We've managed to snag an unlocked HTC Desire, and popped a bit of Android 2.2 action on there to see if it really is that much better.
We'll get to the good news early: it is much better indeed. From an improved battery to considerably less choppy video recording, any slight foibles the HTC Desire had in our review have now been rectified.
Speed upgrade
One of the main upgrades with Android 2.2 is the just-in-time compiler, which improves the speed of the device in benchmark testing, and has worked wonders on the Google Nexus One.
It's less noticeable on the HTC Desire, because the phone simply swished through menus and screens with no hint of slowdown. But when it comes to web browsing, things are indeed a little quicker.
But the JIT compiler doesn't just speed up the OS, it makes it more efficient too. This helps alleviate that glaring problem: the HTC Desire has an awful battery life, often not lasting a full day between charges.
Thankfully that's been sorted with Android 2.2, where we found taking the phone off charge at 8AM would mean we still had 15-20% battery life when we stumble in at 12AM, even with push notifications and Wi-Fi on.
It's not stellar, but it does take the HTC Desire into the realm of normal smartphone power consumption
HD video
HD video recording has also been added into the Desire with the Froyo update, but it's not quite the update we were hoping for.
True, the choppy video has been improved with more pixels, but it's still grainy, a little blocky and simply goes to pieces in dark rooms – so this won't be the next device you'll want to use to become the next Paris Hilton.
It also still outputs movies in 3GP format, which does nothing to help the overall quality – we'll wait for the HTC Desire HD to see if that improves things in any way.
Your comments (27) Click to add a new comment
angliahi
August 29th 2010
27. Have just updated to 2.2 and when I go into video camera it crashes straight back to home screen. does anyone know of any reason why this is happening? Please
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fun_guy
August 20th 2010
26. And what about the battery heating up problem... I was very happy and proud about HTC desire untill this overheating battery struck my mobile. It is very annoying when it goes off when just making a call on a warm day, because the battery temperature has gone beyond 34 degrees !
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smokemonster
August 17th 2010
25. Because dedicated kit that records quality HD costs hundreds of pounds; Do you expect quality HD from a multi function smartphone?
Quality costs. For a smartphone to out perform dedicated HD camcorders you'd need a much larger phone (for all the tech) and a much larger price tag.
It'll happen one day, but not in this generation.
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romi
August 17th 2010
24. smokemonster "You can't expect camcorder HD quality from a phone!"
Why not.
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bradavon
August 16th 2010
23. @ mcrobbj: Here:
http://www.htc.com/uk/about_htc_bymail.aspx
I've e-mailed suggestions before and got quick replies.
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mcrobbj
August 16th 2010
22. Why can't htc or google make setcpu part of the o/s? Who should we contact? Don't want to have to root my phone.
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smokemonster
August 16th 2010
21. I have the Pro version of Quicktime and 3gp is easily converted to Mov or MP4 with no change to quality. Despite what some say, I think (for a phone) the video quality is excellent.
You can't expect camcorder HD quality from a phone! Anyway, VF should be releasing 2.2 any day now :)
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chappers
August 16th 2010
20. Does anyonr know when Vigin Mobile are planning to roll-out this update?I rang them on Saturday to ask,but they didn't seem to know anything about it..other than my Desire is unlocked being on the Virgin Network.I put my mates o2 sim into it which seemed to confirm this.I thought unlocked phones were being updated first?
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si_smith
August 16th 2010
19. Techradar are showing their lack of technical knowledge with comments like:
"It also still outputs movies in 3GP format,".
Anyone with any tech knowledge knows, 3GP is just a container, it's not a codec, The desire uses AVC/AAC codecs inside 3GP. You can easily convert 3GP container to MP4 container without re-encoding the streams inside.
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bradavon
August 15th 2010
18. @ *****on123: You don't need to disable mobile view. In fact BBC iPlayer looks better in mobile view. You still get access to all videos but the pages are formatted better.
