Oh, hi, cutie pie! I bet everybody’s wondering about how did HTC manage to use ANDROID 4.0 ICS on this little thing, with a processor of only 600MHz ? Was it magic ? What was it ? Let’s take a look!
Key features:
Light and compact
Quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G support
14.4 Mbps HSDPA, 5.76 Mbps HSUPA support
3.5" 16M-color TFT capacitive touchscreen of HVGA resolution (320 x 480)
600MHz single-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 MSM7227A chipset, Cortex A5 CPU, 512MB RAM, Adreno 200 GPU
Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) with HTC Sense 4 UI
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with hotspot functionality
GPS with A-GPS connectivity
5 MP camera, geotagging, face detection
VGA video @ 24fps
microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v3.0
microSD slot (up to 32GB)
Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
Accelerometer, proximity sensor
Polaris Office doc viewer / editor
25GB of free Dropbox
Stereo FM radio with RDS
Smart dialing
DivX/XviD video support
HTCSense.com integration
Adobe Flash support
Surprisingly good audio output
Full specs here.
In its box, you will find the standard microUSB cable, a headset and the charger. You won’t find a microSD card, unfortunately.
Desire C is very light and compact, having a weight of 100 grams and measuring 107.2 x 60.6 x 12.3 mm. Fits perfectly in my hand. When I first looked at it, I was under the impression that it’s even smaller and I wouldn’t have thought that its display measures 3.5 inches. Well, it does.
It’s made of plastic, has a metallic frame that encases the screen and its back is made of rubberised plastic, for a better hand grip.
Under the screen you’ll find the three capacitive buttons: back, home and task switcher. On the left side is the microUSB port, used for both charging and connecting to the computer and on its right side is the volume rocker. At the top, there’s the power/lock button and the 3.5mm headphone jack. On the bottom you’ll only find the mouthpiece.
Though it’s kind of puny, we must not underestimate it. This dwarfish looking fellow has a lot to give. For example, the latest version of Google’s operating system, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and the interface is colourful and user friendly, as Sense 4.0 is also present on the device.
The call quality is fine and also the reception. If you’re expecting video calling, it’s not there, unfortunately. If it makes you feel any better, you get Smart dialing.
For messaging, you have a lot of options, like the Mail and Gmail applications or Google+ Messenger. The QWERTY touch keyboard has been optimized for its 3.5 inch display, they used as much space as they could for that. You can easily write a message or mail.
The HTC Desire C comes with 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, and quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE.
For browsing, you’ll have the latest Android browser and you can also install Chrome for Android. Flash support is also there. The browsing speed is not too great, if you ask me. And I’m a pretty patient person.
Desire comes with a HTC Portable Hotspot application, which enables you to gain web access at a high speed.
Another issue can be the fact that when the phone’s running multiple applications or when you quickly move through the menu, you may sometimes meet the unfriendly and annoying lag. But, we got to think about the class to which it belongs and not ask high-end performances from it. There are dual-core phones with delays and this one only has a 600 MHz processor.
The phone has a 5MP fixed-focus camera that lacks a shutter key and a LED flash. It takes pictures at up to 2592 x 1944 pixels and records VGA at 30 fps. The picture quality is neither bad or great. It’s… decent enough.
Desire C features the Beats Audio sound enhancement, which should certify a perfect sound quality. Well, I must say it’s really great. The phone supports all the important music formats, as MP3, WAV, WMA. Doesn’t have Beats Audio presets, as you might have expected. On board, you’ll also find music library, some useful apps, like SoundHound, TuneIn Radio and 7 Digital, for downloading some new music stuff.
When it comes to video playing, it supports the main formats, like AVI, WMV and MP4. So stop day-dreaming about 720p/1080p videos.
In the matter of battery life, it stands very well. Even though it has a 1,230mAh battery, the phone will be alive for more than a day even if you frequently use it for calling, browsing, messaging etc.
Let’s talk about a few useful applications. The HTC Desire comes with Google Maps pre-installed. So, if you get lost, the A-GPS will take care of the helpless wittle you. A great tool is the Polaris application, that has support for Word, PowerPoint, Excel and also has a PDF viewer. Quite neat, huh ? Dropbox and SkyDrive are also here, enabling you to browse your documents stored on the cloud based system. For music recognition, you get SoundHound.
In conclusion, you have to appreciate that this little cupcake of a phone is really trying to keep up with the other giants in the smartphone family and does a pretty good job, if you come to think about its noobish processor and other minuses that I have pointed in the review. Even though it has some low performances, the HTC Desire C is still a decent phone, has a cute design and is also cheap. You just can’t dislike it!
You can have your own HTC Desire C on a monthly contract deal here.
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