After the success of the HTC Desire, the Taiwanese firm is looking to take smartphones to the next level with the super-sized HTC Desire HD. But is it the next tech-filled talisman for the brand or a super-sized effort too far?
If you're in the market for a new smartphone, you can check out our quick video guide to what to look out for:
We've all seen the HTC HD2 and the HTC Evo, both with the same-sized 4.3-inch screens, and they were both successes, so it makes sense to continue that theme on the latest Android flagship phone, right?
Add to that it's got the overhauled Sense UI, with more new features than you can shake a techno-stick at, and there's a lot to be excited about with this new handset.
We're not sure if there's been some optimisation on the screen, but the 4.3-inch offering from HTC seems to be packing a better contrast ratio since we saw it a few weeks ago at the launch.
It still lacks the wow factor of the Samsung Galaxy S' Super AMOLED but it's certainly not a bad screen – just perhaps a bit light on the difference between the black and whites on the display.
But there are those out there that think that OLED screens are over-saturated anyway, so perhaps it will appease rather than disappoint some.
The slim dimensions (68mm x123mm x 11.8mm) are really important, and help to make the 4.3-inch screen more palatable to those that think it's simply too big.
It doesn't feel as skinny as the iPhone 4 or the Galaxy S (well, it isn't at 11.8mm) but it's perfectly pocketable.
The front of the Desire HD is mostly taken up by screen, as you can imagine when you have one as whopping as this.
The four touch sensitive options are all easy enough to press and light up when the phone is in use – we'd still rather they were the physical keys of the original Desire, as it's much easier to hit them without taking your eyes off the screen.
The dimensions of the phone are designed to minimise the trade-off of having a massive screen, but it only partly works.
Yes, the thin frame makes it nice to hold in the hand, but in the normal portrait mode it's still nigh on impossible to reach the top of the screen without jiggling the phone around in your hand – something that's never an issue on the sleek iPhone 4.
The top of the phone only houses the power/lock button, and like the HTC HD7, this is flush to the chassis and thus hard to even find, let alone hit without looking at times.
There's a massive volume rocker switch on the left hand side of the Desire HD, leaving the right hand side completely clean – no power or camera key here, which gives it a nice smooth finish.
Below the volume key is the battery cover – it's an odd one, as you have to yank it off and the battery then falls out, with no catch like on the HTC Legend.
It's even more confusing when there's a separate sliding cover on the bottom of the Desire HD to get to the microSD and SIM slots.
This cover isn't the best though – a few clicks on and off and we found it started to get a little loose, feeling creaky when gripped.
There's an odd choice from HTC when it comes to the 3.5mm headphone port, as it's on the bottom rather than the top of the phone, next to the microUSB port.
It means that the phone will be easier to pull out of your pocket already the right way up in your hand, but it just feels a little odd when 99% of other portable devices have it located on the top and out the way when holding it in the hand.
At least it's central, so it doesn't get in the way when you're holding it for video watching.
Around the back we're treated to an 8MP camera that also packs a dual LED flash, and also records HD footage at 720p resolution. There's also a small speaker that seems to be the main source of audio output – there's another on the front above the screen, but it feels like most of the sound pumps from the rear.
Your comments (56) Click to add a new comment
hotshot86
February 4th
56. i have had the htc desire hd for over a year; my brother has had the iphone 4 for about 6 months and in my opinion the htc is a lot better. the interface is better, the touch screen on the htc is a lot more responsive and overall it is a much better phone.
also in my opinion the android market offers a wider and better selection of apps.
i do have to charge it up every night but i use it a lot its obious that smartphones need to be charged more.
i think the htc desire hd is still one of the top phones on the market.
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walders
January 9th
55. I'm really confused by the negative reviews here. I've had mine for a year, and it still performs excellently.
- GPS has never failed - no hardware failure there.
- Texts are very quick to send - it's never taken a minute to send!
- The battery is fine. The cover is a doddle to remove. I have a spare (£15) that I keep in my pocket, and switch it over regularly. No problems ever.
- The battery lasts all day, unless I play games or use GPS, etc. Common sense, really. That's what the spare battery is for, and I've never been without juice. It is worth getting the Juice Defender app, but I don't restrict myself otherwise.
- The phone isn't fussy at all - it's been amazing all year. I am a very heavy user, and haven't had an issue with it.
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saad_81
December 21st 2011
54. The battery is horrible, the battery cover is very tricky to remove and gets damaged easily. The gps stops working after 2 months. I don't know why that happens but nearly all of desire hd owners have this problem. It might be a flaw in the hardware.
