Smart phones have taken over the way we communicate with others. Now, we can email, text, Facebook message, Tweet, video call and instant message all of our friends all from one single, tiny device, well, not really “tiny” in the Desire HD’s case. If you are looking for an ultra-powerful, ultra-huge and ultra-awesome Android smart phone, you have just found it in the shape of the new Desire HD from HTC. The original Desire was one of my favourite smart phones at the time, and still is, however, the new HD improves on almost every aspect.
Let’s start off with a look at the raw power of this phone. It hosts a 1GHz processor, which is extremely fast and suitable for almost any smart phone user. The phone also has 768mb of RAM which is more than its competitors such as the iPhone 4. The Desire HD runs Android 2.2 Froyo, however HTC have added their own custom skin called HTC Sense. Normally, I am not a great fan of manufacturers adding their own skins to Android phones, however Sense is superb and improves greatly on the normal Android experience by removing the rough edges and geeky aspects of the operating system. HTC Sense adds some features too; including the “helicopter” mode which allows the user to see all their seven home screens with a simple pinch.
The design of the handset is one of its key selling points. The obvious thing to start with is, of course, the screen. There isn’t much to say apart from the fact that it is huge. 4.3 inches with a resolution of 480 by 800 is quite incredible for a “pocket friendly” smart phone and is edging on tablet territory. The large size is good for some things, such as web browsing and watching video, however we found that the phone is just too large to fit in jeans pockets and really needs a large coat pocket, or a small handbag. Along the sides, we find a volume rocker, micro-USB port, 3.5mm headphone jack and a phone lock button. On the rear of the handset, there is an 8 megapixel camera, with dual LED flash. The camera takes superb photos and video at 720p HD. The camera also has a whole host of bonus features such as geo tagging and effects like vignette and depth of field. If you are looking for a phone to replace your compact camera, this may be one to consider, however we think that the snaps taken on the Nokia N8 do look slightly better on the big screen due to its higher resolution.
The handset is constructed out of a very sturdy piece of aluminium, which gives the phone a really nice feeling in the hand, however makes the phone much heavier. At 164 grams, the phone is a bit of a beast; however it is not designed to be light and portable, so this didn’t really concern us.
Connectivity on the Desire HD is very good. All the usual such as HSDPA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are there, however HTC also added a very nice feature where your handset can connect to your PC, so if you lose it, it will ring, even if it is on silent.
Now to look at all the features of the phone. We can’t go into all of them, as there are so many and this review would be pages long, however we will try our best. Let’s start with multi-media, as this is a key function of the phone. The music player has been customized by HTC and is very good and easy to use. It supports a wide variety of formats including more unusual ones such as .ogg and .amr. Music sounds great when played through the phone, especially when you connect your own headphones using the 3.5mm headphone jack. On the video front, the phone supports many formats and video looks superb on the massive screen. The resolution isn’t quite as great as that on the Retina display on the iPhone 4, however video still looks excellent. An FM radio is also included which is nice to see.
Web browsing is incredible on the Desire HD. Websites look how they were meant to look like, and because the phone runs Android 2.2, Flash is supported, so users can watch almost all video content which has ever been uploaded to the net. Social networking is also very strong on the Desire HD as dedicated Facebook and Twitter apps can be downloaded from the Android App Market. HTC sense also includes an app called Friend Stream, which combines all your social feeds into one, and it works very well.
Google Maps is also available on this phone, and the GPS seems very accurate. All this is great, but we still haven’t got to the best part: the App Market. Users can download tens of thousands of apps from many categories including News and Games. There aren’t quite as many available as on the iPhone’s App Store, however none of these apps are censored, so there is a much wider choice.
The HTC Desire HD is an incredible smart phone, and in my opinion, one of the best available. The choice of features is brilliant, and that massive screen is the icing on the cake for us. All this doesn’t come cheap; however it is worth every penny.