HTC Desire User Reviews

Roderick posted on 14 Aug 2012, 21:11

8

Good for what it's worth

Roderick has owned it for less than 3 months before publishing this review

First of all, it has been 2 months since I have this phone. My previous phone was Sony Ericsson K700i, and I had it for nearly 6 years. So you can imagine my surprise and excitment when I'm about to buy a brand new smartphone with touch screen and everything.

After heavy, heavy researching I decided to buy a HTC model and have chosen Desire because it's the best solution if you want a budget mobile phone but still with acceptable features. And here is my review:

The case itself is sturdy, it's not one of the lighter phones but it's not heavy either. You get a good grip on it, on the side along with standard 3mm plug for headphones on top and charger plug on bottom.
Buttons: home, menu, joystick, back/undo and search provide easy and fast access. But joystick is mainly for emergancy purposes (in case your screen becomes unfunctional). Of course as standard + - tone buttons on the side.

The screen itself is above average. The colors are vibrant thanks to amoled, it's big enough for typing when u turn to horizontal view. Even the person with biggest fingers can use it without many typos after u get hang of it, if you had a touch phone before this that definatly won't be a problem, at any case it's typing friendly. As many other HTC phones it has Gorilla glass as protection, but I still reccomend using a foil for smoother experience and tiny bit more protection.

Interface is like most other HTC models. Very user friendly with customisable screen pages where you can add widgets,...  

First of all, it has been 2 months since I have this phone. My previous phone was Sony Ericsson K700i, and I had it for nearly 6 years. So you can imagine my surprise and excitment when I'm about to buy a brand new smartphone with touch screen and everything.

After heavy, heavy researching I decided to buy a HTC model and have chosen Desire because it's the best solution if you want a budget mobile phone but still with acceptable features. And here is my review:

The case itself is sturdy, it's not one of the lighter phones but it's not heavy either. You get a good grip on it, on the side along with standard 3mm plug for headphones on top and charger plug on bottom.
Buttons: home, menu, joystick, back/undo and search provide easy and fast access. But joystick is mainly for emergancy purposes (in case your screen becomes unfunctional). Of course as standard + - tone buttons on the side.

The screen itself is above average. The colors are vibrant thanks to amoled, it's big enough for typing when u turn to horizontal view. Even the person with biggest fingers can use it without many typos after u get hang of it, if you had a touch phone before this that definatly won't be a problem, at any case it's typing friendly. As many other HTC phones it has Gorilla glass as protection, but I still reccomend using a foil for smoother experience and tiny bit more protection.

Interface is like most other HTC models. Very user friendly with customisable screen pages where you can add widgets, shortcuts or overall apps. Smooth transaction.

Camera is ok (10megapixels) with all the fancy filters (sepia, etc.) but most importantly it's sharp and u got both photo and video.

In my experience so far his processing unit is good enough for the following: music (including radio), video (youtube, play your own movies), internet (browsing and android market, as well as zooming works smoothly). Social networks like facebook and twitter work ok aswell, although navigating trough facebook is simplified, but that depends on the facebook app itself.

However if you try using something more advanced and more power consuming applications like google maps or GPS it will drain your battery fast and may cause system crash.

His internal memory is fair, so limit your essentiall apps (those that say 'phone only') and put everything else to your SD card one by one, if you plan on buying this phone.

Battery is the probably the worst feature of this phone, without any actual phone usage (a few calls and a couple of messages) it can last up to 48h. But if you use it for various stuff like music, internet, video clips, it will drain fast and you will have to charge it daily. Can last about... 5h straight with music, 1h less if more demanding apps.

IN CONCLUSION

If you're looking for a balanced phone, for daily use for calls, messages, music, browsing the internet and social networks, maybe take a few pictures or clips. Them this is a phone for you. But requires daily charging

Build quality 9/10 Sturdy, good grip, hand anatomy.

Reception 8/10 Nothing special. It works like on most phones. You get an error of "no reception" after you power it on but that pops each time you do it and the reception is fine.

Call quality 8/10 Clean, no background noise. But putting people on speaker and listening to music over speaker doesn't provide as much quality as headset.

Internet 9/10 Very smooth browsing and easy to catch avaliable wifi connections.

Multimedia 10/10 Everything works great regarding media on this phone.

