Meet The iPhone Killer

Has HTC finally unleashed an iPhone killer?by Branko Miletic

Make: HTC
Model: Desire

Ever since Apple’s iPhone was released, many a phone maker has strived to come up with a smartphone that could be labeled as an iPhone killer. Most have failed in this quest. However HTC, has come the closest to rolling out an iPhone slayer.

Has HTC finally unleashed an iPhone killer?by Branko Miletic

Make: HTC
Model: Desire

Ever since Apple’s iPhone was released, many a phone maker has strived to come up with a smartphone that could be labeled as an iPhone killer. Most have failed in this quest. However HTC, has come the closest to rolling out an iPhone slayer.

The HTC Desire is a sleek, light and easy to use phone. In fact it’s a wonderful piece of engineering—and the first time an Asian phone maker has developed a serious challenger to its fruit-flavoured nemesis.

Using the open source Android platform, a 1GHz Snapdragon processor and 576MB of RAM, means the Desire can be used both for fun and for business—much like an iPhone and very much unlike a Blackberry. But wait, there’s more, a whole lot more.

To start with, the full HD graphics on the Desire’s 3.7-inch AMOLED display screen puts all other current smartphones to shame and the crisp clean icons are a breath of fresh air in an industry where copycat graphics are the order of the day.

Setting the phone up was fairly easy—I won’t go as far to say that it was plug ‘n’ play—network settings and other telco bits and bobs can be a bit tricky. However most of the setup went off without a hitch, which in many ways was no more or less fiddly than any other current smartphone out in the market.

PTO for rating

The screen is where the real action is. By using the ‘widgets’ function, you can add just about any function you like. For example managing the battery consumption as much as is possible; adding the weather; bookmarks, Gmail, Facebook; clocks of all shapes and sizes, music, contacts; a photo album; news; a sensis search and many, many more apps.

There’s also a mobile network widget that turns mobile data on and off, twitter and of course a settings widget.

In fact, according to HTC, there are some 50,000 Android apps available as opposed to nearly 200,000 for the iPhone. But let’s be honest — a lot of apps are useless and few people really need an app that tells them the current humidity levels in the Hindu Kush, so 50,000 apps and growing is a decent figure for the majority of users.

Battery life is quoted as 340 hours standby time or 400 minutes talk time although like most phone makers, HTC seem to omit battery life with data downloads, so those figures should be used as a guide. Our tests showed that under normal usage, the battery lasted a respectable 24 hours.

The Desire comes standard with 512MB of ROM and 576MB RAM and with an expansion slot for a microSD memory card (SD 2.0 compatible), which can support up to 32 GB.
Perhaps the only feature of the Desire that fails to get the blood rushing is the garden variety 5 megapixel camera, which is no better or worse than others out on the market.
Also the small and fiddly scrolling button is a bit annoying, although with the pinch and swipe screen, I am not sure when you would use this feature.

All-in-all though, when it comes a fully featured, good looking and highly practical phone, HTC has really hit the jackpot with the Desire and has finally put the competition back into the smartphone market, which up until now has been squarely a two-horse race.

Pros: Great graphics, fast processor, easy set up.
Cons: Boring camera, small scrolling button, only available in 1 colour.

4 out of 5 Shacks