HTC released the Legend, an Android powered smartphone, to mostly positive reviews. It has now unveiled the Desire, a phone that HTC hopes will continue to stake the companys claim as a leader in Android devices. There has been frequent mention of the handsets resemblance to the Nexus One, but this is not a case of cloning or inferiority.
Right off the bat, the Desire separates itself from the Nexus One out of the box with better usability. HTC included its Sense user interface on the HTC Desire, which is rather user friendly. Just a tad larger than the Nexus, the Desire measures 119 x 60 x 11.9mm, which is still not a monster by any definition. Part of the size requirement is due to the huge, 3.7-inch OLED screen. Additionally, it is a capacitive touch screen. A beautiful, AMOLED display maintains a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels that puts it beyond the capabilities of the rest of the Android field.
A display this impressive needs to be paired with a camera that is also of high quality. Although it may not blow the doors off the joint, the 5-megapixel camera from the Legend is brought to the Desire. Maybe not exactly completely complementary to the display, the camera still offers an aspect ratio of 5:3 on its still images which is a nice, wide picture. The video recorder on the Desire shoots in 800 x 480p resolution, an improvement over the Legend and the Nexus One. In low light, the Desires recorder does reduce frame rate, but this is in order to extend exposure time to compensate for relatively dark settings.
HTC, as previously mentioned, has placed their Sense user interface on the Desire in addition to Android 2.1. Features such as the weather effects found on it allow the display to really show what it can do. Sense provides the user with seven homescreens and unveils the Live View, a feature that displays the seven panels as thumbnails. Applications are a vital component of any smartphone, as is the ability to perform tasks simultaneously. The Desire comes equipped with a breathtaking 576MB of RAM, allowing it to handle all the apps a time you could possibly want. New to the Desire is Friend Stream, basically the HTC equivalent to Motoblur, which pulls Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter updates into a single timeline.
Comprised of all of the best features of the Legend, the HTC Desire has updated that handset. The Desire is the next logical step after a phone that was already well-received. Instead of breaking the mold, HTC took what worked and improved upon it.