Camera 9/10 10x mgpx is good as any digital camera.

UI speed 9/10 It's smooth but if your internal memory is below 20mb it can slow down.

Everyday usage 10/10 Everything works fine. One minor setback is that u can't immediatly set a custom tone for notifications like message beep. You either need to get and android app for that or plug it in as storage device and put it manually in notifications.

Text input 9/10

Display 7/10 Touch response is almost perfect. Colors are vibrant thx to amoled. But one major setback is it's almost impossible to read the screen on direct sunlight or when your'e outdoors and it's sunny overall.

Battery 5/10 As I reviewed the battery is mediocre.

Pros

• Good processor
• Big screen, typing friendly.
• Sturdy, good grip.
• Smooth internet, multimedia and social network experience.
• User friendly interface.

Cons

• low internal memory
• battery needs to charge on daily basis

ksilva posted on 29 Oct 2011, 15:07

9

Great phone. Not enough memory.

ksilva has owned it for less than year before publishing this review

My wife has this phone since Feb'11. She upgraded (that's right ... upgraded) from an iPhone. We did not see the value of the iPhone 4 at that price, so we looked for something similar but with a more broad apps and games base. At that time (9 months ago) Google did not have a very extensive set of apps & games, but now it has. I am sorry but it is difficult to return to Apple now. In any case, this phone has 1 flaw, when HTC built it, and they did a good job, they put in a very good CPU and GPU but they forgot to put enough memory for you to install more than 1 game at a time. When you boot up, you will have about 180Mb to install apps and games, and even if you use apps 2 sd card, you will notice that most games and apps cannot be moved at this point. Hopefully Android will improve that to 100% of their apps/games. But for now it is improving, but not quickly enough as the developers are struggling to keep up with market demands (maybe growth is too fast). Great phone otherwise, it does everything.

Build quality 9/10

Reception 9/10

Call quality 9/10

Internet 9/10

Multimedia 9/10

Camera 8/10

UI speed 8/10

Everyday usage 9/10

Text input 8/10

Display 9/10

Battery 7/10

Pros

• It does everything. And fast.
• There is litlle difference between this and the dual core phones. But dual core is going to be the norm soon.

Cons

• Battery runs out quickly, you have to use juice defender or equal to get through the day.

ksilva alternatives:

Motorola ATRIX 4G

Samsung Galaxy S II

UKVampire posted on 05 Aug 2011, 04:51

7

Nice Handset.....Just Disappointing

UKVampire has owned it for less than year before publishing this review

I decided to review this today after arranging for my replacement of the handset, I have had a lot of issues with the handset however decided to give a review based on what I found postive and negative about the phone.

I found the phone to start with a really nice handset it was only once the battery life had become poor and you actually wanted to use the handset for more than just a phone things like the memory became an issue.

Build quality 9/10 Very Nicely Designed Phone stylish and easy to use

Reception 7/10 Can occassionally drop GPS signal in areas where other handsets work

Call quality 8/10

Internet 8/10 Occassionally very slow due to poor internal memory

Multimedia 8/10 always good when used with SD card

Camera 8/10 Takes nice photos

UI speed 8/10 Despite low memory the phone is generally very speedy

Everyday usage 6/10 Watch out for the data usage on the handset as it will eat data if not used with an app killer

Text input 4/10 can be very fiddly especially when certain apps don't allow you to use the rotate function

Display 7/10 nice clear display at the cost of battery life

Battery 2/10 The worse thing about the HTC Desire, the battery is rubbish. You will need to have an app killer on this phone to preserve battery life.

Pros

• Nice Looking Phone
• Allows for MicroSD card

Cons

• Battery Life
• Mobile Internet Usage VERY high
• Text Input can be very tricky

UKVampire alternatives:

Samsung Galaxy S

Callychamp444 posted on 20 Jun 2011, 00:39

10

HTC desire review

Callychamp444 has owned it for more than one year before publishing this review

OMG the htc desire is amazing!!!!!! Its so fluid and htc sense is just awsome!

The snappy 1ghz proccesser is so quick!
OMG the htc desire is amazing!!!!!! Its so fluid and htc sense is just awsome!

The snappy 1ghz proccesser is so quick!

OMG the htc desire is amazing!!!!!! Its so fluid and htc sense is just awsome!

The snappy 1ghz proccesser is so quick!