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pbassred
August 26th 2011
53. Its big and the screen resolution is good. Typing of the screen is what you would expect. But:-
*Battery life is a day. I am constantly topping it up just in case. They knew it had a big screen. The battery is inadequate for reasonable use
*The bluetooth WILL NOT ALLOW VOICE DIALLING. There is no app which provides a getaround since voice dialing from the phone requires you the hold the phone or be completely quiet. Another problem is the time lag which gives the caller a confusing echo, so hands free is definitely out.
*The screen is difficult to read in sunlight.
*Mine developed a fault after 3 months. The phone freezes twice a day and you need to pull the battery out to restart it.
*The battery compartment is difficult and flimsy.
*The music player is clear and powerful enough. groups tracks according to the information in the mp3 properties ... except it doesn't. I ended up with 6 albums of the same name!
*As a camera it is difficult to use because you need press the screen to take a picture which is awkward. Its a thin shape to hold so videos are shaky although the resolution is good.
So:- Texting is good and fast, Phoneing is ok but I think that touching the phone cuts me off occasionally. You can watch a movie, but not for long. Don't buy it if you drive.
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waynesworld
May 18th 2011
52. Done a little research and written to HTC and I have fixed the HD Video lag problem on my Desire HD after weeks of trying to sort it out. This will fix any problems you have completly. You need to do two things: First, enable the USB Debugging mode (Menu; Settings; Applications; Development). Then format the SD card by plugging it into your PC and chose the cluster size 32k option. I am using a 32g Class 10 micro SD by Lexar. I almost sent my phone back because the HD Video did not work and now it works without fault! So happy with the awesome phone. It does EVERYTHING I want it to. The Andriod 2.3 Gingerbread update is now available too. Just awesome!
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sydl
April 18th 2011
51. I was waiting for the Samsung Galaxy SII for months while everyone I knew recommended this phone stating HTC as the superior phone maker with better updates and support as well. But it was only after reading THIS review that I considered it and finally ended up buying one. Best decision ever. Which is why after months of visiting TechRadar but never bothering to register, I just had to now. Thank you! It's the best phone I've ever owned, everything works like greased lightning. The apps are amazing. Sense UI is delicious and eager to please. Call quality is superb. Internet browsing is fast and beautiful on the large screen. Oh the screen, I am in love with the huge display, perfectly balanced and not over-saturated like AMOLED. Google services are fully integrated. The only thing this phone doesn't do for me is make my bed every morning! The only bone I have with this gorgeous phone is its battery. Makes me spend a LOT less time with it than I'd ideally like to. Hopefully HTC's Gingerbread release should improve battery life. Other than that, it's an excellent phone. I would buy it again, if I could.
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rich19530
March 1st 2011
50. Whatever induced HTC to use a unibody design on this phone is beyond my comprehension.It effectively means you cannot fit a powerful extended battery and if you are a heavy user like me that is essential.I have replaced the factory supplied battery with a 1600mah and the battery life is still rubbish.The turn this off turn that off merchants have missed the point completely.There is no point designing a phone that does everything bar make the tea if you cannot use it because you are afraid the battery might run out! Cant wait to get rid of mine.
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shankar_htc
February 24th 2011
49. I have been Visiting TechRadar for over an year now,but never bothered to register in it.
But I couldn't keep myself from writing about this awesome phone.Except for the battery ,everything is simply superb in all other aspects.
It not about the big features of the phone,but the little things like that weather animation,calendar etc which makes you love this phone..
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777dpa
February 22nd 2011
48. I have had the phone now for around 6 weeks and I have to say it is incredible. It is far more than a phone. Silky smooth, superb build quality and the battery life problems are much exagerated. I easily get 2 days from moderate use. Sure if you use it constantly and you have too much running it will wear down but so do laptops. Don't expect eco car mpg from what is after all supercar technology if you excuse the analogy.
This handset is way better than an iPhone 4 in many respects. Each have their own strengths but give me this phone every time. 5 starts from me.
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saxoric
February 17th 2011
47. This phone is fantastic. By far the best one I've owned and it excels in every area you can think of. The battery only seems to last a day but that's probably my fault from wanting to use it all the time.
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amanda.winters
February 8th 2011
46. I have been using the <a href="http://www.directphoneshop.co.uk/dealset.asp?id=1966">htc desire hd</a> for quite some time and it is among the top seller and most well featured smartphones I must say.
The camera is a great help to me while shooting at all light conditions. The interface is the best part of the Desire HD and the operating systems simplifies the tasks of the users to up to a large extent.
The battery life is a hitch for me but with regular and proper charging, its standby time is increasing gradually and so is the talk time.
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fluffyninja
February 6th 2011
45. Bit of background to start with.
I had an HTC Desire for the last 6 months until an unfortunate loss a week ago. I'd read the reviews on here and a few others that made my mind up about it. I'd read about the battery issues on the original Desire and had had absolutely no issues with it at all.
