HTC Desire Reviews

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HTC Desire
★★★★☆
4.2
81.0% of users recommend this
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  • Screen Quality

  • Battery Life

  • Features

  • Reception

  • Style

  • Value For Money

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Latest Reviews

“Best Phone I regretted buying.”

★★★★★

written by joemethemoney on 01/09/2013

Confusing review title? Probably... I bought this phone and had quite a high monthly repayment at £23 a month for 2 years. However it was the ultimate life saver while I was traveling in Malaysia and didn't have access to a PC. I was able to book my home flights with it and do my computer work every day. The specs when I bought the phone back in July 2011 made it better in every way than the iphone. Longer battery, bigger screen etc etc. And as it is android, it is way better for app developers. I even programmed my own 'Hello World' Application. I would highly recommend this phone. Phone is still going strong today and I never stop using it.

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“Simple and Reliable”

★★★☆☆

written by HardyNicoll792 on 04/06/2013

I've had this phone for over six months, and although I am not an expert and use some of the functions provided but not all, I can say that the phone is good, it is the right size and easy to handle, running on android the system is reliable and apps availability is great. The battery lasts around 3 days depending on use, the camera is decent, and the screen quality is also pretty good and clear.

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“Pretty good smartphone”

★★★★☆

written by KnoxCraul419 on 31/05/2013

I have this phone now for 2 months, after much debate within me I decided that this was the best choice because the phone was affordable and it offered everything I need, a 5mpx camera, an android operating system which is slick and reliable, a price tag of £120 new and 3 years warranty on pay as you go, so no contract, and by the way I got it in the O2 shop. I must say that so far I feel I made the right choice, the phone is very nice to handle, easy to use, and fast, the internet works well and slowly I am installing new apps to my liking that I use regularly. The fact that I don't have a contract, still I own a smarthpone makes me happy.

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“Great Phone”

★★★★☆

written by JudsonCoxson797 on 16/05/2013

Couldn't been happier, I made the right choice, whilst everybody goes out spending hundreds on iPhone and others, I went to the shop and bought this phone very cheaply, brand new and with 3 years warranty, I love the phone, I think is first of the all the right size to be handled with one hand, it has all the functions you could possibly imagine, is on Android so you can just imagine the plethora of apps available, everything work perfectly, smoothly and nice. I am very happy with this phone.

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“Warranty claim”

★★★★★

written by on 13/03/2013

Damaged my phone, had forgotten that I had square trade cover for it and got it repaired. A week later realised I had warranty cover and got in touch with the Square trade and the help I got was just amazing and easy and even after a week late I got the money back that I had spent or repairing my phone. Thank god I bought the Square trade cover for the phone. I would recommend square trade warrant cover for everyone buying any kind of electronics!!

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“HCT desire ”

★★☆☆☆

written by JamesTester on 04/02/2013

I have had the mobile phone for a 2 years and the biggest problem I came across was the ear piece which the voice quality was so bad that I had to ask in a umber of times to text me instead. The mobile phone has been sent for repair three times to 3G and the diagnoses came negative. IT has almost 1GHz processing power but I doubted the software designed utilised effectively all the powers because which taping on the anything there is always a slight delays.

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“Apparently nice, but terrible reboot bug”

★☆☆☆☆

written by carigo on 09/10/2012

I have two HTC Desire S, one used by myself, the other one used by my wife. After working well for about 12 months, both phones are now permamtly rebooting when used ourside their home network (i.e. when roaming) and randomly rebooting when used in the home network. The bug prevents any use of the phone outside the home network, i.e. during travels abroad. I unsuccessfully tried to solve the problem by the various procedures recommended in the handbook (including factory reset). As the failurs is exactly the same for two different phones, it is obviously a systematic failure. This judgement is supported many other reports on this bug, which can be found in in the internet. The complete lack of support by HTC for this severe and obviously systemtic problem is very disappointing.

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“Slightly Disappointed”

★★★☆☆

written by JohnsonS on 13/09/2012

I got this phone in April last year on a contract. The guy in the shop recommended it as it was fairly new on the market. He even set everything up for me and showed how to use the android market. I was happy as it was my first touch screen phone. The cracks started to show after a few weeks were I noticed the battery life was very poor and I was constantly charging the phone, the screen also froze unexpectedly and switched off without warning. You would get a message asking if you 'want to report the issue' but clicking on yes did not help. I can not wait until my contract runs out in November. The android market does not work and can hardly download anything. Next time I will stick to what I know. Simplicity is always best.

