HTC Desire

Last updated

HTC Desire
Htc-desire-2.jpg
CodenameBravo
Manufacturer HTC Corporation
Compatible networks Europe/Asia Pacific: HSPA/WCDMA
900/2100 MHz [Model A8181]
850/1900 (Telus Mobility Canada) [Model A8182]
850/2100 MHz (Telstra Australia) [Model A8183]
GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
First released16 February 2010;13 years ago (2010-02-16)
Availability by region South Korea May 2010 (2010-05)
Predecessor HTC Hero
Successor HTC Desire S
Related HTC Desire Z, HTC Desire HD, HTC Incredible S
Type Smartphone
Form factor Slate
Dimensions119 mm (4.7 in) H
60 mm (2.4 in) W
11.9 mm (0.47 in) D
Mass135 g (4.8 oz)
Operating system Launched with Android 2.1 "Eclair"
Upgradeable to Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" [1] (Though only 2.2 is supported by HTC)
CPU 1 GHz Qualcomm QSD8250 Snapdragon
GPU Adreno 200
Memory576 MB RAM
Storage512 MB flash (150 MB user accessible)
Removable storage microSDHC supports up to 32 GB
Battery1400  mAh
Internal Rechargeable Li-ion
User replaceable
Display3.7-inch 480×800 px (0.38 Megapixels) WVGA AMOLED or Super LCD capacitive touchscreen covered by Gorilla Glass [2]
Rear camera5 Megapixel
Autofocus
LED flash
face detection, Geotagging
Connectivity Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR
Micro USB
Wi-Fi 802.11b/g
Data inputsDual-Touch screen, 3-axis accelerometer, digital compass, proximity and ambient light sensors, FM Radio, compass, A-GPS
Other HTC Sense 1.9 interface
Flash 10.1 enabled (update to Flash 11 available in Android Market)
References [3]

The HTC Desire (codenamed Bravo) [4] is the first smartphone of the Desire series developed by HTC. It was announced on 16 February 2010 and released in Europe and Australia in the second quarter of the same year. The HTC Desire was HTC's third flagship phone running Android 2.1 Eclair [5] which can be upgraded to 2.2 Froyo or 2.3 Gingerbread. [6] Internally it bears a strong resemblance to the Nexus One, but differs in some features.

Contents

Availability

In the United States, the device was available from Alltel, U.S. Cellular, [7] Cellular South, [8] Cox Wireless, nTelos Wireless, Cellcom, [9] and United Wireless in southwest Kansas. In Canada, the device was released by Telus Mobility on 6 August 2010. [10]

In Europe, the carriers were Elisa in Finland, Vodafone UK, Vodafone Ireland, Meteor Irl, BT Broadband Anywhere, T-Mobile UK, O2, Orange UK, 3, and Virgin Mobile UK. In Australia, it is exclusive to Telstra. In Japan, Softbank Mobile started sales in April.[ citation needed ] In Turkey, Vodafone started sales in late November 2010.

In South Korea, SK Telecom began sales in May 2010.

In Singapore, the official launch date was 14 May 2010, and the phone was subsequently for sale by all carriers.

In mainland China, HTC launched its four flagship smartphones including the Desire on 27 July 2010. Unlike in other markets, the device was shipped with Android 2.2 ("Froyo"). [11]

Many of the UK mobile networks were unable to keep up with demand; Virgin Mobile UK, Vodafone UK, 3, T-Mobile UK and Orange UK experienced very high demand. [12] [13] [14] [15] The disruption caused by the 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull led to some customers waiting a month getting their HTC Desires due to much of European airspace being closed.[ citation needed ]

In India, HTC and TATA DOCOMO, the GSM brand of Tata Teleservices Limited, announced a partnership to launch HTC Desire in India on 16 August 2010.

Hardware

Image of SLCD screen left and AMOLED screen right HTC Desire SLCD vs AMOLED.jpg
Image of SLCD screen left and AMOLED screen right

The phone uses a 1 GHz ARMv7 "Snapdragon" processor, includes a 5 megapixel auto-focus camera and an optical trackpad, and was among the first consumer devices to feature a large, full-color active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) display. [16]

During late Q2 2010, HTC made the decision to switch the Desire's display to a S-LCD panel, manufactured by the company S-LCD a co-operative between Sony and Samsung. Although this was brought on by a severe AMOLED panel supply shortfall, [17] the new display greatly enhances text readability because of its improved effective resolution, one of the few complaints people had with the original Desire model. [18] [19] Compared to the original AMOLED display, the SLCD display has more accurate colour reproduction, far less susceptibility to burn-in, similar peak brightness and very good viewing angles, but a lower contrast ratio. The new SLCD display was claimed to have similar or better power efficiency compared with the original AMOLED display; however, this has proved to not always be the case because with AMOLED pixels' ability to completely turn off, black or dark pixels use very little power. [20] However, in situations when the screen is predominantly bright (such as when viewing many web pages), the AMOLED display uses more power.

The hardware is capable of high-definition (720p) video recording and playback; the 720p video recording feature has been added to the HTC Desire when updating to the official HTC modified Android Froyo firmware. [21]

Software

The Desire was shipped with Android 2.1. HTC made an update to Android 2.2 (codenamed "Froyo") available on the following dates:

HTC has released a software update to upgrade the Desire to Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). Originally, they planned to do this in June 2011. [26] [27] On 14 June 2011, HTC announced via Facebook that there would be no Gingerbread update for the HTC Desire, citing memory constraints. This is because HTC had been unable to fit both Gingerbread and HTC Sense together in the phone's 250 MB system partition. [28] However, on 15 June, they released a statement saying the Desire would receive the Gingerbread update, with the possibility of some apps being cut. [29] The update was finally released for download from HTC's developer website [30] on 1 August 2011, and is not available as an OTA (over-the-air) update.

