HTC Desire S Sim Free Mobile Phone

I was looking to upgrade from my trusty Desire (a tough act to follow), but was concerned that this Desire S didn't appear to be all that different on paper. Now that I have decided to go with it I can tell you it is definitely a big improvement. I'm glad I didn't waste any more money on dual-core efforts. In my opinion you simply don't need them yet. I do not use my phone for serious 3D gaming. Even so this has the same chipset as the SE Experia Play, which is a phone geared up especially for gaming so it should cope just fine if that's your bag. I also find the 4.3 inch screens a bit too large for my liking. The 3.7 inch ones are just right. After some extensive use here are my in-depth findings, both positive and negative. Mostly positive though!

Usage:
This phone certainly doesn't struggle for the lack of a second processing core. It flies! The old Desire was fast, but this is on another level. The Sense 2.1 UI and 2.3.3 Gingerbread OS are a big improvement. There is ZERO lag between screens, when scrolling through long lists, and most notably when loading apps & running processes lists in the management sections in settings. This used to bring my old Desire to a crunching halt for a couple of minutes whilst it built the list up. The Desire S takes 2 seconds. This is down to a 30% more efficient 1GHz CPU, Sense 2.1 refinements, or Gingerbread 2.3.3 improvements. It doesn't look like much on paper, but along with more RAM it really does make quite a noticeable difference.

There have been some nice additions to Sense 2.1 which I am liking, for example the ability to apply different skins/themes without having to root the phone. It's now very easy to change the look and feel of your phone which I am loving. Battery life is another area where they have made big (and much needed) improvements. Even after the first few charges, the phone is taking 3 hours just to drop to 99%, and I'm typically getting 36 hours plus out of it with heavy use. I was lucky to get 24 hours out of my old Desire, and after 3 hours use it would have dropped to about 80%. Plus batteries generally improve over the first couple of weeks use (and I'll be playing with it less) so I expect it'll get even better. You also now get a nice graphical representation of battery use to help identify any severe drainage causes. Hoping for 48 hours uptime soon!

As I touched on earlier, it should deal well with any game you can throw at it. It plays Angry Birds Rio without any drop in frame-rate and it looks fantastic. All-in-all for the software side of things, I am very pleased with the steps taken since the old Desire by HTC. The fantastic free Google maps navigation is as good as ever. It did take a few minutes to get a GPS fix the first time I used it, but that is completely normal however, and it now gets a GPS lock in only a few seconds.

Be warned with the optional 3rd party navigation on offer though: HTC Locations. This requires that you download maps onto your SD card, then pay for a licence to activate the voice-guided navigation side of things. I can see the advantage of this over using Google maps; you don't need a data connection to download maps. Just a GPS lock is required much like a traditional sat-nav. However, I found that even after purchasing the full licence, it would refuse to work and just kept "force-closing" (android for a crash). The people who developed this software and who you buy the licence off (Route 66) didn't seem to give a monkeys. After the patronising advice of "try turning it off and on" and "try a factory reset" didn't work, they then shrugged and refused to refund me. This is NOT A FAULT OF THE PHONE THOUGH so I'm not taking off any marks for this. I just think you should be aware before spending £22 on the full licence like I did. Besides, Google maps navigation has recently been updated to download and cache all the necessary map data right at the start of your journey, so it will not leave you stranded should you loose your data signal part way through your trip anyway. If you still think you may start your journey where there is already no data signal (the only weakness of google maps) then please try the £3.50 (30 days) licence to check it works first! Just don't expect decent customer support from Route 66 if it fails! One good thing that did come of this Route 66 debacle was what happened after I did a factory reset. Normally, without 3rd party backup apps installed, all your apps are wiped out and you have to go back through and start putting them all on manually. Not any more. HTC were aware of how I had my phone set up prior to my factory reset as I'd signed up to HTC Sense, and upon logging back into my account after the wipe, all the apps started automatically re-installing. Even my wallpaper, ringtone choices and volume settings were remembered. I was slightly concerned that HTC also seemed to have "backed up" my wireless router's network key however, as that also worked straight away and jumped straight on my WiFi network without having to be told the magic word.

The camera although still 5MP is yet another improvement. The most noticeable one being that it doesn't take the picture 3 seconds after pressing the shutter button any more! Pictures are taken much faster so you are less likely to miss the moment. The colours are more accurately represented, and generally less correction is required afterwards over the old Desire. Pictures in low light or fast-moving subjects still result in under-exposure or blurred shots respectively though. I was hoping for a `sport' mode with high shutter speed but it seems I'm the only one! The LED flash effective range is again only roughly 12 feet and still does make people look like they're being interrogated by torchlight. If you want a proper camera though, buy a dedicated camera. The camera on this phone serves it's purpose: to take amusing pictures of your mates when they have fallen over after too many sherbets, and uploading them straight to Facebook or wherever before they've had chance to get up and make you delete them.