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“worth the price”

★★★★★

written by richieyrich on 03/07/2012

HTC Desire is a good smartphone and not so expensive but its worth the price. Features are all good.

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“Good phone ”

★★★★☆

written by trinitysquared on 13/03/2012

Although an older model, this gave the iPhone a run for its money. Really great interface and really good if you like a little more control over what your phone does (rather than apple who control most aspects of the user expereince) Only cons are the battery (as with all smart phones) but the BIGGEST gripe I have is the internal memory is only 500MB(ish) and most of this is taken up by the operating system - this leaves hardly any room to store apps and games - although you can move some/part of the apps to the SD card, in reality most of the app is left in internal memory which means I can only install about 5 - 10 apps at any one time. Really big let down and surprising oversite from what else is a great phone! (You get fed up of the phone reminding you it has no memory left after a while...!) For this oversite which seems to be in many HTC phones I probably would look to a samsung in the future.

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“A love hate relationship.”

★★★★☆

written by graemewater on 05/03/2012

My htc desire and I had a rather hard relationship together. this has sadly just ended since I have now lost my phone through careless placement of my phone in my Pocket. SO why this love hate relationship. Well there are a number of reasons really. some of which could be overcome with a little careful use some never. The cons: short battery life - I found it was half a day as a mp3 player and would always run out on a night out small internal memory - constantly had full memory and as apps increased in size I had to delete extra one just to use standard ones message - cant call or read messages when memory is too low (from problem above) bugs with system - phoning wrong people, loading up messages from wrong people. many problems. The pros: android customisation ability good menu structures good functionality worked as a hard drive did everything I ever wanted it to do. I think I will go for another android smartphone when I gert the chance and probably will go with htc again as im sure the futrue improvements since I had this phone will be much better now

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“Great phone, i really like it”

★★★☆☆

written by Augtett on 18/01/2012

I really like this phone for its diverse purposes it serves. For the first 6 months mine seemed ok but now I have noticed a reduction in battery life from 2 days to 1 day. Not using any power-sucking apps or anything and same thing happened to my bf. Someone told me there's a way to reset the battery but I haven't tried it yet. Other than this, the phone is fun and useful in so many little ways, like I can sync my gmail and use skype.

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“Really good smartphone”

★★★★☆

written by leither_79 on 24/08/2011

Like any smartphone, the HTC desire is lacking in battery time and drops signal now and again, but it's convinced me that the technology will improve, and I'm sure my next smartphone will also be an HTC.

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“Pretty awesome phone so far, i'm still blown away!”

★★★★★

written by virtualmark2 on 22/08/2011

What can i say? Had this phone for over a year now, its never let me down and i feel i should share it with you. I use it daily not just as a phone, but also as: Satellite Navigation Internet Browser/Email Wireless Router Alarm Clock Personal Organiser Calculator Video Camera/Photo Camera Dictophone Skype Flashlight Games Theres more but i'm sure you get the picture. I was chatting to my mate the other day via skype, just using the app on my phone, it was just like a normal phone call except that it was free(i have unlimited data with three). I use Facebook, check the news, google things etc. The sat nav is flawless, even having the flashlight app comes in handy when no light is available! Its the best companion gadget i've ever had, like the swiss army knife of phones. If i have to wait somewhere for a while, i'll just grab my phone and play chess. If i get an appointment, i'll just add it to the calendar and set an alarm. I'm on my laptop at this minute, connected to my htc desire via wifi and using my mobile data connection. The only small disadvantage to having so much power is the obvious drain on the battery. If you plan on using it as a sat nav, then be sure to invest in a car charger! As far as computing power goes... it does everything i need. I see new phones coming out with dual core processors, do we really need that in a phone?? I wouldn't use this phone as a replacement for my laptop, but its very useful for a bit of mobile internet(i.e a quick search to find a local restaurant phone number). I'd find it a bit of a chore to write a full email, although its possible! Anyhow, i couldn't recommend this phone more, very pleased with it. Plus theres tons of free apps on the android market!