OMG the htc desire is amazing!!!!!! Its so fluid and htc sense is just awsome!

The snappy 1ghz proccesser is so quick!

Build quality 10/10

Reception 10/10

Call quality 10/10

Internet 10/10

Multimedia 10/10

Camera 10/10

UI speed 10/10

Everyday usage 10/10

Text input 10/10

Display 10/10

Battery 9/10 The battery life runs out quite quickly if u use it heavil;y :(

Rafik Hussain posted on 06 Jun 2011, 05:23

3

very bad. I resold it.

Rafik Hussain has owned it for less than year before publishing this review

this is the worst phone I have ever had. only 4 months of usage and I am reselling it. I am going to loss 200$ in this resell. if you use calendar, GPS and internet browsing alot. then this phone is not for you.
at first I was impressed with the UI but then the functionality made the difference.

the calendar is a nightmare if you want to add new appointments with details "like address". and the battery gets empty in less than 2 hours of internet browsing or GPS usage. there is no offline maps this means if you visit a new country you have to arrange for internet access "in the streets" with whatever cost or you will be lost.
The worst thing that this phone did to me is that I charged it to 100% at 10 am and when out in a city I was visiting for the first time. the battery when off at 13:00 pm. so I was lost with no GPS and no phone to call my friends to help.

Build quality 9/10

Reception 9/10

Call quality 9/10

Internet 10/10

Multimedia 9/10

Camera 8/10

UI speed 9/10

Everyday usage 5/10

Text input 5/10 text prediction is changes everything you type after pressing space. also you can't go back to fix typing mistakes you have to delete all the text typed after this mistake and retype all.

Display 5/10

Battery 2/10 when using GPS the battery gets empty after 2 hours "I got lost in the city I was visiting with no mobile I couldn't even call my friends to guide me".

Pros

• Web browsing. auto arrange after zoom in
• HTC sence make everything just one click away.

Cons

• BATTERY IS Horrible. using GPS empty the battery in less than 2 hours. So if your visiting a new city you will need separate GPS or you will be lost with a dead cell phone. and won't be able to call anyone for help.
• no offline maps. so if you got lost in a place with no network coverage you will be completely lost. "no maps and no phone". so what's the point of GPS if I can't use it in places that I don't know.
• you can't buy apps from android market in some countries like Egypt. and also you can't download some free apps in such countries like GMaps 5. so make sure you country is on the list before you buy that phone.
• the auto-rotate doesn't work in calendar and people. so if you need to add an appointment you have the use the keyboard on the narrow side of the screen. this of course leads to many typing mistakes.
• you can't adjust the proxy setting so you can't use the Wifi in places that use a proxy for internet like the one in office.
• you can't add bookmarks on maps. so you can't mark the hotel you are staying in. if you visit a new city.

slyman2 posted on 03 Jun 2011, 22:09

10

htc desire

slyman2 has owned it for less than year before publishing this review

best phone ever, great features, had it for almost a year and not one complaint. strongly recommend this !
best phone ever, great features, had it for almost a year and not one complaint. strongly recommend this !
best phone ever, great features, had it for almost a year and not one complaint. strongly recommend this !

Build quality 10/10

Reception 10/10

Call quality 10/10

Internet 10/10

Multimedia 10/10

Camera 10/10

UI speed 10/10

Everyday usage 10/10

Text input 10/10

Display 10/10

Battery 10/10

Hasnul Hidayat posted on 05 Mar 2011, 08:39

10

HTC Desire Rules!

Hasnul Hidayat has owned it for less than year before publishing this review

I've been using it for 6 month now. but the joy and excitement is still the same like the day I bought it..the most faster phone ever. Battery could be better,but,with such screen is all i need. Great! I just made an software update from htc site with ota and i am very pleased how improve the phone. The camera is one of the best on smartphones,the only bug i found is not so good buildind of back and some keys like home key and sensor key when i press the last one. Not so solid thanks HTC coz u created such a WONDERFUL legacy~

Build quality 10/10

Reception 10/10

Call quality 10/10

Internet 10/10

Multimedia 9/10

Camera 10/10

UI speed 10/10

Everyday usage 10/10

Text input 9/10

Display 10/10

Battery 7/10

Pros

• beautiful build
• multitasking
• can be customized fully
• the camera is extremely awesome