Now for the only slightly concerning issue; the WiFi signal drop issue. You may have heard of this one. Due to the aluminium uni-body construction, HTC have located the WiFi aerial behind the small rubber cover at the top of the phone near the camera lens. Relax. It's no where near as severe as the comical i-Phone "death grip" issue, but be warned that if you cover your hand over this area it will cause the WiFi signal to drop about 30%. Not such a problem at home when you are typically close to your router. But when on only a very weak signal to begin with, you certainly should be aware of this potential issue. This will only likely occur when holding the phone in landscape orientation, so try to be mindful not to completely cup your hand over this area. Holding it by the corners (like I do anyway) and there are no problems. The WiFi signal does NOT drop when placed down on a flat surface though. Interference seems to be limited to your hand. I'm pleased to report that the 3G side of things suffers no ill effects no matter where you hold it so we can still laugh at iPhone 4 owners. If anything my Desire S is getting a stronger 3G signal in my office than the old Desire did.

Call quality is very good and I've had no dropped or missed calls. The bluetooth synced with my speaker pod straight away and has a comparable range to the old Desire. The built-in loud speaker has had some improvements to sound quality, but still don't expect high fidelity. It's only really meant to help you carry on playing Xbox when your wife rings you. They always seems to know when you're having a good round don't they? For that purpose calls come across loud and clear.

Build quality:
The build quality feels impressive. It's aluminium uni-body construction feels vastly more robust that the old Desire. It's a pleasure to hold with a comforting weight to it, and you feel sacrilegious putting a case on it. It looks much smarter too in it's matt black paint job. Gone is the dodgy coppery-brown paint from the old Desire. I'm paranoid though so it's in a case when out and about, but can't help but remove it when back at home. I can understand why the few people who bought the HTC Legend really liked it now.

The screen is made of Gorilla Glass this time around so is much more scratch-resistant than the old Desire. Again it's up to you to make the call on fitting a screen protector. Search for Gorilla Glass on any popular video streaming website to find clips of people TRYING to scratch this screen! It's impressive what it will stand up to.

I have found that I struggle getting the battery cover off and on. It is quite firmly in place when it's just come out the box, and you worry that you may break it using excessive force. Once it's off and your SIM card is in, you'll find it's also a bit tricky to reattach. Follow the instructions though and you'll be fine. You shouldn't have to do this often either.

There is a very small gap between the bottom edge of the glass screen and the aluminium casing which lets a tiny sliver of the backlight show through when in a darkened room. But you have to angle the phone just right to see it, normal viewing angles don't show it, and it's easily forgivable considering the rest of the phone's build quality.

I thought I would miss the optical track pad and hardware buttons from the old Desire more than I actually am. The software buttons perform well, and moving the cursor around text using the touch-screen is handled well with only the occasional miss-selection. Occasionally the haptic feedback (vibration) to confirm a press of these software buttons has stopped for a few seconds. I haven't figured out what causes this, but it starts working again soon enough. A small bug in the ROM perhaps. Read more ›

This arrived today so have not had much time to play with it yet, but first impressions are: gorgeous looking phone, heavy and cold metalic feel, really solid look about it. Elegant. The battery 'door' was a little fiddly initially as it is unusal, but was fine once I got used to it, and now I really like its simplicity, and as I am about to order a battery for it and I expect you will want to as well, I thought I would give this information to aid you in that purchase: the info on the battery is:

Part number 35H00152-00M
Model BG3200
3.7 VDC
1450mVA
5.36Whr

Just to add, since writing this reveiw I note the battery is described elsewhere as battery BA S530

Some comments about the use of it:
I have had the phone for a couple of days now and it has lived up to my (demanding) expectations, the boot up time is about 4 seconds, the internet browsing fast, and the wifi hotspot seeker really handy for when out and about and when you have exceeded your download allowance for the month (I downloaded the 490MB Spain map as it is easier to have the map downloaded before you travel for faster navigation).
Navigation; There are two types of navigation, one is free (google) the other is pay for but you get a 30 day free trial, after that it is £30 for perpetual use or £25 per annum.

Google star maps was also quickly downloaded - I have been looking forward to using this as I like astronomy but am an amateur; it is really useful to highlight what the star / constellation is that you are looking at and very responsive.

Phone call quality, extremely crisp sound and clear, easy to find contacts and dial (the phone part works!)

Email, I had an HTC phone before (the touch diamond) and before that a samsung; neither of them were as quick to set up. With the Desire S, you just add your email address/ es, password and job done, works fast and seamlessly, and you can alter the check interval to suit you (the default was 1 hour for 'peak' time which is itself also setable). The phone has a sleep mode which means you can set it to not check email when your sleeping if you prefer.

