for a contact’s picture, you can make a call, send a short message or an e-mail, and view the information on the contact. There are many fields devoted to this feature – there are different types of phone numbers, email addresses, instant messaging tools (AIM, ICQ, Gtalk, Skype) and etc.

Calls

Right from the phone book, you can access your calls highlighted a separate tab. There is single list of dialed, received and missed calls. Number dialing is doing by using virtual keyboard. Looking through the history of calls it is possible not only make a phone conversation with the selected contact person, but send an SMS or email from this list, without moving to another menu. With built-in accelerometer, by turning the phone during an incoming call, you can turn off the sound.

Messages

For SMS and MMS there is a shared folder that contains received messages. When sending a short message and adding various objects, you can automatically convert it to MMS. Messages are grouped by the recipients and you can make a search among archive messages While dialing any phone number, the phone displays a list of suitable alternating digits. During the printing of the text a small field intended for the characters will be displayed. The device can copy, cut and paste the text. To work with e-mail the configuration of mailbox gets automatically. It includes the input of the basic information (login, password). The smartphone supports different encoding of attachments (please insert the memory card; otherwise this function will not work). Creating a letter, you can also attach various files from the device.

Camera

Desire has 5 megapixels camera equipped with autofocus and LED flash. In the process of photographing a set of elements are showed in a horizontal position on the screen that helps to capture images. Video recording is carried out in the resolution of 800x480, 640x480, 352x288, 320x240, 15 frames per second. Codec: N263 and MPEG4. There are numbers of settings used for the camera. The length of the rollers is limited only by free space on memory card.

Gallery

Stored in the memory images and videos are locates in the gallery. Gallery works both in portrait and landscape modes. Working with these files is accompanied by animation effects. Images preview is generated quickly, scrolling works dynamically, without the slowdown; image scaling is supported as well.

Player

The menu player is a vertical list, which can be ordered by: artist name, album name, genre, and composer. There is also a tab with playlists and received songs. Switching between categories is done via 6 icons at the bottom of the display. When playing songs on the album, artist name, track title, duration and time remaining are displayed on the screen. Player is supported by the mixing music mode and repeat function. While listening to music when the keypad is locked, by pressing the button the screen wakes up and the player menu and album’s cover are displayed. It is convenient and allows you not to move to the menu, if you want to switch to another track.

Browser

The browser works in both horizontal and vertical screen orientation. Thanks to multi-touch websites are easily scalable (by virtual keys it is possible to resize the display), the browser interface itself is clear and easy to use. Above is the address bar, next to it - an icon to add a page to your bookmarks. At the bottom of the screen there is a sub-menu that comes out the panel and lets you open new windows (browser supports simultaneous work of several pages) and switch between them, update page, view the bookmark and perform some other function (text search, view uploaded files, and other).

GPS

For navigation there is using Google Maps - standard software for all Android phones. There is a function to determine the current location, the route was calculated from the initial point to the final one, where you can specify a way of transportation: by car, foot or public transport.

Detailed specifications

• Operating System: Android 2.1 (Eclair) with HTC Sense
• ROM: 512 MB
• RAM: 576 MB
• CPU: 1 GHz
• Display: AMOLED capacitive touch screen with pinch-to-zoom capability
• Size: 3.7 inches
• Resolution: 480 X 800 WVGA
• microSD memory card (SD 2.0 compatible) Supports up to 32 GB
• Weight: 135 grams (4.76 ounces) with battery
• Battery type: Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
• Capacity: 1400 mAh
• Talk time: GSM: Up to 400 mins
• Standby time: GSM: Up to 340 hours
• Camera: 5 megapixel, Face detection capability, Auto focus and flash
• 3.5 mm stereo audio jack
• Standard micro-USB
• G-Sensor
• Digital compass
• Proximity sensor
• Ambient light sensor
• Facebook integration
• Friend Stream
• Photo sharing on Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter
• Video sharing on YouTube
• HTC Peep for twittering
• HSPA/WCDMA: 900/2100 MHz
• GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• 3G: Up to 7.2 Mbps download speed / Up to 2 Mbps upload speed
• Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g
• Tethering: Internet sharing through USB
• Bluetooth® 2.1 with Enhanced Data Rate / A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
• FM Radio
• Internal GPS antenna
• Google Maps
• HTC Footprints