HTC Explorer Sim Free Smartphone

This 'phone was bought for my wife (Happy Christmas!), who has many great abilities; 'embracing technology' however not currently being one of them. That said, I wanted her to be able to have many of the facilities she enjoys on her PC at home whilst on the move, as well as making her normal 'phoning and texting easier than on her existing ('but I know how to use this one') ancient Nokia. A real challenge!

As is standard with HTC, the Explorer runs Android with their own superb 'HTC Sense' overlay. In most ways it is similar to my own HTC Sensation, but somewhat smaller (just 4" x 2" x 0.5") and with a very carefully reduced function set. It fits really snugly in the hand and has a delightfully textured case making it a joy just to hold. The designers have deliberately aimed at the beginner's market, with a simple main homescreen devoid of any Apps. Instead a simple column of five icons gives direct access to common functions such as Messages, Camera, etc., whilst two others at the bottom allow direct access to the 'phone function and to the Apps collection. There are another six homescreens, two of which are preconfigured for Email and Social Networks, so these funtions are also just a single stroke away, and there is plenty of room left for customisation, when the User feels up to it.

Of course there are necessary compromises (eg. size) but these have been really carefully thought through and implemented, resulting in a handy sized smartphone that is simple to operate, yet still reasonably fast and powerful. The designers need to be applauded. Also, possibly due to the smaller screen size, it manages a couple of days or more easily on a single charge, whereas most larger smartphones need charging daily.

Obviously it is not the world' best 'phone in terms of featureset, screen size or raw power, but what it does (which is most things) it does really well, and in an intuitive manner that is easy for a smartphone novice to quickly master. Let's face it, three weeks after Christmas and my wife is fully at ease with it. What greater compliment could HTC want?

I decided to buy the htc Explorer as a cheap option to join the world of android phones as my budget was pretty tight. Overall I think that it is a great phone to have, and don't let me put you off getting one, but here are the few issues I have had with the phone:

However, being a 17 year old teenager I was very disappointed with the internal memory of the phone which I did not really take into account before hand. Although I have a memory card for it, I soon came to find that most of the apps available on the market, certainly the most used such as Facebook, Twitter, BBC news ect. are all required to be stored on the internal memory, which, after software necessary for the phone to function is installed, only leaves around 90mb available for such apps. With some apps you are able to download them and move to the SD card but if you have already used your 90mb of internal memory then you can not download it in order to transfer it over. It is pretty sad that there is no option to save it to the external memory card when downloading apps.

I have also noted that because of this lack of storage, software updates for the actual phone can not be downloaded if your apps fill you internal memory. I have only had this phone for a month and already there has been 1 update for the software which is 25mb in size which leaves me wondering 'how many more will there be over the time I have this phone?'

One final thing is that because of the low spec 3mp camera BAR SCANNING apps to compare prices of items online do not work, or at least I have not found one on the market that has of yet. When buying the phone I thought that I would not need it as I don't regularly use cameras on the phone but now it seems Im missing out on apps which require high spec cameras or even forward facing cameras which this phone does not have.

I take it theres a fault on Amazon. I doubt at this moment as I type I am honestly the first to review this item.

My first step towards android phones is the HTC Explorer.

Pretty impressed although I cant say ive much comparison knowledge to other androids. But starting with it as a newbie to the android world like me it seems a decent place to start. Easy enough to navigate but it will be trial and error at first as this phone does not come with a manual. I understand thats pretty standard in the modern age rightly or wrongly.

Nor does it come with headphones which is really not on as it does boast its MP3 player abilities. Asise from the fact the radio is unuseable without headphones acting as an antenna.

But the headphones are cheap (or free if you choose a friendly mobile hone shop)and it wont take long to get to grips with all the phones functions. MP3 player sounds good and loud to me (again no comparions)and the video player is easy to use. The phone will accept an SD card of anything up to 32GB which is a heck of a lot of music/videos. Compressing video files to mobile foramt are not reqired I use AVI so one can enjoy a really good quality picture on a screen that I think is just right. Not too big, not too small Just perfect for the pocket of what is a portable device after all

It does all other mobile phone expected functions so I wont go into detail.

Would just mention the three little niggles I have with this phone. I would mention though that the external speaker is pretty poor. This time I can compare, to my now redundant previous 6 year old Nokia phone that had a vastly superior external speaker than this newer HTC Explorer. Really is a frustrating let down for otherwise a pretty good product.

The radio reception is slightly weaker than I have been used to the last 6 years with an older mobile but only slightly.

And finally, and I find this odd, it has no external LED light. Sort of thing for battery recharge and text message/missed phone call alert. When its on recharge a battery image appears on the screen with a recharge percentage bar so the lack of an LED there is no biggie but to not know if a text message had come in whilst you were say out the room or the text came in whilst in your pocket muffled is going to be a pain.