HTC Desire

[aerowave]

I've had my HTC Desire for two weeks now and love it. Coming from iPhone and iPhone 3G on day 1's. Android is a great operating system, the notifications are fantastic and being able to have IM, Last.fm and other things running in the background is awesome!

[Singh400]

Sources on the web say it may be released for the desire late june

Fingers crossed on that Redmak but I'm not gonna hold my breath.

I see no reason why they shouldn't. It's capable enough

The question isn't the hardware. The question is around the laziness of HTC. The HTC Hero over here (UK) still hasn't got the 2.1 update. Going by HTC's track record, I am not getting my hopes up for 2.2 for my Desire.

[all43]

Indeed Singh400, but we do live in hope my friend :D

[Xerxes]

Sources on the web say it may be released for the desire late june

Yeah, a HTC employee said an update was coming for the Desire next month...we hope it's 2.2 :) but it was never specifically said it was 2.2 (not in any of the reports I've seen anyway). However, it doesn't matter how quickly HTC release it because I'm likely to never see it anyway, since after HTC is done with it they have to hand it over to Telstra (my carrier) for them to approve, test and customize and they are well known for taking over a year to do that :s if at all. I'd love to be proven wrong but considering it took them something like ~1 year to release the "latest" update for my Nokia N95 I'm not very hopeful. This I have to admit is what I like about Windows Phone 7, MS have locked the carriers/OEMs out of customizing the ROM so crap like this can't happen. I know I could get the update much sooner unofficially but I'd rather get it through the proper channels, just personal preference.

To the phone, I've had it for a little bit now and it's definitely a great phone (Y) however, maybe just mine is defective or something but I find Android to be really sluggish at the best of times! for example the picture app, the more photos you have in it the longer it takes to load...I'm sorry but the iPhone loads instantly regardless of how many pictures you go on it and spec wise it's inferior to the Desire...yet the Desire is so damn slow! only been about to install to the phone memory is frustrating at the best of times I must admit and some aspects of the phone are unfortunately left a little bit to be desired (pun not intended), the new calendar HTC added is rubbish for example. I know alot of these issues have been addressed with 2.2 (which hopefully I'll get sometime in my lifetime :p). That said, I'm very happy with it :) and even with it's flaws it's still a great phone :happy:

[torrentthief]

does this phone not do 720p video recordings or is it just 480p?

I'm wanting a phone that can do 720p.

[Robbie Khan Reviews]

HTC reps have said 720p and DIVX playback support is coming in an update because there wasn't enough time for release.

[torrentthief]

nice! Wonder if we'll ever have phones that can playback Xvid and 720p x264 files on the phone itself and in full res via hdmi out connected to a tv. That sure would be cool. 720p video recording would be amazing though, the more hd cameras out there the better youtube will be :)

[Singh400]

Just test posting this from my Desire. Using the Dolphin browser.

[Remysaus]

Got it a week ago as well, so glad I went for the Desire instead of the Legend. a friend of mine got the legend yesterday and it's noticeably slower.

[AbandonedTrolley]

Why would you need to repurchase your co-piolot licence? I have reset my hd2 a couple of times now and i can always enter in my licence number and it activates every time.

Whilst you can carry over the licence on Windows Mobile the code doesn't work on an Android version of Co-Pilot, it's mentioned on their site sadly, same with the traffic updates.

[Singh400]

Just test posting this from my Desire. Using the Dolphin browser.

Can I just say devs, well done for the mobile version of Neowin. It is very very nice.

[Bhav]

Can I just say devs, well done for the mobile version of Neowin. It is very very nice.

(Y)

[Scirwode]

Can I just say devs, well done for the mobile version of Neowin. It is very very nice.

Indeed, I have just become a new owner of the HTC Desire and I'm very impressed with the Mobile version. I'm browsing Neowin on my Desire right now :p !

[AbandonedTrolley]

Well after 3 days now of poor service from o2 at my home (saying i have signal but unable to make calls/texts, tested another phone same issue) I've just ordered the Desire on Orange.

Should be arriving on Wednesday all being good. I've dropped my o2 tarrif to ?10 a month and will just see out the last 7 months doing nothing with it. Noticed I can currently get ?130 for recycling my Touch HD too so that's not too bad either :)

[adam.mt]

nice! Wonder if we'll ever have phones that can playback Xvid and 720p x264 files on the phone itself and in full res via hdmi out connected to a tv. That sure would be cool. 720p video recording would be amazing though, the more hd cameras out there the better youtube will be :)

Might not be Xvid format but the HTC EVO has been shown playing back video via HDMI to TV. And, unfortunately from the EVO demos looks like the 720p recording isn't that good - there's high compression so not really worth looking forward to (IMO). Obviously, DivX playback would be nice - though reckon might have to wait for the Desire Froyo update to get that; if HTC do release a Froyo update in a reasonable timeframe (can but hope!) then doubt they'll do a '720p recording/DivX playback' update followed by 'Froyo' update, much more likely to roll into one or push back the former to after Froyo.

