HTC Desire

Discontinued
16th February 2010

Launched at the same time as the HTC Legend, the HTC Desire is an Android 2.1 handset with HTC's Sense UI loaded on top and improved social networking support included, but the Desire comes with a much bigger display and packs in a lot more pixels.

It looks a little like the HTC manufactured Google Nexus One, and indeed the specifications are very similar. But the HTC Desire isn't simply a Nexus One with HTC branding, as there are a number of improvements.. but you will have to wait until sometime next quarter to get your hands on one.

Inside is a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, which is about as fast as a mobile phone processor will go. The 3.7" 800 x 480 pixel display uses OLED technology to ensure that it is bright and clear, and with this sort of resolution and processor power, the Desire should be ideal for web surfing and video playback. Internal memory is an impressive 576 MB of RAM which should allow plenty of applications to run at the same time.

On the back is a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, the sort of thing that most rival Android devices also offer. There's a multimedia player, microSD expandable memory, FM radio and a 3.5mm audio socket.

At 135 grams in weight, the HTC Desire might seem a little on the heavy side, but for a large screen device such as this it is fairly average, the Desire is also a little on the large size physically coming in at 119 x 60 x 12mm, but again this is fairly typical. The large 1400 mAh battery can power the Desire for up to 6.5 hours talktime and 15 days standby time on 3G.

Unlike the Nexus One, the HTC Desire has been overhauled with HTC's Sense User interface which gives a slightly more polished look and feel. HTC have also developed an application called Friend Stream which integrates all the social networking updates from your contacts in one place. Flash 10.1 support is built in as standard, and of course as this is an Android device then you can add more applications as you wish. The user interface supports multi-touch use as well.

HTC say that the Desire should be available in April, although no guidance was given on price, we would guess that it will be fairly expensive though and be something in the region of €550.

HTC Desire Promo Video