From HTC Desire to HD: Is it worth it?

The rare owner of the “iPhone” of the third generation does not dream of changing it to the “four”. Owners of HTC Desire also have room to grow - in the fall the “HD version” appeared on the market. This article I will answer the question - is it worth buying it ? To buy, if you and Desire are not bad, but ... I want it fresh.

Those who are too lazy to read, I will answer briefly - yes, if you need a large screen. In other cases - no: pluses are balanced by minuses. When deciding, do not be afraid of a weak battery (1230 mAh) - on HD and on Desire it works for about equal time.

By the way, the firmware from Desire perfectly rises on HD - read the detailed instructions with pictures .
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This article is not a classic review: with numbers, photographs, historical excursions. They are already in the network a lot . Appreciating your time and yours, I will tell you about the differences between HD and the original model and a little about the experience of using it. Approximately in the same way I told in my blog about working with Desire: interested, welcome !

Iron

Desire lies in the hand like a sword; HD resembles a chocolate bar. The weight is felt, but reading, holding the smartphone in one hand, is quite convenient. The recessed power and volume buttons are hard to push - for me this is a plus, for those who flip through them - no. Both covers - the battery and SIM & SD cards are easily closed, if you do it carefully, after reading the instructions. The headphone jack is on the bottom, and it is convenient - as a rule, the phone goes upside down in your pocket.

Two flash LEDs at full power shine like a good reading lamp. Convex camera lens is easy to scratch. The screen is harder, but on my previous smartphone - Desire - I still left two or three small scratches on the screen. However, when the screen is on, it's not easy to notice them. Size - just gorgeous, made me with an unwavering hand cross out the e-book from the shopping list. Color rendition / resolution is excellent.

Touch buttons are almost as comfortable as mechanical ones. True, if you read in the "landscape" mode, you will surely touch them. But the lack of a trackball is a big, big minus. Software cursor keys it is not a replacement.

HD is big, but it doesn't seem giant, you quickly get used to size. In a usual pocket of trousers or jeans, no less than a breast jacket, it is located easily.

Factory software

The local Android 2.2. wrapped in a classic HTC Sense - familiarly convenient, but on such a large screen, some widgets look cumbersome. It has a lot of settings, read about them below in the paragraph about the HTC Hub. You can even globally change the Sense style with the help of “skins”, one of them, Slate, is much more elegant than the standard one. Spoon of tar: periodically slows down and crashes, most often when updating data. With a "non-standard" skin, it seems to be happening more often. Sometimes it may stop responding to pressing, it is treated by turning the screen off and on.
12/24/10 OTA firmware update was released with fixes for most interface bugs. Indeed, it works faster and without lags.

Desktops are still only 7, however, this number is enough. The access menu for running / recently launched applications appeared in the top-down notification bar.

Programs that are not on Desire:

Amazon MP3 - did not try, because it requires changing the language to American or British English, German or French.

Blocked Callers (Blocked) - "black list", automatically clicks on the "hang up" when you call the subscriber who got into it.

Car Panel - A shell with very large buttons for accessing navigation and driving calls. In the case did not test, but should be comfortable.

Connected Media (Media Manager) - allows you to display music, photos or video on a connected external device via DLNA .

HTC Hub is a program for downloading new widgets, wallpapers, scenes, skins ("covers"), sound themes, ringtones, alarm signals and reminders. Connected to the system ...

HTC Likes is a social add-on for the Market that allows other HD users to rate and comment on programs. It allows you to make “friends”, automatically searches them among your contacts and does it with creepy bugs, regularly offering friends 20-30 copies of a contact with “0” at once in the “phone” field (I have this - the result of another HTC or Android error ).

Locations - navigator with maps available offline (need to be downloaded through the program settings).

News (News) - RSS-client with two-way synchronization with Google Reader. Bugs happen, the caching system is incomprehensible, but in general it works well.

Reader is a program for reading books with built-in downloads from Amazon and Kobo. Format, as I understand it, epub. Third-party solutions - Aldiko, FBReader - better.

SoundHound - a program to search for music, analog Shazam: "hears" it through a microphone and searches in its database. Makes it bad.

Transfer Data (Data transfer) - a program for transferring contacts, SMS and calendar events from an old phone (like any). With Desire offered to transfer only contacts.

There are a lot of widgets - only branded HTC has more than 73. There is practically for every program, for some and not one. It is convenient to work with the Google Translate widget (sorry, the language you translate does not remember). Word of the Day is akin to him - a rare English word for every day, with an explanation.

The browser is still as fast, supports flash ... and no more than 4 open tabs.
An equalizer and sound enhancements appeared in the player - in my opinion, they only spoil it. The player is able to search for media servers in a Wi-Fi network.
The famous HTCSense.com after 5 attempts could not connect to my smartphone - there will be time, I will try again.

Communication channels, photo, video

The smartphone does not have the habit of losing the network, although it happened a couple of times. During a conversation, audibility and voice transmission are good, the same applies to the conversation on the included headset. The call is quite quiet, but it seems to be a lack of a ringtone. Vibration is as powerful as Desire.

GPRS / EDGE / 3G, as well as Bluetooth, did not cause any questions - they worked without failures. At first, I lost Wi-Fi several times, but then this error did not recur.

The camera added in megapixels, but the quality of the pictures remained about the same - not bad for a smartphone, mediocre for a camera. The interface has become more convenient, the photo is done by clicking on the screen, resulting in less blurred. Video can be shot in HD, white balance adjustment is available.

Battery

To my surprise, the term of work is at least as good as that of Desire. I charge the phone twice a day - during the day at work and at night during sleep, and the charge does not fall below 10%, despite the fact that the phone for me is a player, a book, and a navigator (usually without GPS), and a browser. On the way from work to home, he repeatedly changes EDGE to 3G and back, and tries to catch the network in the subway. So I am satisfied with this HD side. With a charge of 15%, the phone offers to enable the eco mode - only calls and SMS, can do it automatically.

Verdict (following 2 weeks of close life together)

HTC Desire HD is a good smartphone for work and leisure, I don’t regret buying it. Most of the current flaws are eliminated by the release of new firmware with corrections. For those who need a smart with a very large screen and not from Apple - perhaps the best solution on the market.

As I talked about personal experience of use, I could miss something important for you - I will be happy to answer in the comments.