James Marshall

Rather unlike our summer I’m going through a bit of a creative dry spell.  In an attempt to kick-start the old creative juices I thought I would write a brief review of my thoughts after a month with my HTC Desire.

I have the ‘exclusive’ black version only available in the UK with Orange; however, the trade-off is that Orange pile just about as much customisation into their ROMs as they can – more on that in a bit.

My previous phone, for the record, is the BlackBerry Curve 8900 smartphone, and the Desire is the first Android OS phone I’ve ever owned.

Performance

It is a quick phone. Responsive, useable, comfortable. There are a vast array of different applications available on the marketplace that promise to kill applications or better manage your memory but in all honesty they’re a total waste of time. Android, like mum, knows best.

Battery life is around a day the way I use the phone. I don’t have many widgets or battery draining things. I do find it drains quicker the more I use it (common sense…) – but it’s in line with other smartphones I’ve used.

Feel

Feels comfy. Screen is a fingerprint magnet which can become quite annoying; it also created a MASSIVE security risk insofar as using the pattern lock feature allows you to trace the pattern from your fingerprints.  Since HTC released Froyo recently a PIN and QWERTY lock option has been introduced.

Downsides

I’m not a massive fan of the keyboard if I’m totally honest. I have high hopes for Swype when it becomes available but I’m not holding my breath. I’ve got big fingers that like to type fast and this often confuses the keyboard and I end up typing the most awful things if I’m not careful.

As I mentioned earlier the HTC Desire as shipped by Orange comes carrier locked and fully Orange branded.  Even the case is branded. Cosmetics I can live with, but software I cannot.  Orange seem to have gone to great length to include demo applications that just sit there and chew up storage space as they’re unable to be removed.  As if you weren’t already aware that you were an Orange customer they’ve slowed the boot time down with their own animation and have even changed the Internet browser icon.

Some key software has been hidden, including Google Talk, and all updates are distributed OTA from Orange not HTC – which means very long waits for software updates.

Orange have always branded their phones, practically every single one I’ve had has had some kind of rubbish smeared and trodden into it like chewing gum into a beautiful new carpet. Don’t lose faith though – there are ways around it!

Salvation

For the cost of a mere couple of hours of your sanity, a significant amount of sweat and more than a Sunday’s worth of prayer you can unlock and de-brand your phone.

De-branding is highly likely to invalidate your warranty.  Do so at your own risk.

Following a few guides I found very easily on the Internet I created the necessary ‘gold card’ and after a few attempts was happily flashing a generic HTC Sense ROM onto my Desire.  The only bit that cost me any money was the unlocking which came to just shy of £25 – prices vary.

Now that my phone is both unlocked and de-branded I have been able to install Froyo OTA directly from HTC and am now running a bloatware-free and fully up to date Desire with all the freedoms afforded to me by not being locked down by Orange.

As far as I know, Orange haven’t announced which features won’t will be available in their version of Froyo but you can bet that things like the wireless hotspot application and Google Talk will be left out in the cold.

Summary

HTC have a little gem of a phone in the Desire. Running Android 2.2 (aka Froyo) makes the phone even better. The rich variety of applications available from the marketplace make the Desire a real alternative to the iPhone and I can only see it going upwards in market share.  I have been very satisfied and would highly recommend the phone to anyone looking for something new, fast and exciting.

If you’re not interested in being even a little bit geeky with your phone then I would say that Android in general isn’t quite ready for you – it’s not a fully polished product and can often lead you into very scary territory (de-branding involves quite a bit of geekery) so if you’re after a phone that ‘just works’ with strict constraints on what can and can’t happen then the iPhone is probably better suited to you.