Battery life; yes it does get used quite fast, about a day. But as the battery is new and most batteries have a run in time where they get better after a few charges, plus I doubt I will be using it as frequently when I have learnt / downloaded all the main things, I expect this to get better in the next week or so. I recommend you buy a car charger for it, though, especially if you intend using it for navigation or you may get caught out.

Internet; very fast browsing, the fastest I have seen; for example, it took 3 seconds to search for 'wifi hotspot' in google when using a wifi portable hotspot and 7 to load wikipedia result link.

Texts, because the screen is large it is really easy to type; and no implement is supplied nor needed for this; the keyboard is large enough for you not to make errors and if you do, the predictive suggester is great. the keys make the phone vibrate lightly also which helps to confirm you selected something.

Touchscreen; I have to mention this as it is amazingly responsive, I have used other phones screens before including iphone and this screen is the best I have used. When you scroll down to select something or read down a page, there is no chance of accidently picking something in error, the system is so robust you only select something if and when you stop scrolling, this was always a major bugbear on older touchscreens and made the whole process rather tedious. If you were worried about getting a touchscreen phone, worry no more!

I've had the Desire S for about a week, now, and have had chance to use it properly, so I thought I would pass on some impressions and comments. For context, my previous phone was a Hero, which I've been happy with, but that's 2 years old now and things have moved on.

Firstly, build quality is top-notch. This Desire S is solidly built and feels right in your hand. The aluminium unibody construction is rigid and doesn't have the plasticky feel of some of the devices I've seen. I was a bit concerned that the aluminium would pick up scratches from surfaces as it's an anodised finish, so I bought the Case Mate Barely There Case for HTC Desire S - Black which I've reviewed elsewhere. It'll be interesting to see how other devices fair over time. The mini-chin works well, giving it style points so it doesn't look like another black glass brick, and making it easier to hold onto in some circumstances, and is far less pronounced than the Hero's jutting jaw.

The size is also good. I've seen comments that the screen is too small, but it's as big as I need and the extra room over the Hero is appreciated for typing on the virtual keyboard. I also looked at the iPhone 4 and Incredible S and though both worked well as tablets, they seemed oversized for a phone.

The screen is also brighter than standard LCD, though not bright enough to use in sunlight - I think we'll have to wait for e-ink to overcome that type of direct brightness. It's also a highly reflective screen, something that's a downside in the car with the phone mounted in the cradle. It reflects a lot of light back from outside and can be difficult to read in these conditions. Shiny screens are pretty standard these days, though, as they result in improved brightness.

The buttons on HTC devices seem to move around a lot between devices (just an impression) but on the Desire S they seem well sited and easy to access with one hand. The buttons on the Desire were physical, but the capacitive buttons on the Desire S function really well, with no problems registering keypresses. The only problem has been that the backlight turns off unexectedly sometimes and you have to remember which button is which. They do not rotate when the device is held in landscape as the Incredible S does, but that was only ever a gimmick in my view with no real useful purpose.

With Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread) and HTC Sense 2.1, this device is at the leading edge of Android phones today, though that's not immediately obvious from looking at it. What quickly becomes apparent in use, though, is in home many places the OS and and interface have ben tweaked to improve useability, make it more intuitive. Menus are more contextual, options more relevant, things are where you expect them to be.

In many ways this reminds me of what Apple did between Leopard and Snow Leopard - not much seemed to change but everything got better, faster, easier. With new devices sporting multi-core processors and 1080 video recording, you might be inclined to think that the Desire S will be left behind. Performance, though, has never been about raw power. What matters is a good balance of processing power, available memory, graphical capability and battery life.

In use, the Desire S feels quick and responsive. Intensive applications like Navigation respond well and the lag on map updates which is noticable on the Hero is not there on the Desire S. Videos play well and YouTube is quick as long as you use WiFi - the downloads over 3G can be slow.

Upping the performance at the expense of battery life is easy, but getting a full day's work and performaing well is what matters. This is where I'm pleased to report that battery life has got much better when compared with the Hero. I've had a couple of days with fairly intensive use and it's only been down to about one-third of power at the end of the day.

There are still things I haven't explored yet - I'm looking forward to recording some video and making use of the camera, and I haven't downloaded any games yet, but my overall impression is of a well-sorted, full featured device that has moved on through evolution rather than revolution. It's a joy to use and It's been fun to discover the new things it can do along with the things it does better.

The thing I've not mentioned is the price, which varies according to carrier and locality, but there are some very good deals on this phone right now, and although there are a lot of new devices coming down the pipe, but they're going to have to be something special to top this.