Comparison with Nexus One

The Desire internally bears a strong resemblance to the Nexus One. The differences found in the Desire are: [31] [32] [33] [34]

Because of the strong similarity to the Nexus One "developer phone", the Desire enjoys a highly active third-party developer community. The Desire subforum was one of the most active at xda-developers, and notably CyanogenMod and MIUI are available for the device.

Reception

The HTC Desire received extremely positive reviews. CNET UK reviewed awarded the phone 9.2/10. [36] TechRadar awarded the phone 5 out of 5 stars and stated, "In short, this is a phenomenal phone—one of the best we've ever had." [37]

From TechRadar's "Top 15 best mobile phones in the world", the HTC Desire is simply the best so far: "It's like a Nexus One only better. For this reason, the HTC Desire has entered our top 10 at number 1, and the Google Nexus One has dropped out completely. It's tough at the top." [38] MobileTechWorld found the HTC Desire to be a fairly capable product that "manages to please casual users with HTC’s flashy Sense UI and geeks who love to tweak their handsets on a daily basis thanks to the Google’s Android OS". [39]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nexus One</span> 2010 Android smartphone by HTC

The Nexus One is an Android smartphone designed and manufactured by HTC as Google's first Nexus smartphone. The Nexus became available on January 5, 2010, and features the ability to transcribe voice to text, an additional microphone for dynamic noise suppression, and voice guided turn-by-turn navigation to drivers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HTC Hero</span> Smartphone developed by HTC

HTC Hero is the third phone manufactured by HTC running the Android platform, announced on June 24, 2009 in London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HTC Sense</span> Software suite developed by HTC

HTC Sense is a software suite developed by HTC, used primarily on the company's Android-based devices. Serving as a successor to HTC's TouchFLO 3D software for Windows Mobile, Sense modifies many aspects of the Android user experience, incorporating additional features, additional widgets, re-designed applications, and additional HTC-developed applications. The first device with Sense, the HTC Hero, was released in 2009. The HD2 running Windows Mobile 6.5, released later the same year, included Sense. Following the release of the Hero, all future Android devices by HTC were shipped with Sense, except for the Nexus One, the Desire Z, the HTC First, the Google Pixel and Pixel 2, and the Nexus 9 which used a stock version of Android. Also some HTC smartphones that are using MediaTek processors come without HTC Sense.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comparison of HTC devices</span>

HTC is the original design manufacturer for many Android and Windows Phone-based smartphones and PDAs. Brands that market or previously marketed HTC-manufactured products include Dell, Fujitsu Siemens, HP/Compaq, i-mate, Krome, O2, Palm, Sharp Corporation, and UTStarcom. HTC also manufactures ultra-mobile PCs, and is also the manufacturer of the Nexus One and Nexus 9, a smartphone and tablet designed and branded by Google, respectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Motorola Droid</span> Android smartphone developed by Motorola Mobility

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">HTC Legend</span> Smartphone manufactured by HTC

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samsung Galaxy S (2010 smartphone)</span> First Samsung Smartphone

The Samsung Galaxy S is a touchscreen-enabled, slate-format Android smartphone designed, developed, and marketed by Samsung Electronics; it is the first smartphone of the Samsung Galaxy S series. It is the first device of the third Android smartphone series produced by Samsung. It was announced to the press in March 2010 and released for sale in June 2010. Due to shortage of Super AMOLED displays, Samsung released a successor to the device called S scLCD or SL and ceased production of the original I9000 model.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Droid Incredible</span> Android-based smartphone

The HTC Droid Incredible (ADR6300) is a smartphone manufactured by HTC Corporation using the Android operating system. It was released on April 29, 2010, and is available through Verizon Wireless only. The device is similar to the Sprint HTC Evo 4G. The device has been succeeded by the HTC Incredible S and the HTC ThunderBolt. The device's "end of life" was March 30, 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HTC Wildfire</span> Android OS smartphone made by HTC Corporation

The HTC Wildfire is a smartphone developed by the HTC Corporation, that was announced on 17 May 2010 and released in Europe in June of the same year. It is powered by a 528 MHz Qualcomm processor and runs the Android operating system, version 2.2. It includes a TFT LCD capacitive touchscreen and a 5-megapixel camera. It has been described as a "Mini HTC Desire", and is perceived to be a follow-up model to the previous year's Tattoo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HTC Aria</span> Smartphone model

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">HTC Desire HD</span> Android-based smartphone

The HTC Desire HD is an Android smartphone by HTC Corporation. It was unveiled at a press event in London hosted by HTC on September 15, 2010, and was made available for sale in October in Europe and in January 2011 in Canada. The Desire was HTC's fourth flagship Android device until the release of their new line of flagship model, the HTC Sensation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HTC Desire Z</span> Smartphone manufactured by HTC

The HTC Desire Z is a slider-style smartphone developed by HTC Corporation and announced on 15 September 2010; it was released in Europe and Canada in November 2010, following a number of delays related to Google's quality assurance tests. Other than its slider configuration, the Desire Z features specifications similar to the HTC Desire and the HTC Desire HD. The design of the HTC Desire Z has capacitive face buttons rather than the mechanical ones the HTC Desire features.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nexus S</span> 2010 smartphone by Google and Samsung

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samsung Infuse 4G</span> Smartphone model

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">HTC Incredible S</span> Smartphone developed by HTC

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">HTC Wildfire S</span> Updated version of the HTC Wildfire smartphone

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