@ 99tollap: I find my Desire smooth. Certainly more than the Hero. Which has a noticeable lag.
@ dyonas: Of course but to an extent. There's still no excuse a phone should only just last a day. There is plenty Google/HTC could be doing to extent battery life. Such as reducing the CPU when it's idle (pity you've got to root to get this) and why is there no sync frequency for Google Sync? Everything else I can choose how often it syncs, but not Google Sync.
@ romi: Good point about storage. It is suprisingly low. The American HTC Desire (Incredible) has 8GB storage, as does the WM HTC Touch HD but I'm pretty sure, due to the way storage is allocated on Android. The 8GB is for media/files and not apps.
I disagree about keys though. The iPhone only having one button is so dumb. I never use the optical trackpad but use the other buttons all the time. These buttons are very much needed.
No one was interested in video calls until the iPhone 4. Why suddenly now?
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dickson123
August 15th 2010
17. Correction - it can now use the full iPlayer website and it streams fine over 3G. Obviously techradar didn't disable the "mobile view" checkbox in internet settings.
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slaguru
August 15th 2010
16. @zerodi said = people that havent rooted are missing out
True, but is this not a strange condition to have to set on your phone.
My Desire was rooted as soon as possible to allow me wifi hotspots (back on 2.1), but my do we need to do this on the famed 'open' platform.
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zerodi
August 15th 2010
15. IF people just root their phones and use SETCPU then the battery life issue would be a thing of the past, just set it to 245mhz when its sleeping and 245/1ghz when its idle and on works wonders on my HTC HERO with FULL 2.2 froyo, its super responsive and fast and setcpu make my battery last for 2-3 days - people that havent rooted are missing out
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romi
August 14th 2010
14. T-Mobile have had plenty of time to test and release Android 2.2, all operators are very sluggish in moment to get the latest OS releases out.
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epicurus1
August 14th 2010
13. Best just got better :D
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paulswift36
August 14th 2010
12. I think this is an excellent phone and I've had more than a few. It just does everything! Ok battery can be an issue but I've found using SETCPU and setting it to ondemand (where the cpu speed drops to 245mhz when idle) makes a big difference, from my week's use like this its nearly doubled battery life and that's no joke, conside how little it does when you're asleep for example. I did some preliminiary tests when I put this on and it literally halved battery consumtion. Try it, but you have to be rooted
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romi
August 14th 2010
11. -Considering desire is a multimedia mobile has a shockingly low provided memory storage, should have come with 32GB storage moved backwards on storage capacity.
-Did not use edge to edge viewable screen space, its a touch screen mobile absolutely no reason to have any physical buttons, could have extended the vertical display by 2.5cm easily. The black bar around the sides completely unnecessary and could have extended the horizontal view by 3mm x 2.
-Cannot do video calls? a major backward step in mobile phone communication technology.
-Mobile users want 1080p video recording.
- Irritating having to press the top physical button and then drag the touch screen every time making a call, when making lots of calls throughout the day is very irritating and bad design.
-Days use of battery before recharge, needed a higher nuclear powered battery
Other that completely blows my former Nokia N96 outa the water.
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dyonas
August 14th 2010
10. @bradavon Comparing smartphone battery life against a non-smartphone isn't a fair comparison. It's similar to comparing fuel consumption on an F1 car to a normal road car. They both have the same fuel but one is about performance and the other is about being economical.
Having and using a G1 I can tell you that Apps2SD is not a con. It might not move all the files to the SD card but that's by design and I'm sure there's some reason to it. It saves space on the internal storage which is very limited for me. It probably has something to do with how Google made it so it can handle the SD card being unavailable when you're using an app.
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99tollap
August 14th 2010
9. I don't understand when reviewers say things like:
"On the HTC Desire it's less noticeable because the phone simply swished through menus and screens with no hint of slowdown"
Never tried scrolling through the main menu or through text messages? As much as I love my desire, it is really not that smooth.
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