At the extremes of use it would last 5 days with all wifi/mobile connections turned off. With them turned on and surfing the net it would last well over 3~4 hours and still have enough charge to work as a standard phone at least until that evening when I had some chance to put it on charge.
I read with a little trepidation about the worse battery life of the HD but decided to go for it anyway. Spent about 5 hours of pretty permanent use yesterday about 3 of those hours on the internet getting the phone to how I wanted it and still had about 30~40% charge left.
Therefore I've really no issues with the battery life on the phone. I can't see me using it for a longer period of time then that without access to some form of charging.
If you're worried about the battery degrading over time, by the way, they're peanuts on Amazon.
Other than that the review here says it all
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assilok
January 29th 2011
44. I have the HTC Desire Z but I would like to say something.
If you have some battery life troubles, try to cancel the automatic update in the settings. The batterylife will be a lot better.
The widgets consume a lot, be attentive.
Anyway, this Desire is maybe the best androidphone in the actual market.
Just a better screen (SLCD would have been a lot better than LCD) and a EQ and this would probably be the best smartphone !
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texnut
December 31st 2010
43. The idea is brilliant. I think 4.3 inch is now the standard for a smart phone. However the execution is flawed. I've had mine for less than a month. It now takes a whole minute to send a text message, and that is after I have uninstalled nearly all Apps. If I am lucky the battery will last me a day. I have asked Vodafone for a replacement. Hopefully I will be able to send a text msg.
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cowbell
December 14th 2010
42. Had my Desire HD for almost a week now and am very happy with it. Sleek, fast, and really liking Sense so far compared to the Vanilla Android I've tried on other phones.
There are plenty of useful apps built in (Reader, Quickoffice, locations, etc) and the Media playback capabilities are very good. As the review says the video playback has some bugs that need to be fixed, but I've been really happy with the in-built Music app, and the Dolby and SRS support are welcome. I actually found that through my headphones, music playback with SRS was significantly better than the sound I get out of my laptop, which was a nice surprise! I would have rather had an HDMI-out than the DLNA support, but it's still cool that it's there.
The screen will probably make the phone a bit big for some people, but personaly I still find it perfectly pocketable, and I've never had any problems using it. I find the screen is great for games, books, videos, word processing and just about anything else I can throw at it., but it is the main reason for the battery dying so quickly. Personally though, I charge my phone at work and at home so it hasn't been an issue so far. Even on days where I've forgotten my charger I've still been at 50% battery or higher by the time I go to bed, and that's with leaving wi-fi and syncing on all day.
Overall? Really happy. I can see myself being happy with this phone for the duration of my contract, and I really genuinely enjoy using it every time I pick it up. If you're looking for a phone that will last for a long period of heavy use without having to charge, then you're looking at the wrong phone. But for me it's pretty damn close to perfect.
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johnblair7
December 13th 2010
41. What is sogood about DNLA, if all that can be displayed is media. I do have a DNLA equipped set up, with TV and bluray player connected to a Network Media Hard drive. But compared to my N8 through the HDMI cable it does not compete. Using the HDMI cable my TV is effectively a display screen which means everyting on the N8 is displayed so I can play games, browse the net etc on the TV. Most people now have flat screens with HDMI sockets but not everyone has a DNLA set up.
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macfarm
December 9th 2010
40. previously owned a HTC diamond..But this HTC desire is simply amazing..I spent the first few days showing even complete strangers how amazing this phone operates..I was going to get a Iphone but instead kept with HTC..very glad I did as this phone is a gem.
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pansuja
December 5th 2010
39. HTC has Lot of features, highly customizable, faire battery life for a touch phone with a 4.3 inch screen, it has flexibility of taking the battery off or even replacing it with a higher milliamps battery, new useful futures, like it rings loud when in a coved place like your bag or your pocket and reduces the ring tone soon after you pick the phone up etc. Obviously android 2.2 OS can do a lot, less restrictions comparing to iPhone, fair amount of useful apps on the market (however I do use an iPhone as well and believe they seemed to have more apps), 8mpix camera with auto focus but it’s not all about the resolution, for an example Nokias have the worst OS ever (Symbian) but most of their high end phones come with a carl Zeiss optics Lens which makes that phone a proper digital camera with crystal clear photos, Sony Ericson has Cyber shoot lens which is again very good, but HTCs and even iPhone camera is just average for STILL PHOTOS, HD recording well can’t complain they are fairly ok. 480 x 800 WVGA screen, not as great as you think. 4.3 inches and they’ve only got 480 x 800 pixels makes the dot pitch (ppi) much wider. Iphone with 960-by-640-pixel resolution at 326 ppi and 3.5 inch screen is lot clearer. Samsung’s Super AMOLED screen with 480 x 800 pixels, 4.0 inches is again fairly a reasonable screen however there’s no big MAGIC about it. In a nutshell they are all more or less the same but we all know higher resolutions can make the monitor look clearer, because there are more pixels available to form the picture. What you need to include in the equation is the size, 480x800 over 4.3 inch screen or 960x640 in a 3.5inch screen? It’s not rocket since folks I’m sure anyone who’s reading this review can figure it out.
