Oct 17, 2012 12:17 PM
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(Updated Oct 17, 2012 12:49 PM)
Long gone are the glory days of the Desire line - once a cradle of flagships, it now gives in to the rise of the One series. With the Wildfires all but extinguished, the Desires got the lower midrange all to themselves. But instead of clinging to a glorious past, they're now trusted to start winning over the next generation of smartphone users.
The market is ripe for dual-SIM droids, and all the major manufacturers are taking note. Dual-SIMs have helped plenty of people optimize costs and make sense too as a stepping stone for anyone willing to move on from dumbphones. No wonder then, HTC are trying to tap into a niche that's just about started growing.
Key features
Dual-SIM(Dual Stand-by) GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
Dual-band 3G support on SIM 1
7.2 Mbps HSDPA, 5.76 Mbps HSUPA support
4.0" 16M-color TFT capacitive touchscreen of WVGA resolution(480 x 800)
1GHz single-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 MSM7227A chipset, Cortex A5 CPU, 512MB RAM, Adreno 200 GPU
4GB of on-board storage
Android 4.0(Ice Cream Sandwich) with HTC Sense 4 UI
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with hotspot functionality
GPS with A-GPS connectivity
5 MP camera, geotagging, face detection
WVGA video @ 21fps
microUSB port(charging) and stereo Bluetooth v3.0
microSD slot(up to 32GB)
Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
Accelerometer, proximity sensor
Polaris Office doc viewer / editor
Stereo FM radio with RDS
Smart dialing
DivX/XviD video support
Main disadvantages
Unproboxinggear1 the Desire V
The HTC Desire V retail package is a pretty standard affair - you get a charger, a USB cable and a basic headset. The Beats Audio label at the back refers to software enhancements.
There is no memory card included, but you could say HTC already covered that with the 4 gigs of internal storage.
Design and build quality
The front of the HTC Desire V looks much like the Desire C we met with a while ago. The styling is simple and to-the-point. The most notable difference is height - the dual-SIM Desire V is taller in order to accommodate the bigger 4" screen.
Above the screen we find a small earpiece. The proximity and ambient light sensors are well hidden in the screen bezel nearby. Unfortunately the Desire V omits a front-facing camera and a status LED.
Below the screen is the usual layout of Back, Home and Task Switcher capacitive keys. Their icons are painted white and light up with a tap on the screen. They offer haptic feedback too.
Display
The HTC Desire V packs a 4" LCD display of WVGA resolution(480x800), which is more, in terms of both size and resolution, than you get with the Desire C. The image quality is average at best, but quite decent for the class - the viewing angles are OK, but sunlight legibility could've been better. The native contrast of the screen is actually quite good, but the glass is quite reflective, which damages the image quality in anything but complete darkness.
Android ICS with the latest Sense
The HTC Desire V comes with Android 4.0.3 and Sense 4.0. In spite of not being the latest Android release, it still comes as quite an achievement, considering the majority of its competitors are still stuck with Gingerbread. We've seen this particular combo of ICS and Sense several times already on the HTC One series phones, but it's still interesting to see it perform on a much more affordable device like the Desire V.
Shared camera interface
The HTC Desire V packs a 5MP fixed-focus camera that does stills of up to 2592 x 1944 pixels and records WVGA video @ 21fps. There is a LED flash, but unfortunately no shutter key, which would've been useful given the presence of autofocus. Still, the lack of a dedicated camera button is hardly as big an issue, but it still would have come in handy for quickly accessing the camera app.
The camera interface is the same for both the still camera and the video camera - no they don't "look alike", the camera just has the UI shared between both functions, with the option to either take a video or snap a still image all from one screen.
The right-hand side features the Effects button, shutter key, camcorder record key and a shortcut to the gallery that shows the last photo/video taken. On the left are buttons for general settings and shot mode.
To snap a photo, you tap the shutter button. To record video, you tap the button below it.
The effects button brings out a panel with the usual set of color effects(sepia, solarize and so on), while the shot mode button offers just a few very limited options - portrait, landscape, and low light.
As far as the quality of the shots is concerned, the Desire V definitely leaves something to be desired. The noise reduction is far too aggressive, giving the image the rather unpleasant oil-painting look. The color balance was not always stellar either and the colors are a bit over-saturated.
CONCLUSION
Surely the Desire V is far from the best spec'd smartphone you can get for the price, but it is easily among the more attractive dual-SIM droids on offer. Raw power and the latest in connectivity are typchandru021y not the target audience's top priority. But we're sure Android ICS with Sense 4.0 will be widely appreciated.
Disclaimer: taken from various sources