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“Big Problems with HTC”

★★★☆☆

written by catchem on 13/08/2011

When i first had the phone about 14 months ago it was great, loads of features and a pleasure to use and suppose at the time was lucky to get 12 months consistent use out of it, but not now the desire has developed a fault where it is constantly rebooting in a loop and getting very warm. It seems to be an issue which HTC are trying to keep below the cover and not admit to any failings in this phone. You only have to google htc rebooting problems to see how wide spread and frustrating this is to their current users. I have even been involved in a heated discussion with a clown in my local t-mobile shop in staffordshire over this issue in which i didn't want to be fobbed off and have time wasted by sending in a phone for repair only to be without it for 3 weeks and have it returned with the problem still outstanding,,which has happened. Apparently HTC's lack of cooperation with this fault has led to customers having to find their own answers which apparently has been identified as a motherboard issue. So its no wonder they are keeping hush about it wont do sales any good will it. But why sell a phone knowingly it has an issue and then not addressing it. I have lost faith in HTC and have gone back to my faithful Nokia. Shame because the desire had a lot of potential and was great while it was working.

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“Fantastic phone, abysmal battery life”

★★★★☆

written by neesa on 28/07/2011

I couldnt afford the tarrifs on an iphone, nor was i willing to obuy an iphone off contract. After alot of research by my fiance, we decided this was the next best thing. We were right! The screen is amazingly clear and you can adjust the brightness according to how you want it via a widget. The size - i was abit worried about having a big phone having previously owned a samsung slide phone that was about half the size, albeit twice the width. However it slips intp the pocket easily enough. The internet 3g and wireless and phone signals are very good, no complaints there. The dialing and touch screen is good and responsive. However i bought a case for it to protect the back and comes ever so slightly over the top edge - don't think it likes it much as i think it thinks i am prompting it to do something. The phone does get very hot when charging and using, and adding a cover does not help!! Still, works fine. The sound quality is good, but can be quite hard to hear in clubs etc - it does not go loud enough. The speaker is not good at all, but to be honest i don't use it that much. The handsfree kit you get is abit rubbish unless you have superlarge earholes - i just do not bother using mine. The apps market is great and the phone on the whole is very easy to set up. Only main issue - battery life!!! I make about a hours worth of phone calls/texting a day, play a few games on my commute like bejewelled/word games, check my mail occasioanally and having been charged overnight, my battery dies about 8pm on the same day. I.e. the battery life is pants. You can turn things on and off to prolong the battery life and maybe im doing it wrong but unless iv turned it off completely, the most iv managed to lengthen it to is 22 hours. Which still sucks! Other than that, the phone is awesome, if it had a better battery life, it would be a keeper even after my contract runs out!

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“Internal memory”

★★★☆☆

written by kamenara on 28/06/2011

The phone is really good,but it has one big disadvantage. Its internal memory is really low, and applications can only be installed on its internal memory. Thus, despite I have 3 GB memory free on my CD card,the phone always ask me to delete data, or to uninstall applications from the internal memory. The memory of the card can be used just to save music, pictures, videos etc.

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“Love the usability, battery sucks”

★★★★☆

written by LeenP1978 on 07/06/2011

I know lots of people have complaned about the HTC battery. For the first 6 months mine seemed ok but now I have noticed a reduction in battery life from 2 days to 1 day. Not using any power-sucking apps or anything and same thing happened to my bf. Someone told me there's a way to reset the battery but I haven't tried it yet. Other than this, the phone is fun and useful in so many little ways, like I can sync my gmail and use skype. I just wish the battery was better.

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“A great phone, I'm really pleased I opted for it...”

★★★★☆

written by bigglescham1 on 17/05/2011

A great phone, I'm really pleased I opted for it instead of paying a fortune for an iphone.

It's not perfect and there are a few things to be aware of. The loudspeaker is pretty shoddy; it's not particularly loud and distorts a fair bit - not great for using whilst driving (hands free) or for listening to music.

Also, I had a problem which I believe many others have had: overheating. When using memory-sapping features the phone overheated and cut out. This got gradually worse until I couldn't use the sat-nav feature for more than a couple of seconds. This was a major issue as it was one of the main features I wanted.

However, Three customer service is good (despite not always being easy to communicate with due to the foreign call centre) and they arranged for it to be fixed. They sent me a pre-paid jiffy bag and it was done within a couple of days - brilliant stuff. Or so I thought, until I realised the problem hadn't been fixed. In fairness to Three, they had it back again and this time changed the circuit board, which fixed the problem once and for all.

Battery isn't brilliant but that's to be expected on most smart phones really.

Overall, a fantastic phone with a clear screen (though not quite as pin sharp as the iphone 4) and lots of features.

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“I sold my iphone 3Gs 16gb(owned 1 year) to replace it...”

