HTC Desire 200 Review

Introduction

HTC Desire 200 is the entry level fighter in the company's Android portfolio this season, with lowly specs and cutsy design that is clearly aiming it at the younger, rather than the affluent crowd. The phone's frontal design mimics the flagship HTC One BoomSound speaker grill, but is that enough to lure buyers towards the unassuming Desire 200? Read on to find out...

In the box

• In-ear stereo headphones
• Wall charger
• MicroUSB cable
• Warranty and information leaflets

Design

Soapy shape, thick black or white body with rounded corners and patterned back cover – the HTC Desire 200 is not bad looking at all, and since it is very small, the phone is comfortable to hold and operate with one hand, too. We mentioned that it has the signature speaker grill at the top we automatically associate with the high-end HTC One, but that seems to be just a design exploit, as the main speaker is actually on the back.


The power/lock key at the top, and the volume rocker on the right are wide, easy to feel and press without looking, and with pretty deep tactile feedback. There are three capacitive navigational keys underneath the smallish display, which are sensitive just enough, and responsive to the touch.


Display

The basic 3.5” screen comes with 320x480 pixels resolution, which even at that small size only returns 165 ppi density, so it's unlikely that you will use it for anything but basic tasks, rather than staring at it for hours browsing or watching vids.

It is otherwise sufficiently bright outside, with good color representation and tolerable viewing angles, but due to the low resolution everything looks pretty ugly and pixelated.



Interface and functionality

The older Sense 4.0 UI is on the Desire 200, which we find to be one of the most complex, pretty and deep-reaching manufacturer overlays out there.I It is coated over Android 4.0.3 here only, though, rather than a newer version out of the box. Also, at the Desire 200's resolution, it doesn't look all that pretty, plus there are no transparencies or transitional animations to speak of. The rich number of widgets, themes and wallpapers is still here, though, if you want to mix and match and personalize your handset's interface to your heart's desire.



Processor and memory

The Desire 200 sports an entry level 1 GHz Snapdragon S1 processor, as well as just 512 MB of RAM, so it is rather slow and takes its time while strolling around the interface or loading apps. There are 4 GB of internal storage, but just a gig of it is user-available, though HTC does sport a microSD slot for up to 32 GB storage expansion.

	Quadrant Standard	AnTuTu	GLBenchmark 2.5 (Egypt HD)	Vellamo (HTML5 / Metal)
HTC Desire 200	2051	4427	FAIL	911 / 326
LG Optimus L3 II	2063	5800	n / a	n / a
Samsung Galaxy Ace 2	1953
Sony Xperia U	2266

Internet and connectivity

HTC touts its Sense web browser as perfect for on-the-go interneting with its little touches like the ability to dial a phone number listed on a page with one tap, or the Reading mode, which strips content of pics and ads to display just the text. In reality, the tiny phone display and the paltry resolution make for rather uninsiring browsing sessions. The handset supports 7.2 Mbps 3G downloads, and has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, and A-GPS radios – that's about it.

Camera

The 5 MP shooter with f/2.8 aperture on the back of the Desire 200 is a fixed-focus unit, so don't expect anything nearer than 10 inches or so to come out well. It is, however, extremely fast to shoot both pictures and video, as we are accustomed to with HTC's Sense UI lately. There are just a few color effects offered to spice your photography chops up - no HDR, Panorama or other alternative shooting modes are offered.


The pics often come out underexposed and noisy at auto shooting mode, even when there's plenty of light around. The level of detail leaves something to be desired, and about the only thing that is gotten mostly right is the white balance. Video is shot in 640x480 VGA resolution, with decent audio accompanying it, but a rather low frame rate, even outside.



HTC Desire 200 Sample Video:



Multimedia

The Sense UI gallery offers simple cropping and color effects application for your pics, as well as autoenhance abilities, but nothing more.


The music player has no equalizer presets to speak of, if you don't count the Beats Audio one that kicks in when you plug in headphones.


HTC says it distributes its highest quality in-ear headphones with the Desire 200, the same ones that are coming with the HTC One. These might not be Beats branded ones, but there are red ear plugs and red button on the microphone/volume knob contraption, that will make you stand out in the subway crowd. They are nice, but still not as good as the ones coming with the iPhone 5 or the Galaxy S4, especially in the bass department. The loudspeaker is pretty decent, with strong and comparatively full sound.

Videos can be played up to 800x480 resolution, in MPEG-4, DivX or Xvid formats.

Call quality

The earpiece sounds about average on the HTC Desire 200 - not quiet, but not exceptionally loud and clear either. The other end had a similar experience, and said they could hear us fine, meaning there wasn't much distortion or artificial sounding timber, but quality wasn't crispy clean either, was added.

Battery

The 1230 mAh unit in the Desire 200 is rated for about seven and a half hours of talk time in 3G mode, which is below average, but more than a month of standby is possible with the handset, meaning that it draws quite a little power when not in active use.

Conclusion

The HTC Desire 200 has some perks going for it, like the decent audio and call quality, packing the same set of headphones that comes with the HTC One, and sporting strong loudspeaker and clean earpiece. It also flaunts a very fast camera, but its less-than-impressive entry level specs hinder the impression from the handset's advantages. At first glance, you can't ask much more from a handset in the sub-$200 category without a contract, but looking around for alternatives in that niche, we are seeing better choices for the money.

We are not talking about a competitor like LG Optimus L3 II, which is priced a bit lower, but has an even smaller display. We mean something like the Optimus L5 II, which costs the same, and offers larger screen with better resolution, or the Xperia U, which is currently just a tad over the $200 mark, but sports much more pixels at the same display size, more internal memory, and HD video capture.

Software: 1.06.401.1