• Technology

A shout out to all the Google fanboys in the house—HTC is not your best ally. You want proof? Two words—HTC Desire. To explain my position, I would like to take everybody’s attention back to the phone that was first proclaimed as the iPhone killer, the Google Nexus One.

After reviewing the HTC Desire, I am more than certain that the Nexus One was made by HTC for Google to throw them off the scent. Of the handset market that is. The HTC Desire is what the Google Nexus One should have been.

Following on from the brilliant Legend, HTC has managed to make yet another phone that has what it takes to make a serious dent in the smartphone market. Spec-wise, the Desire packs in what the Nexus One did—Android 2.1, 1 GHz Snapdragon processor with 576MB of RAM and 512MB of ROM, 1,400mAh battery, 3.7-inch 800 x 480 AMOLED screen, and a 5 megapixel autofocus camera. Where it makes a major departure from the One is with the trackball—the Desire dumps it for a much more responsive trackpad.

On both sides of that trackpad come the four essential HTC buttons—Home, Menu, Back and Search. Though less than the HTC Hero/Legend, the Desire also keeps a slight chin that helps one-hand ergonomics. It’s also incredibly compact at 119 x 60 x 11.9 mm, and just 133g in weight—exactly the same as the iPhone 3GS. That is one travel-friendly weight. Gripping the Desire, though, is a little tricky. It has this rubbery plastic exterior that though claims less fingerprints, does make it susceptible to falling.To continue, the Desire has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a GPS and an FM radio. The box includes a 2GB microSD card for storage, though you can upgrade to a maximum of 32GB for storage.

Audio-wise, the Desire has a 3.5mm headphone jack, and for charging and syncing, it uses the standard microUSB to charge from both an adaptor and a computer.

The Desire uses the Sense UI, which outside of the iOS4, has to be the most pleasurable interface to work with. It does have some new features though—the Friend Stream app (an awesome social aggregation app), a homescreen switcher app, and an enhanced text highlighting tool. The specs ensure that the phone is almost always extra zippy and able to open multiple apps at a time.

The Webkit browser does a fantastic job of imitating a desktop browser. However, if you thought that the Android is your answer to a Flash-capable phone, think again. Even with the Snapdragon processor, Flash on the Desire is a bit of a slog.

There are a couple of more negatives on the Desire though. First up, the AMOLED screen while the most amazing in sheltered environments, is no better than your girlfriend’s make up mirror under the sun. Read or watch a video in the sunlight and blind yourself. The camera, on the other hand, fails in the low light.

The battery is another bummer on the Desire, though there is a caveat here. In the initial testing, the Desire exhibited the most horrible battery life I had ever seen. With just a couple of phone calls, some Facebooking and browsing, the battery did not last more than 2 hours. I first thought that it was a product flaw and was about to snarl in this review.

However, on updating the OS from the Éclair 2.1 to the Froyo 2.2, this battery hassle mostly vanished. I also switched off the location services and auto sync for my accounts. Now, this baby is giving no less than 24 hours of battery with occasional web browsing photos and videos, music playback and of course, talking a fair bit. A friend tells me that you can further increase the battery life by rooting the phone and manipulating the processor speeds. But that’s illegal and I cannot recommend it. Actually, I can and I do. It’s your phone, after all.

For the entrepreneur
The Desire is a fantastic phone is you are one who lives his life on Google. With just one input of username and password, your entire contacts list backed up on Gmail, you are logged on and remain live on Gtalk, and your e-mail is pushed on aka you are a Jedi with a Google Saber. You are as connected as one can be in this Google-enveloped world.

The Desire also has its native e-mail client that is also a dream to work with. You can configure the widget for this client to show your e-mail in your preferred way. The client supports Exchange Active Sync POP, APOP and IMAP, thereby covering all there is to cover in the e-mail world.

To conclude, I have to say that the Desire is easily one of the best phones around in the market. It has the fastest processor around  that powers one of the best user interfaces ever seen. The Sense interface is both intuitive and efficient, the trackpad is definitely a step up and it has some killer new features like Friend Stream (that needs some more talking about). I am in no doubt that outside of the iPhone, this is the best phone there is.

©Entrepreneur October 2010

Tags:
HTC Desire, smartphone