★★☆☆☆

written by bmw e30 on 28/03/2011

I sold my iphone 3Gs 16gb(owned 1 year) to replace it with one of these as on paper they match each other and the desire beats the iphone on its 'extras'. Initially i loved it, the freedom android gives you and all the bells and whistles, and 2 day battery life compared to 1 on the iphone. But 4 weeks on id honestly grown to hate it, and now today i've sold it. The speaker is total rubbish, tinny and nothing else, texting using the htc onscreen keyboard was so terrible and is just like tapping on glass with no feel or precision(cue v/bad predicted text), the iphone with its capacitive screen has a 'cushiony feel somehow, same as their ipod touches etc, and blows the htc out the water for feel, precision when texting with fingers and feedback. And also on the htc the predicted text is a joke, iphone has a very good one(it seems to search around the letter it 'thinks' you've done incorrect and comes up with a SINGLE relevant word), 99% it is always spot on, this htc one, it doesn't search around the letter it thinks you've wrong, what it does is like scrabble, it comes up with a HANDFUL or MORE words which you can make out of the letters, and pre selects one if you don't notice you've spelt it wrong, which is all the time as you rarely type one word and check it before doing the next, and it always gets it totally wrong. So so annoying, this is the main reason i sold mine, and am treating myself to a new apple phone which is coming out later this year.
Battery life is very good, if you switch on wifi and mobile internet when you need it you will easily get 2 days use, but more like 1 if you leave it on constantly. Making a shortcut to this saves so much time over the iphone's way-going through menus to turn on/off.
Screen is nice and clear, but the htc screen wallpaper program stretches your picture across its 7(i think) screens so you have to scroll left and right just to see it all(it supersizes it), there are apps which fit it to the screen itself so when you scroll it stays the same.
Quite scratch resistant tho very plasticy and cheap feel compared to other phones, good reception, awful music player, no way can it be classed as an mp3 player. Apps are as good as apples, generally whats on apple is on android(the useful ones anyway!), but there are alot of rubbish ones, that are constantly(daily!) updated because they're full of bugs.
To sum up, the cons of the htc,
1.Texting is a horrible experience, bad predicted text, very inprecise touchscreen even after callibrating,
2.Speaker is so tinny its painful to listen to.
3.Back feels cheap and threatens to break every time you remove it, tho it doesn't.
4.Music player is very basic, fiddly, and is a very poor experience.
5.Can freeze on odd occasions and texting becomes slow/plays catchup sometimes(software bug???)
6.easy to have the optic scrollpad pick up your hand movement by mistake and leave you wondering why its changed screens,lol.
7.internet use feels basic and 'clumsy' compared to iphone(not biased, it is!)zoom in and it does so, then a second later it centres itself, by then you've already tapped on whatever you wanted to zoom in on in the first place, but because its centred that part to the screen now, you ended up accidently tapping on something totally different! VERY Annoying!!!
8.compared to the iphone, the things they can 'both do', the iphone does it much better and is a joy to use-texting, predicted text, accuracy when clicking on something, internet use, sound quality, ease of use in general etc, iphone beats it fair and square. But then there's alot the iphone fails at like bluetooth, not being allowed to set your own text alert sounds etc etc, simple things, that the htc does as standard.

pro's of the htc desire

1. 2-day battery life.
2.screen size is crisp and vivid.
3.Replaceable battery/carry a spare(tho in reality i never even thought about buying another battery)
4. great camera, tho taking closeup pictures(within 2 ft) the flash totally whites out the object your photographing.
5.bright led can be used as a torch-very useful
6.can download various different keyboards if you don't like original, but many have their own niggly faults like they end up covering your text ur writing because they take up so much screen space! or are inaccurate, or fiddly to do £' signs etc.
7.solid wifi connection and fast mobile internet.
8. can be used as a wifi hotspot(run other gadgets using the phones wifi signal to connect through)
9. £100 cheaper than iphone(but i would rather pay the extra and have the iphone at the end of the day)

So thats my experience, i've had many phones, many different makes, and my opinion is that this phone is way over rated, and those who highly rate it(users and reviewers) generally have only had it a few days, ie 'honeymoon period'. Just like how i was when i first got it-felt a complete revelation to have so much freedom compared to the iphone 3Gs, but after a while i found that alot of those things this htc could do that i thought i wanted(replaceable battery, proper bluetooth, my own text alert etc) i rarely used, and the day to day experience with this phone left me wishing i had never sold my 3Gs.
So thats my review, not biased, not made up, not like 'BEST FONE EVA' like some reviewers ;), just a normal user who likes his phone to do lots of stuff, but still be able to do the basic stuff too like texting or taking a snap of something or listening to a tune.
Thanks for reading!

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