Image by theaardvark via Flickr
Last week I upgraded my Orange mobile phone from the HTC Touch HD
to the HTC Desire
.I've spent 6 days living with it and given it, and the Android Operating System, a thorough run down.
The HTC Desire phone itself is a good looking device with the brightest, crispest screen I've ever seen on a phone.The screen is slightly smaller than the Touch HD I'm used to but none the worse for it. It's still plenty big enough to use for browsing the web, viewing pictures and even watching videos.
The phone signal reception of the Desire is noticeably better than Touch HD. The building I work in is in a very poor signal area but the Desire regularly has sufficient signal to surf, text and make reasonable calls.
The optical trackball is unobtrusive and easy to use. Although if you're a regular user of physical trackballs on existing phones it might not give you the same usability.
It does, unfortunately, lack permanent phone "pick up" and "hang up" buttons, which can be aggravating if you've strayed from the phone screen during a call.
The Desire's processing power is superb. Even with a large number of Apps running, I've noticed very little lag or delay and playing videos on YouTube etc is often better than on my laptop.
Cameras have histroically been a weak point on HTC / Android phones but this one is very usable. It's not on a level with the Samsung I8910 or my old Nokia N95, but certainly better than any of the Android phones my friends use and on a par with the Touch HD at the very least.
This is my first experience of a phone running Android. I've had phones running Palm's OS, Symbian 60 and, my recent preference, Windows Mobile. My view to date has been that the versatility of Windows Mobile with all of the freeware available online provided the best smartphone solution.
Android (version 2.1 runs on the Desire) is a very slick, good looking alternative, though. It runs incredibly smoothly on this phone and integrates superbly with existing Google, and other web,services.
I have an irrational dislike of anything Apple so haven't even picked up an iPhone. However, Android shows the benefit of a similar closed development system with a single point to find and purchase apps, without having to give your bucks to Mr Jobs. I've kitted the Desire out with a number of free apps that do just about everything I could need. And they've made it even easier for me to use social media services such as Twitter and Fourquare.
There are a couple of significant problems, both of which will be familiar to users of existing Android phones.
The battery life sucks. With reasonably heavy use I've found it's dying by about 11am, after just 5 hours. Even with normal (for me) use it's only lasting until about 5pm. I'm having to travel everywhere with the USB Micro lead it uses so I can charge it constantly. This compares to the Touch HD where, with normal use, I only had to charge it overnight or with heavy use it'd last until I got home at 7ish.
The second is Android's inability to close down apps when you've finished with them. This may be a large contributor to the heavy use of the battery and seems very odd, coming from a Windows Mobile environment. Apps appear to have no option to "exit" or "quit", you simply switch to something else. You end up having to download and app just to close down other apps. And yet, despite having these apps running in the background, Android doesn't appear to fully multi-task.
Overall, however, this phone has added even more "smart" to my smartphone experience. I found over the weekend that my need to use my laptop for things like IM, Twitter and internet browsing has dwindled to next to zero.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=64a2b62a-4722-4e5c-9cc0-795a251bfa0e)
Hey. If you're enjoying Android, you should look at AppBrain.com. Its a combined website and app tool that keeps track of what you have installed (handy if you need a quick reinstall) and lets you browse apps on the website, then by clicking Install, it will sync to your device for you.
It also does recommendations based on what you already use. It seems a pretty cool tool.
Good write up though. Sounds like a fairly decent Android device.
I got my Desire last month too, and I pretty much found the same that you have! I was really annoyed with the battery life too - at first I thought it was faulty! If you download the BatteryLite app it tells you how much time the battery has and even fully charged, it's a bit disapointing. I may take after you by carrying a lead around!
Nice wrap up. My friend has just picked one up and, while it is missing some basic android functions (voice search) it looks to be a decent handset.
I am curious what you deem as full multitasking tho. Do you feel there is a need to actually exit apps? I know an exit option is purely developer choice.
Cheers. Battery life has actually improved since I first wrote this article and now that I've gone back to "normal" usage from the "ooh, look what my new phone does", 24/7, running a million apps at the same time usage of my first week.
The Open Advanced Task Killer App and Trial Version of Power Manager App both help.
Dom. I discuss this a little in my more recent post.