Phone is nice and fast soon as you bought it, but couple of days later, after copying your music, videos and downloading several apps it becomes really slow. Especially if you have ever used an iPhone before it won’t take long to start hating your phone. Most HTC phones have some in built memory and Micro SD Card comes with usually 2,4,8,16GB of external memory. However accessing that external memory is very slow. I have no idea why can’t they get the basics right. Good phone, good concept, fairly ok Operating System but not enough inbuilt memory which really makes it a useless piece of “whatever”, even a much less expensive Samsung Galaxy S has 8GB and Its must faster with photos etc. That’s where HTC becomes a joke! However it all depends on people’s preferences. Some people hate open source concept while others hate Windows and MACs. If you are not a heavy multimedia user and not concerned much about the speed and still want a touch phone then go for HTC or Sumsung, cuz those windows phones are a big No No. However if you concerned about the speed, accessing your photos, videos and music super-fast there’s nothing else comes anywhere near to iPhone.
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topcat
December 1st 2010
38. This is the first HTC phone I have had,
had the Motorola, Nokia, Sony, Blackberry and the iPhone.
Remember this, is a mini computer, which has a phone feature.
And use a bit of sense it’s a little over 4 ½” in size don’t expect it to have Bose stereo speakers inside, It’s not a hifi or a television, so if you want that sort of quality, or a graphics equaliser, drag your TV and hifi around with you.
Then you will respect what you do carry around with you. You want stereo plug your head phones in and have some respect for those people around you !!!
First thoughts, screen picture qulity and res are very good, and yes it may be only super lcd (SLCD) but it’s clear, sharp, and very good colour balance.
The size is very nice, and I can reach every section of the screen very comfortable, and you soon learn where the on/off standby switch is, and the volume button is.
The touch screen is very responsive, really very good, better than any other mobile phone that has a touch screen that I have used.
Phone calls are clear, sound is good, with or without head phones, the ring volume is good, During initial set up the transfer my old ring tone, which I thoughts was a nice feature.
Of course you can import your own ring tone, and recorded it at your own high or low level, and fine tune it using the phone ring volume, simple.
The menus are easy to navigate and you soon get use to them, and figure how to go into the advance menu by selecting the menu key ! really is simple, very nice features.
Some of the menus are a little fiddle but are acceptable, and you soon learn how to use them.
The apps are very good that come with it are good and work very well, flash is good, and the ads can be turned off. Again go through the menus and options and de-select the features, simple, but just be patent.
The video play pack is very good and clear. I down loaded some free apps to play all video formats. Really very simple to do, search out the web and use a bit of common sense, and use the bar code scanner, makes it so simple.
It also has nice SRS feature, so if you have sensitive ears like me, and understand about sound, then it’s a nice feature, but just don’t expect Hifi sound play back that you get from your 5:1 surround sound system, it a mini computer with a phone feature !!!
If you think that’s complex then this is not the phone for you, you really need a simple phone only.
I would say the battery life can be maintained to a reasonable level, if you are economic with features, such as wifi or blue tooth then the phone does last well over a day.
So turn the features off when you are not using them.
Alot of smart phones all kill the battery with wifi and blue tooth on, I know I had it on several other brands of phones, and they all kill the battery.
I do txt alot texting and that can start to pull the battery of phone down during the day.
I will buy a spare battery, the physical size of the battery is really very small so in my wallet it goes, most women would not mind considering what they carry around with them all day !!!
Camera is crisp, and as good as any other mobile on the market.
You want high quality pictures carry your DSLR around with you as well as the TV, Hifi, laptop, and Bose speakers !!!
I have not experience any lock up or freeze and never had an app crash.
The cut, copy and paste is amazing, about the best I have used, and that is a good reflection on the touch screen and how good it really is.
The multi tasking is also very good, and I can only assume this shows how good the Snapdragon cpu and gpu is on this phone.
The Multi tasking feature alone would be very hard to beat by any other phone other than an Android based phone, such as the Samsung S, or Motorola Android based phone.
The only thing I have questions over is the Wifi configuration, I don’t have my SSID on, but I had to turn it on, shame.
A nice feature of the phone, it can be shared out as a Wifi Hot spot, but don’t expect amazing data through put, remember its only 3G, it’s not LTE Yet !
The transfer of my contact was really very simple and all done via blue Tooth, very good.
I hope that HTC don’t hang around and make sure the latest’s versions of Android are released for it.
I can understand why phone companies don’t have these phones in stock, they have sold them all.
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