HTC Desire 500 Phone Review

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
Nice, classy designBright and clear screenDecent general performanceCamera slightly inconsistentBattery life a little weakMediocre built-in speaker The HTC Desire 500 is HTC's new mid-range phone, available for around £200 SIM-free, £180 on pre-pay and from £17 or so a month on contract. It has a 4-inch screen, a decent overall spec and a design that far exceeds what we're used to at this price.

On paper it's a very promising phone, though like most mid-range phones it now has the formidable Nexus 5 to contend with, which - although £100 more - is a tempting alternative given it's only £3 a month more on contract. Can the HTC compete?

Watch our HTC Desire 500 video review:

SEE ALSO: 10 best cheap phones you can buy

We like the look of the HTC Desire 500. It comes in three flavours: all black, white with red trim and white with blue trim. Ours is the white and red variant, but each has its charm and the build quality and feel of the phone in the hand are very reassuring. It's plastic, but it feels sturdier and pricier than the Samsung Galaxy S4, though we're not sure if this reflects well on the HTC or badly on the Samsung. Probably the latter.

In any case, it's a classy, svelte and light phone (just 123g) with no annoying protrusions or sharp corners. The only physical buttons are the power/hold button at the top and volume controls on the right. If we have a criticism of the Desire 500's design it's that the volume buttons are hard to locate by feel alone, but it's not a serious problem and we rather like the way they're integrated into the coloured trim, visually.

The only visible connection is the standard miniUSB charging port, but prise off the back and you'll find a microSD card slot. It's a necessity given there's only 4GB onboard, of which just over 3GB is already accounted for before you install any apps.

Wireless connectivity is well catered for thanks to Wi-Fi (802.11n), GPS/AGPS, Bluetooth 4.0, the latter being an impressive addition at this price. There's no space for NFC, but that's hardly a dire omission. That it runs Android 4.1.2 means the Desire 500 is a little behind the times, though this shouldn't put off the average buyer.

SEE ALSO: 10 best Android phones you can buy

Neither should the screen, which is a decent effort. Its 800 x 480 resolution falls short of the pixel squeezing feats of the Samsung Galaxy S4 (440 ppi) or Nexus 5 (445 ppi), but the smaller 4.3-inch frame ensures a reasonable 217 pixels per inch (ppi). You'll see a little fuzziness around text when viewed close-up, but held at a reasonable distance the HTC Desire 500's screen looks good enough.

This is helped by the exceptional brightness and contrast for a phone at this price. The brightness is a particular highlight, no doubt due to the use of an LCD screen as opposed to the AMOLED type seen on some high-end phones. This peak brightness really helps when outdoors, where the Desire 500's screen is easier to use than many cheap phones.

Colour and contrast, meanwhile, don't reach the heights of an AMOLED screen, but are very good for a phone at this price. You'll have no complaints when viewing photos or watching videos.

View the original article here

HTC desire review 601

Main features: Dual core 1.2 GHz CPU; 1 GB of RAM; 4.5 inch screen 960 x 540 pixels SLCD2; 8 GB of storage, microSD

Manufacturer: HTC

The HTC desire 601 is a phone that comes close to that kind of specs that you would get in a high-end phone One-series, but at a slightly lower price. You get 4 g, high quality speakers and the HTC Sense UI introduced with the HTC One, but in a slightly less body attract attention.

See also: 2013 Best phones

The HTC desire 601 trades aluminium bodywork HTC impressive One and a Mini for something a little more traditional – a plastic body with a removable rear battery. Below there's a memory card slot, found on Android phones lower end. There is a reasonable and 8 GB of internal storage in 601, but it is not enough for a half-decent music or video library.

It doesn't feel at all like a cheap phone as such, though. As low-end phones Nokia Lumia where la Lumia 620, the battery cover is a single piece of plastic smoothly curved, which makes you feel more like a unibody, although it is not one.

Its seems to imitate those of HTC One in far too. The font of 601 desire is plastic silver and it looks just like One HTC aluminum more expensive.

You'll also notice the speakers which sit either side of the screen. The HTC desire speakers Boomsound 601 uses similar to those of HTC One – giving a decent stereo effect when the phone is held in landscape orientation.

This is also the first phone of desire-series to have 4 g, which should put it alongside Nokia Lumia 625 as one of the cheapest ways to get hooked up with ultra high-speed mobile internet.

The HTC desire 601 is available in three colours – white, black and red – and they all have the same soft plastic finish. It is quite soft on the toes.

See also: best Android phones in 2013

With a 4.5-inch display, the HTC desire 601 has a slightly larger screen than the Mini One of HTC. However, it is a significantly less sharp.

Has a 960 x 540 qHD, pixels, display – where the Mini One has a pretty impressive 720 p screen. That is not to say the 601 HTC desire looks terrible, though – on the contrary.

Screen quality is good, with reproduction of contrast and color. It's just the stinging clarity of an ultra-high resolution screen you miss on here.  Use the SLCD2 screen, which is roughly comparable with a half-decent IPS display.

As any desire to phone, the HTC desire runs Android 601. It also features the latest version of HTC Sense, incorporating the Blinkfeed splash screen and look cleaner, crisper in the round that was introduced for androids by HTC with HTC One.

