19 Jul 10 HTC Desire Review – How is the Deal?

So there goes my HTC Desire Review, hopefully providing sufficient information for you to decide on an Android or iPhone? Or HTC or iPhone?

HTC Desire Review – Part 1
HTC Desire Review – The Phone – Part 2
HTC Desire Review – The Features – Part 3
HTC Desire Review – Nexus One Comparison – Part 4

I believe the Part 4 comparison will help in your decision making. Personally, which manufacturer would you get if you’re looking for an Android phone? HTC is the only one consistently coming up with Android phone and each model got better than the earlier one.

Admittedly, I would still prefer the Nexus One, but getting a pricey smartphone, one should consider the after purchase factor, which is the support and warranty options.

Maxis current deal on HTC Desire is still the best in my own opinion. At the promotional price of RM 1,499 you get a Nexus One substitute with a 2 year warranty by local HTC Distributor SiS.

Do note that you will need to sign up for a 12 months contract to get the promotional price. That would be adding RM 696 (assuming RM 58/month) to the RM 1,499, and sums it up to RM 2195 (excluding your phone call plan).
This package will cost you roughly RM 183 per month for a year.
What do you think?

Acknowledgement
This review is not a sponsored post by Maxis, but the HTC Desire phone is given by Maxis for this review. They have specifically spelt out that it does not matter that the review is positive or negative, and there are no rules at all. All that is required is a fair review of the phone.

Tags: #maxis10, Android 2.1, HTC, HTC Desire, Maxis, Maxis10Reviews

Filed in Phone, Review with 1 Comment

15 Jul 10 HTC Desire Review – Nexus One Comparison – Part 4

My important features of the Android smartphone comparison, between Nexus One and the HTC Desire.

Features	HTC Desire	Nexus One
Form	Visually longer screen although both having 3.7 inches screen Only slightly thicker by 0.4mm Has a slight chin bottom of the phone Rubberized case	Slimmer and based on the rounded shape, it feels slimmer than 0.4mm Special coating on the cover, smoother feel
Weight	135g	130g, Based on the specifications, Nexus One is only 5g lighter, but there is a noticeable difference while holding it
Speed	As both of these devices are having very similar hardware specifications, the benchmark is actually very close to each other with minimal significant difference. This is a tie.
Hardware	As compared to the Nexus One, HTC Desire’s sensor are either too sensitive or not sensitive. The ambient light sensor is not sensitive and the Orientation sensor detects the roll and switch to landscape mode ever too often. It takes difficulty to switch it back to vertical mode.	Has noise cancellation, light sensor, and G sensor works extremely well Touch screen or multi-touch is not perfectly accurate, same as HTC Desire
Software	Runs Eclair, Android SDK 2.1 Runs HTC Proprietary UI, HTC Sense I would rate HTC Sense higher so here’s Desire win	Runs Eclair, Android 2.1 and latest update is Froyo Android 2.2. With the Nexus One you can always expect early updates from the Android team
Navigation buttons	Optical trackpad on the phone is for navigating the links or items acting like a cursor. You need to swipe it like on a Blackberry optical trackpad.	Trackball is my favourite feature on the Nexus One. Check out my videos: See how many people supported enabling the trackball lights: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6018
Virtual Keyboard	HTC Sense made it so much easy to use the virtual keyboard and in your speed typing	Stock Android keyboard is just, plain
Accessories	Unfortunately, the phone package doesn’t come with a case, although it’s common. No other official accessories comes with the phone besides the battery charger and the headset	Android Case, and optionally you can purchase the car dock or desktop dock online. You can even purchase battery for backup
Warranty and Support	Local Distributor Warranty – this I believe is the major advantage of this phone	Google online support Due to the phone not sold in stores, you can only get help from Google via the website : http://www.google.com/phone/support
Total	4	6

Based on my personal opinion, the Nexus One would have two points up against the HTC Desire. However, do keep in mind that certain features has higher importance (weight) against other features. Put that into your own calculation based on your preference and I believe you should be able to make a reasonable choice between the two.
What do you think? Do you agree with the above comparison?

Tags: #maxis10, Android 2.1, HTC, HTC Desire, Maxis, Maxis10Reviews

Filed in Phone, Review, Video with 1 Comment

14 Jul 10 HTC Desire Review – The Features – Part 3

Camera
The 5.0 MP camera performs well in a well-lighted environment and works with a Flash in a dark environment.
It has auto focus and you can point your finger on the screen to automatically switch the focus to the area you pointed.
The camera also comes with automatic face detection and it will highlight it in a box, even if the face is not in 3D.

Following are more sample photos taken with the camera.

Sample video recorded using HTC Desire :

Music player
I always somehow feel that the Music player has elements ported from iPod.

It’s good, but not great. You have a few options of browsing the songs in your phone, play all or shuffle play.
If you use the earphone, unplugging it will automatically pause the song you’re playing.

Radio player
The FM Radio is something very much appreciated, as it is only among the few latest Android phones that come with a built-in FM Radio.

Like all other FM radio devices, it will require the earphone to be plugged-in to work as the antenna.

I found out there’s this option for Japan, supposedly switches the range of frequency to Japan. I doubt it’ll work outside of Japan though.

Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi is a great deal in smartphone, allowing connectivity to Internet without being charged for mobile data consumption.
The Desire will automatically use Wi-Fi only when it has a connection, even while you are using mobile network.

The Wi-Fi in Android has improved much, and doesn’t require much explanation. You basically know how to use it.

Bluetooth
Bluetooth in HTC Desire allow file transfer and if you have a compatible A2DP for wireless stereo set, you can listen to streaming music wirelessly!

GPS
HTC Desire comes with geolocation feature and by default it uses your network point to estimate your location, be it your internet router or your mobile network station location. Using this option, it doesn’t accurately identify your location.

To have a perfect identification of where you are, turn on the GPS satellite usage. This will drain your battery and heat your phone with prolonged use, so use with caution.

Only use when you need exact location, so when you use location based app like FourSquare, turning on GPS with satellite will be most beneficial.

Phone
The phone is easy to use, without the need of much review, but it’s good to know that the phone feature now has come a long way since early introduction of Android.

I would say that the earlier phone feature was quite a disappointment as when you needed to key in number as options for Automated menu, the phone might have gone to sleep mode.

Now it utilizes the G-sensors smartly, so when placed on your ear for a period of time, it will sleep but after moving it, it will wake up and you will be able to bring up the menu or even go elsewhere.

MMS
MMS sending on Android is not easy and it was really a pain to send MMS.
Read how to setup MMS settings with Maxis from my previous post. I’m not sure how it’ll work for other telcos, but I would suggest it would be somewhat similar.

To send a MMS, on the message composer screen, select Menu and select Attach.

Android market/apps
Some earlier Android users, especially HTC Hero or Magic users complained that there isn’t much apps on Android phones. That was because earlier phones do not come with Android Market!

With Android Market, you can now spend the whole day or even months testing each of them out. You will not be able to install all of them though, as it’s limited by the space on the phone, but you CAN install, and uninstall those that you do not like.

Paid apps are only available in certain countries and for the rest of the world, the Android Market caters free Android apps.

You can manage the installed apps from the Manage applications menu, or with Android Market, selecting the app that is already installed on your phone allow you to Update it or Uninstall it as well.
One recommended app to manage running app is the Advanced Task Killer Free by ReChild.

So with Android Market in the HTC Desire now, it is full of applications and some are great stuff that you don’t even know about it!