Until recently, Desire was the name HTC reserved for its best handsets. The HTC One series now takes that place, yet HTC has just sprung the little Desire C out of nowhere. It continues the Desire name for its smartphones, only this time at a lower budget. Read more Google phone reviews.
HTC Desire C: Design
The HTC Desire C is the first Desire smartphone we've seen since last year's Desire S. The design looks similar – all HTC phones look alike really - but shrunken down and more akin to this year's One range of handsets like the One S. Read Apple iPhone reviews.
This compact phone has a pebble-like size, shape and feel to it. It certainly fits in the hand nicely due to its miniature size. It's not much bigger than a credit card at 60 x 107mm, but is a bit chubbier than most at 12.5mm thick.
Although the phone is pretty deep, at least compared to the likes of the Galaxy S III and HTC One X, it really didn't seem overly stout. It weighs just 100g.
We like the simple and elegant design which is available in black or white colour finishes. Read smartphone reviews.
HTC Desire C: Build quality
The Desire C is a cheap phone made entirely from plastic although its budget build isn’t immediately obvious when you handle it.
The smooth matt finish is nice and the removable rear cover isn't especially thin. There is some creak as you squeeze the handset though.
HTC Desire C: Hardware
The HTC Desire C cannot boast sock-blowing specifications. It's powered by a basic 600MHz single-core processor and 512MB of RAM. In our GeekBench 2 test the phone scored a meagre average of 333 points over three runs.
Moving around the home screens is smooth, as are the app and settings menus. The Desire C does lag somewhat when harder work is put its way. Web browsing was surprisingly smooth for such low-spec handset.
On-board storage is small at 4GB although the Desire C does include a microSD card slot for expansion. HTC offers 25GB of free cloud storage with Dropbox for two years.
The HTC Desire C has a 3.5in screen, the same size as the iPhone 4S. Its resolution is much lower than the Apple smartphone, though, at just 480 x 320 – one-quarter the iPhone’s pixel count. It equates to a pixel density of 165ppi.
The screen doesn't look awful but it's far from being detailed. Most elements of the interface look reasonably clear, though there is inevitably fuzziness around the edges of text and images.
Connectivity is pretty basic – the obligatory 3.5mm headphone jack, Micro-USB port, 11n WiFi and Blueooth 4.0. One surprise is the inclusion of a near-field communications (NFC) chip – a rare thing for a phone this cheap.
HTC Desire C: Camera
There's not much in the way of camera equipment on the HTC Desire C, possibly to enable HTC to cut some costs. A lonely rear-facing 5Mp camera is all that's on offer.
It doesn't have a fancy sensor or even LED flash. The camera struggled to focus on close-up objects but we still got reasonable looking snaps out of the Desire C.
HTC's camera app is well thought out with plenty of effects and settings. It's responsive and there's no need to switch between photo and videos modes – there's just simply a button for each. The Desire C can record basic video at a low 640 x 480 resolution.
HTC Desire C: Software
Like the rest of HTC's 2012 smartphones, the HTC Desire C comes pre-loaded with Google Android 4.0.3 and HTC Sense 4.0.
HTC has blended Ice Cream Sandwich and its overlay very well. It's neither confusingly foreign nor bog-standard and plain.
Unlike the One S and One X, HTC hasn’t unnecessarily put the recent apps multi-tasking part of Android into a separate window. Instead it appears over the top of the app or menu being shown, as Google designed.
There’s plenty of widgets to customise the home screen and the lock screen can display information, as well as shortcuts for up to four apps. The HTC Desire C has a mix of the usual pre-loaded Google apps and some third-party ones like SoundHound, 7digital and Dropbox.
HTC Desire C: Battery life
Smartphones tend to fit into one of two categories when it comes to battery life: one day or two. The Desire C only has a 4.6Wh battery but comfortably lasted us 48 hours before dropping below the 10 percent mark and needing a refill. This is a good effort which puts it in the two-day category.
Comments
Orandaa said: I agree its brill i like lay out and fucion of htc smartphones had bigger samsung phones but i think htc smaller ones are better
Orandaa said: Rubish this is an excellent phone at this price battery is good and charges fast itshas flash for bbc i player and is better than other phones at this price only thing missing is a led flash for camera then it would have been best screen lay out is excellent
dgow96 said: Bought this as a backup phone 4gb storage yet I can only see 1gb usable on my phone is ICS such a large OS
Ramukrishna970 said: when opening facebook application in my htc desire c black screen will appear after few seconds the app will be openwhy am getting black screen can any one help me
Musashi said: It will take 32gb
Chef Cale said: I have an HTC Desire C as a back up phone it is a fine cheap smart phone but the HTC Sense bloatware really bogs this little device down I went to Play Store and downloaded Launcher 7 Mock Windows Phone Launcher this works beautifully with the smaller screen and runs as smooth as silk with no lag It looks smart too I also tried the Nova Launcher for the more pure Android look and feel and it equally ran as smooth as silk You should bypass HTC Sense for either Nova or Launcher 7 on this device for best results Also to keep it running smooth download a memory cleaner from Play Store this keeps the tiny CPU running speedy and smooth The camera was surprisingly good and with photo edit apps like instagram the photos could be finished pretty nicely Not a bad little phone when you run the right launcher and apps with it
Kharfz Corner said: This Desire C not as good as thought Screen easily scratch and disabled touchscreen almost half of it it also cannot syncronise calendar and people into pc only share musics and videos aiyyo when i got problem with this device i got mad and angry
john vanda said: Get this 1500mah batteryHLI-A320ESL
Ferry Kagchèl said: If your a fan of HTC then this is a very nice budget smartphone
Nuwan Chinthana said: ATampT HTC One X not part of HTCs bootloader unlocking programThe ATampT version of the very impressive HTC One X will be landing in US tomorrow on May 6 Unfortunately even before customers can get their hands on the phone there is a disappointing bit of news waiting for themWhen The Verge reached out to HTC regarding the bootloader on the One X which as noticed by MoDaCo is locked the company responded by saying that due to some restrictions the bootloader on the One X will not be unlockablego to knw-plcblogspotcom
Invisigothh said: Rubbish this is the worst phone i have ever owned battery lasts no more than 4 hours apps are crap this phone is a joke
Jimi Jimees said: HTC desire C have just 600MHz processor with ice cream sandwich os but its working owsomhttpmobilespecsfeaturecom