Cons

• battery life
• internal memory
• the speaker is at the back

Anonymous posted on 08 Oct 2010, 05:05

9.7

Excellent phone....if i ever had a complaint, it would only be the battery life. If this is somehow taken care through better optimization, then it is a wonder device for me!
bought it about a month and half back, and i have really enjoyed using it. great interface, extremely fast processor, you can zip through the phone really. also the android market has got great apps and that make the desire more loaded. with the froyo update that came along within weeks of launch of the phone in the country, it has now got wifi tethering, 720 p or HD video capture and lot of other stuff. the mark "with Google", behind the phone lives up to it via superb integration into all trademark google services such as gmail, gtalk and a whole lot of other things. facebook integration of the phone too is awesome, all the facebook  contacts are there on my phone with the dp they use on facebook online. i even get to know their status messages when i receive their call. that is superb!

overall an excellent device, the best android phone till now.

Design 10/10

Features 10/10

Performance 9/10

Marverick posted on 03 Oct 2010, 06:08

5.7

Non Lasting phone

Bought and used the phone for 2 months, beautiful external designed, and fantastic size and screen. However the internal space is limited, after downloaded a few apps from the andriod market, i found that the internal memory space had been reduced and the overall of the phone had been slowed down, there are time when i need to shut down and restart the phone every 2 days so that the performance speed would not lag. Although there is an SD card expansion however the system didn't allowed options for all new downloaded apps to be saved in SD cards. Application experience wise was good. Very functional and connectivity, easy to check my facebook, however sync my contact and facebook became a challenge due to fact some of the details that is placed in facebook is not the same as the real ones, and when tried to delete, it erased my whole contact detail for that person. And i found that some of my facebook contact is not available on the phone. Overall a beautiful phone but i would give it a lower mark for simplicity/user friendlyness in a functional phone. I find it bit complicated to get used to it at first. After two month of using this phone, i accidentally dropped it on the road and got ran over by a car. That the end of my Desire experience. I wouldn't consider buying the Desire phone the 2nd time again.

Design 10/10

Features 4/10

Performance 3/10

Pros

• Good deign and shape
• Fantastic display and camera with flash
• touch screen highly responsive

Cons

• very limited internal memory space
• overly complicated on some of the apps
• not user friendly, buttons too small for medium size finger
• apps tend to lags when internal space becomes small
• no option to save apps to SD card
• Very fragile and sensitive phone

I Desire the galaxy S posted on 01 Oct 2010, 09:59

7.7

Sorry to say guys but the only thing better about this phone is the flash, and HTC sense. TBH " Rules! " it is NOT the fastest phone. That title belongs to the Samsung Galaxy S... the BEST SMARTPHONE IN 2010 BY FAR!

Design 8/10

Features 8/10

Performance 7/10

Pros

• overall good phone

Cons

• worse than Galaxy S

Luka posted on 30 Aug 2010, 09:08

10

Best android ever!!!

I have the HTC Desire for almost 3 weeks now and I am overjoyed with it!Everything is excellent,from the Live Wallpapers ,the 5mp camera,HTC Sense to the overall performances of the phone.A few people do have complains about the battery life,I can get almost 2 full days of mediocre usage.The media experience is excellent and I love the Cover flow in the music library.The camera is also excellent and if something isn't as you have wished,you can always download an app from the Market.Everything else is flawless,the best phone I had ever had!!!!Only downsize is the speaker which is located on the back so if you are carrying it in your pouch it can lower the overall volume down and you will have trouble hearing it.

Design 10/10

Features 10/10

Performance 10/10

Pros

• -HTC Sense with Android
• -5mp camera
• -Design
• -Excellent calls

Cons

• -speaker located on the back

Anonymous posted on 20 Jul 2010, 17:16

10

awsome

 This phone is sooo good. I like the screen most, and i like that it can connect by wi-fi. The camera is also good. Connecting to facebook is very easy and for m that is very helpful because i practically live on facebook. This is my firs htc phone and i must say i am very impressed.