[Redmak Administrators]

Yeah, a HTC employee said an update was coming for the Desire next month...we hope it's 2.2 :) but it was never specifically said it was 2.2 (not in any of the reports I've seen anyway). However, it doesn't matter how quickly HTC release it because I'm likely to never see it anyway, since after HTC is done with it they have to hand it over to Telstra (my carrier) for them to approve, test and customize and they are well known for taking over a year to do that :s if at all. I'd love to be proven wrong but considering it took them something like ~1 year to release the "latest" update for my Nokia N95 I'm not very hopeful. This I have to admit is what I like about Windows Phone 7, MS have locked the carriers/OEMs out of customizing the ROM so crap like this can't happen. I know I could get the update much sooner unofficially but I'd rather get it through the proper channels, just personal preference.

To the phone, I've had it for a little bit now and it's definitely a great phone (Y) however, maybe just mine is defective or something but I find Android to be really sluggish at the best of times! for example the picture app, the more photos you have in it the longer it takes to load...I'm sorry but the iPhone loads instantly regardless of how many pictures you go on it and spec wise it's inferior to the Desire...yet the Desire is so damn slow! only been about to install to the phone memory is frustrating at the best of times I must admit and some aspects of the phone are unfortunately left a little bit to be desired (pun not intended), the new calendar HTC added is rubbish for example. I know alot of these issues have been addressed with 2.2 (which hopefully I'll get sometime in my lifetime :p). That said, I'm very happy with it :) and even with it's flaws it's still a great phone :happy:

Aren't all Desire's already upgraded to 2.1? Mine is, so I expect the next upgrade to be the 2.2 one

[morganrpugh]

Cheers for the review.

Could you confirm if it syncs with Google services similar to the iPhone? By this I mean push email, contact sync and calendar sync? Also does the mail app support labels, stars and proper deleting of emails rather than how the iPhone just archies to All Mail.

Cheers!

[aerowave]

Cheers for the review.

Could you confirm if it syncs with Google services similar to the iPhone? By this I mean push email, contact sync and calendar sync? Also does the mail app support labels, stars and proper deleting of emails rather than how the iPhone just archies to All Mail.

Cheers!

Android does sync with all your Google info, the same as the iPhone - that's what I'm doing on my Desire. There's an actual Gmail app built in which has proper support for labels and deleting etc, there's also the HTC Mail app which can be used for Exchange/Imap email accounts.

[AbandonedTrolley]

Just been reading up and seems the Orange branding of the Desire pretty much breaks it as they remove the Gtalk app meaning that a lot of the contact links/options no longer work. Seems the first thing I will be doing is installing a stock unbranded ROM or even the Froyo i've seen on XDA.

[Singh400]

Just been reading up and seems the Orange branding of the Desire pretty much breaks it as they remove the Gtalk app meaning that a lot of the contact links/options no longer work. Seems the first thing I will be doing is installing a stock unbranded ROM or even the Froyo i've seen on XDA.

Couple of points, when installing the stock HTC ROM, make sure is has the same radio version as the one you have now. We don't know why (yet) but when you flash an Orange phone to a newer radio to the one it has now/currently. The phone will lock itself.

And the Froyo ROM is sort of working on the Desire, but you can't do much yet. Radio is broke, so no calls or anything.

[AbandonedTrolley]

Couple of points, when installing the stock HTC ROM, make sure is has the same radio version as the one you have now. We don't know why (yet) but when you flash an Orange phone to a newer radio to the one it has now/currently. The phone will lock itself.

And the Froyo ROM is sort of working on the Desire, but you can't do much yet. Radio is broke, so no calls or anything.

Thanks +rep :)

I'm pretty confident on the flashing as been doing it with the Touch HD for over a year now but didn't know that so thanks for the head up :)

[gazebee_]

Just got my Desire a couple of days ago and its been amazing. This is the first time I've used Android, and I'm slightly disappointed to see a good amount of apps, coming from the iPhone platform. I've looked around the web for "must-have" apps, but most of them are outdated and from more than a year ago.

[Sulphy]

BOOM BABY........ I get my Desire tomorrow!!!!!!!!!! like a kid before xmas!

[Singh400]

BOOM BABY........ I get my Desire tomorrow!!!!!!!!!! like a kid before xmas!

Welcome to the club!

[Antaris Veteran]

Got mine last week, I can't put the thing down!

My only concern is that it has crashed twice while I was turning off the mobile network.