HTC Desire 510 review

HTC has a theme running through the HTC Desire 510 – high speed for a low price. The HTC Desire 510 certainly delivered on this front, with both the 4G connection and overall responsiveness of the handset and operating system, along with that promised low price.

However, during the review another theme made itself clear: compromise. While the 4G speeds would be the envy of any smartphone at this price – and even of more expensive smartphones – it is clear that a number of compromises were made to keep the price of the HTC Desire 510 as low as possible.

We liked

One of the main selling points of the HTC Desire 510 is its 4G connection, which brings fast mobile data that is almost on par with your home broadband connection.

The HTC Desire 510 handles the LTE connection very well, so if you want a cheap handset for fast mobile internet browsing, you'll be pretty pleased with this smartphone.

The battery life of the HTC Desire 510 is also very good, with even heavy use not draining the battery by too much. HTC has also included a number of power saving features that help give the battery an even longer lifespan.

We disliked

One of the reasons why the HTC Desire 510's battery lasts as long as it does is that apart from browsing the internet and making calls, there aren't too many reasons why you'd be taking it out of your pocket or bag.

The camera, for example, is particularly disappointing. Though colour reproduction is fine, the level of detail that we've come to expect in our smartphone cameras is just not present in the HTC Desire 510, despite a decent camera app.

The 8GB of internal memory is a bit on the slim side as well, though you can at least expand this with an SD memory card.

Final verdict

If you just want a phone for taking advantage of the new, super fast 4G network at a low price, then you'll be quite happy with the HTC Desire 510.

However, if you want your smartphone to be more than just a portal to the internet, and to watch high definition media and take superb photos, then you'll want to look elsewhere – and probably consider spending a bit more money.

First reviewed: August 2014