Design 10/10

Features 10/10

Performance 10/10

lewis posted on 09 Jun 2010, 19:15

10

My HTC Desire

I got this phone as a replacement for the nokia x6 and i am glad i did this phone is awsome in everyway, the gps finds you quickly and the google maps integration works very well, the sat nav is also very clear and informative. the overall working of this phone straight out the box was very fast in relation to setting up and doing what ever you wish. if you have a picture for facebook or other networking site then you click share, give it a name and click upload, it uploads in the background while you do other things. i have had this phone a few weeks now and when i first got it yes the battery was a bit rubbish but after the first few weeks (after i stopped playing with it every few seconds) then the battery settled in. the camera quality isn't perfect but then you want stunning pictures buy a camera. i do a computing degree and i have tried to find flaws with the phone and none found so far, saying this it does tend to keep apps running in the background but the useful app market has the answer and i recommend advanced task killer this you can set to kill apps when the screen turns off and it will automaticlly close apps thus improving battery life. #while on the app market although its not as big as the itunes market it still has more then enough apps to keep you entertained. the screen is very clear with one of the most responsive touchscreens i have used, the multi touch can take getting used to but apart from that using the pinch option allows you to quickly view all...  

I got this phone as a replacement for the nokia x6 and i am glad i did this phone is awsome in everyway, the gps finds you quickly and the google maps integration works very well, the sat nav is also very clear and informative. the overall working of this phone straight out the box was very fast in relation to setting up and doing what ever you wish. if you have a picture for facebook or other networking site then you click share, give it a name and click upload, it uploads in the background while you do other things. i have had this phone a few weeks now and when i first got it yes the battery was a bit rubbish but after the first few weeks (after i stopped playing with it every few seconds) then the battery settled in. the camera quality isn't perfect but then you want stunning pictures buy a camera. i do a computing degree and i have tried to find flaws with the phone and none found so far, saying this it does tend to keep apps running in the background but the useful app market has the answer and i recommend advanced task killer this you can set to kill apps when the screen turns off and it will automaticlly close apps thus improving battery life. #while on the app market although its not as big as the itunes market it still has more then enough apps to keep you entertained. the screen is very clear with one of the most responsive touchscreens i have used, the multi touch can take getting used to but apart from that using the pinch option allows you to quickly view all 7 of your home screens that are fully personalisable, HTC have created a phone that has blown apple out of the water, i also own an apple itouch and it is now used as an expensive mp3 player, thats all it is to the HTC Desire. if you want a phone that wont let you down and is very easy to use that won't act like a blackberry or iphone and crash on you losing your data go for this phone. the phone also allows you to sync your contacts from your google account along with your calender so everything is backed up. and you can import your contacts or link your phone contacts to their facebook accounts. the screen however is not scratch resistant so you might want to get a case

Design 10/10

Features 10/10

Performance 10/10

Pros

• fast processor
• responsive touchscreen
• plenty of apps
• sync to google and link contacts to facebook
• looks good
• stunning colour display
• fast uploads
• gps very accurate
• Everything you want from a smart phone
• compared to the blackberry setup time out of the box much faster and everything is set up at once eg wifi to home account, email and facebook.

Cons

• battery life could be better
• camera a bit grainy
• battery blocks the sim and micro sd card but this isnt a bad thing as you are suposed to turn your phone off anyway
• no scratch resistant screen (get a case)

TonyFong posted on 24 May 2010, 23:42

10

great phone. PRO: most of the aspect. too long list to mention. google it.CON: the only thing i like to comment is just the battery life. But yet its not a compliant. with a great brilliant display, sure need power to operate. at least, it give me a choice to hold a spare battery. at the moment, i don't see a need yet, 1 full charge can last me morning till i reach home in the late evening.

Design 10/10

Features 10/10

Performance 10/10

Pros

• Speed!
• Beautiful screen!and high sensitivity with smooth performance
• UI
• Good Music Output!
• Open Source, Android!
• browsing experience.

Cons

• CON: the only thing i like to comment is just the battery life. But yet its not a compliant. with a great brilliant display, sure need power to operate. at least, it give me a choice to hold a spare battery. at the moment, i don't see a need yet, 1 full charge can last me morning till i reach home in the late evening.