Although the HTC desire 601 doesn't have the fastest processor in town, easily has enough power to make Android run very well. 1.4 GHz processor dual core may not seem like much in this time of quad-core chip, but the Snapdragon chipset 400 used here is pretty powerful, able to outperform some less advanced quad-core CPU.

The 601 HTC desire also has 1 GB of RAM to grease the gears of Android.

A significant trade-off in HTC desire 601 is that it does not use a UltraPixel camera. This was the type of sensor used in HTC and HTC Mini One, cutting but resolution incorporating the larger sensor pixels to give better performance in low-light.

The 601 HTC desire has an 8 megapixel sensor ' standard ' with an LED flash. Low-light performance is not likely to be all that special, but the Zoe mode software that grabs the video at the same time as stills to animate your own camera phone. Also shoots a barrage of images rather than a single one, and lets you do a little ' trips ' of your exploits of photos to share online.

The HTC desire is a sensitive phone 601 with a feature or two that helps separate it from the masses of nondescript midrange that Android phones. Best of the lot is the BoomSound speaker array on the front of the phone, providing the sound you get from most phones much meatier. As ever with a phone price-conscious, we are waiting for more information about how your phone will cost before making any judgments, but so far we like what we see.

See also: Best cheap phones buy 2013

View the original article here

HTC desire review 500

Main features: Quad-core 1.5 GHz CPU; 4.3 inch screen 480 x 800 pixels; HTC Sense with BlinkFeed; 8 megapixel camera with LED flash

Manufacturer: HTC

The HTC desire 500 is a low-end phone from the HTC One or HTC Mini. The cost is around £ SIM-free, meaning that you'll be able to grab one on a fairly low-end contract. It may not impress in quite the same way the brothers one, cute but this phone is worth keeping an eye on if you do not want to spend the Earth on your next mobile.

I want a new phone? Head to our best mobiles 2013 round-up.

Where HTC phones One-series have an obsession with aluminum, HTC desire 500 is made of plastic. Is plastic too glossy, giving an appearance similar to that of Samsung Galaxy S4.

Instantly it seems a well done, though. Unlike most Android phones from Samsung, the desire of 500 has no removable battery cover, making it easier for HTC keep your body feeling strong and hard while being made of plastic.

There are some nice design touches, such as color frame that goes around the side of the phone. We saw the blue and white Edition, but there are also editions white/red and black (which looks a lot like the desire X.)

Is a nice phone and is thin (ish) and beautiful light too – a 9.9 mm thick and 123g. HTC desire 500 curves are also distinctive enough to stop him from fate generic-looking for something like the Huawei Ascend Y300.

Perhaps the most obvious spec cut in HTC desire 500 is the screen. In person it looked pretty good, with decent black levels and solid color reproduction, but it's a fairly low-end display, specs-wise.

Is 4.3 inches across and has a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. Is a clear step down from 720 p HTC Mini One. However, there was not too clear in parts of pixellation operating system gave us a ride, suggesting the HTC interface uses some smart smoothing text to mitigate the low resolution.

Level, the desire HTC 500 is very similar to HTC Mini One. Has the latest version of HTC Sense UI, which comes with the splash screen of BlinkFeed.

This is a scrolling feed updates from your favorite sources – whether social networks or websites. HTC Sense is perhaps the most elegant of all interfaces to third-party Android, and brings a level of sophistication that should help give the 500 desire something on its mid-range rivals.

Performance of our short game with the phone seemed too good. We had a look at a preproduction device, but I haven't noticed any substantial delay in this initial model.

The 500 by HTC desire has a low-end CPU media, a bit slower than those found in HTC Mini and HTC One. Is a Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8225Q 200, a 1.5 GHz quad-core. That may seem quite pungent, but its core is the base type of Cortex A5, which are not powers.

The GPU is the Adreno still few steps 203 – under the most famous One-series of HTC phones. However, it should provide enough grunt to play 3D games like Real Racing 3 quite nicely thanks to the low resolution of the phone.

With the HTC desire also lose the 500 tech UltraPixel camera that HTC launched earlier this year – providing the larger sensor pixels for improved low light performance. This phone has a pretty standard from 8 megapixel camera with an LED flash.

It should produce decent shots in good lighting, but it won't have the low light performance of a One-series HTC phone. It also cannot shoot video at resolutions above 720 p.

The HTC desire 500 have a front-facing camera is particularly good, a 1.6-megapixel one. This is probably down to HTC, deciding that the desire 500 is aimed at a younger audience obsessed with Facebook, and incessant #YOLO selfies ' ing.

We are not particularly concerned about the front camera, but we are a bit sad to see the desire to lose 500 Boomsound stereo speakers for HTC Mini One. Instead, the phone has a mono speaker that sits on the back. He beats, though, which can significantly improve the hue of a teeny phone speaker.

The 500 by HTC desire looks like a solid mid-range phone. The CPU is not super-powerful despite being quad-core and doesn't have a camera captures title. However, we like its software, hardware design, and its screen seems to be decent enough despite some rather low end specs. Soon we will be back with the full verdict.

Read more: best Android phones

View the original article here