Ash posted on 14 May 2010, 06:39

9.3

Ash

 This phone is just amazing! It has everything from speed, to beautiful and responsive touchscreen, good music quality, a decent camera.....The list goes on!And yes, it does beat iPhone in many terms and equals in others.... VGA resolution and AMOLED combination is just phenomenal indoors [outdoors you have to struggle a bit, but shouldn't matter for most  techies :) ]. Keep it next to iPhone and it beats its screen without any hassle. [many of my friends who use iPhone and are just madly in love with it, admit it after looking at my phone]. Internet is just incredibly fast, beatsthe iPhone again. Same is for Video usage [higher resolution makes them look much better] and camera functions.... Sense UI is quite near perfect this time, and stand tall in front of OS X, especially because of its fresh looks! Sound quality is almost identical to iPhone, and I can say even though I am an avid music listener.I am really happy that I've bought this phone as it delivers what it promises. Yes, Battery drains out quickly and you have to charge it every night, but this trade-off is much better to stick to Apple proprietary softwares, buying ringtones from iTunes, no wallpaper change, no mutlitasking and list goes on again.... :)

Design 8/10

Features 10/10

Performance 10/10

Pros

• Speed!
• Beautiful screen!
• Fresh UI, looks cooler than iPhone!
• Good Music Output!
• Open Source, Android!

Cons

• Battery Life.
• Loudspeaker Volume.

Shoumik Mahmud posted on 14 May 2010, 03:28

9.7

One of the best EVER.

This phone is just awesome and works excellent. Only problem is the battery life. But it is a fantastic device, very fast responsive but the music player is not as good as the hd2. the screen is bright and optical pad works just fine even though it is not essential. Over all very nice phone, love it.

Design 10/10

Features 10/10

Performance 9/10

Pros

• Almost everything except the cons.

Cons

• battery life, music player interface, video recording.

Anonymous posted on 14 Apr 2010, 16:59

10

 The phone is increadible!It's better than the iPhone, as others sites have stated. It's really amazing how fast and useful is the phone. I love it, and probably everyone will love it too. The battery could be better, but to supply all this big screen with vivid colors and to have this fast interface is hard. Good job HTC!

Design 10/10

Features 10/10

Performance 10/10

Pros

• The Speed!
• The Android and HTC Sense!
• The beautiful brith display!

Cons

• The battery life.

Anonymous posted on 13 Apr 2010, 10:28

4.3

The main problem with this phone is the ridiculous omission in respect of a noise cancelling microphone. The result is there is a significant hiss when you speak. Voice clarity is surely the key feature on a phone, nevermind the bells and whistles.The screen is however very good and the system generally works well, although I had an issue with emails being notified on their arrival. The battery life is also hopeless, so that overall if you can make a call, as you have enough power left, it will still be difficult to hold a conversation, which ngeates the whole reason to purchase. The size and build were good enough, but the noise issue was enough for me to return it, no matter how good other aspects of this handset were.

Design 7/10

Features 4/10

Performance 2/10

Pros

• Screen and smooth performance.

Cons

• Dreadful background noise, battery life. Email issues

CNET TOPREVIEWER posted on 08 Apr 2010, 09:09

10

gREAT

just absolutely fantastic. power, speed and ease of use.u will absolutely love it. has a very good ui by htc called sense. so vibrant and easy to use. aggregate contact information like facebook, sms, email into one app.

Design 10/10

Features 10/10

Performance 10/10

Pros

• JUST ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC. POWER, SPEED AND EASE OF USE.

Cons

• BATTERY LIFE MODERATE- WILL LAST 10-12HOURS

ABE posted on 07 Apr 2010, 18:55

10

rules!

the most faster phone ever. Battery could be better,but,with such screen is all i need. Great! I just made an software update from htc site with ota and i am very pleased how improve the phone. The camera is one of the best on smartphones,the only bug i found is not so good buildind of back and some keys like home key and sensor key when i press the last one. Not so solid

Design 10/10

Features 10/10

Performance 10/10

Pros

• speed,screen,camera,os,touch sensor

Cons

• not so strong build. Some key and back not so good materials

jay lethal posted on 07 Apr 2010, 06:56

3

OMG

 i cant believe that i thought this phone was good, i bought it and gave it back the next day. the phone is so **** and it isnt that fast. i had to keep on restarting the phone because it got stuck when i went on some websites, e.g. facebook. i also think that it is heavier then they say. sorry htc ive been with you for a long time and this is your worse phone.

Design 3/10

Features 5/10

Performance 1/10

Pros

• good design and touch screen

Cons

• could`ve been faster
• gets stuck too much
• too bulky