Opinions - HTC Desire HD review

[HEXUS]

The successor to the popular Desire is good, but step inside to see how good.

Read more.

[Jay]

Nice review, there is a slight mistake

"the HTC Desire HD makes we even less tempted to give the Jesus Phone a go."

[Noxvayl]

Some more mistakes:
"There are a a bunch of HTC-specific"

"not to make and ‘iPhone killer' itself"

Might be more, I only skimmed through the article...

Besides the mistakes I liked the article. Covered all the bases and gave some interesting perspectives on Android. Would definitely of helped me choose a phone if I was looking for one.

[miniyazz]

Interesting read, as I own one. One point I'd add is that task killers aren't recommended by the XDA people for 2.2 as using them tends to decrease battery life and generally upset things. Plus, as you noted, there are better ways to control data usage for those to whom it matters. Also disabling automatic sync for selected programs will help.

[Scott B]

Thanks guys, that'll teach me to publish last thing on a Friday...

[Crazytom]

Cant say I'm that thrilled by the camera on it, although it takes good pictures its not as easy to use as a real camera, and the lack of a physical button (unlike the original desire) is a definite negative.
I also have the same problem with sms messages being alerted, and the battery life isnt that great either tbh.
However, despite these flaws, it is a fantastic smartphone all round

[Brewster0101]

Cant say I'm that thrilled by the camera on it, although it takes good pictures its not as easy to use as a real camera, and the lack of a physical button (unlike the original desire) is a definite negative.
I also have the same problem with sms messages being alerted, and the battery life isnt that great either tbh.
However, despite these flaws, it is a fantastic smartphone all round

Have you got the 2.2.1 software update. Camera performance was improved significantly. Although the SMS message issue was introduced with the 2.2.1 too, so guess you must have.

I found camera performance in the right light to be stella since the latest update. Video quality was also improved.
Battery life is just as good as any modern smart phone. You just need to either set the phone up well or not use it so much and expect it to last forever. I can get 3 days use out of mine on one charge with slight internet use, emails being picked up every hour and slight texting and calls.

My biggest issue is the HTC media software does not work well over DNLA (upnp). When streaming media many file types won't stream that otherwise work fine from the phones memory.
Also the loud speaker is very poor in quality and volume. Hard to use the loudspeaker in a car cradle while driving, its just too quiet.
Oh, and I found it disappointed that now case was included in the box.

[[GSV]Trig]

Interesting read, as I own one. One point I'd add is that task killers aren't recommended by the XDA people for 2.2 as using them tends to decrease battery life and generally upset things. Plus, as you noted, there are better ways to control data usage for those to whom it matters. Also disabling automatic sync for selected programs will help.

I was gonna cover this but you beat me to it..
Disabling the HTC account helps with some issues as well..

[MadduckUK]

I was gonna cover this but you beat me to it..

general rule now then as its the same for people using a different phone on a different android version - task killers have had there moment and do more harm than good. tweaks in the kernel to mem usage are where its at

[Brewster0101]

Oh and real kicker is HTC sync for windows does not work with Office 2010 64 bit edition yet...

[mrochester]

Here's some constructive criticism; this comes across as a very amatuer review. The author appears to not even know what smart dialling is, and wrongly advises people to use a task killer which is a big no no for those of us in the know. I would have thought a site dedicate to the business of mobile would be a bit more clued up about the hardware and software they are writing about.

[Scott B]

Here's some constructive criticism; this comes across as a very amatuer review. The author appears to not even know what smart dialling is, and wrongly advises people to use a task killer which is a big no no for those of us in the know. I would have thought a site dedicate to the business of mobile would be a bit more clued up about the hardware and software they are writing about.

Thanks - I remain dedicate to becoming more than amatuer on the matter of handsets.

As you said yourself, this is a business site and my reviews are very much first person experiences of using a phone. I don't offer any advice one way or the other - just relay my personal experience of using the device.

Sorry if you didn't find it useful, maybe some people less 'in the know' did.

[aidanjt]

Cant say I'm that thrilled by the camera on it, although it takes good pictures its not as easy to use as a real camera, and the lack of a physical button (unlike the original desire) is a definite negative.

Oh dear God, a device which doesn't have a shutter doesn't have a shutter button! And 'real camera' is pretty much a meaningless term these days, the CMOS sensors and encoding software in 'real cameras' are the exact same technologies in phones. If anything, the lack of 'shutter' button is an advantage, since it doesn't create a downward force skewing your intended image tilt. Just brush the on-screen control with your thumb, image taken, that's it.

About the only real advantage 'real cameras' have over phones these days, is the lack of physical zoom in phones. But for most spontaneous 'point 'n shoot' shots (i.e. out and about, every day stuff), that's not even desirable, and 8m px. leaves plenty of margin to crop images without them turning into a blocky mess.

[Steve]

About the only real advantage 'real cameras' have over phones these days, is the lack of physical zoom in phones.

That and the fact that there's actually a big enough lens to capture a decent amount of light.

[peterb]

Oh dear God, a device which doesn't have a shutter doesn't have a shutter button! And 'real camera' is pretty much a meaningless term these days, the CMOS sensors and encoding software in 'real cameras' are the exact same technologies in phones. If anything, the lack of 'shutter' button is an advantage, since it doesn't create a downward force skewing your intended image tilt. Just brush the on-screen control with your thumb, image taken, that's it.

About the only real advantage 'real cameras' have over phones these days, is the lack of physical zoom in phones. But for most spontaneous 'point 'n shoot' shots (i.e. out and about, every day stuff), that's not even desirable, and 8m px. leaves plenty of margin to crop images without them turning into a blocky mess.

And control over aperture and shutter speed.

[aidanjt]

That and the fact that there's actually a big enough lens to capture a decent amount of light.

Naw, CCDs are extremely efficient. And even a pinhole (I mean literally) lets through more than enough physical information to take a full picture. It's considered that even consumer CMOS sensors will register 1 in 2 photon hits, which is more than 10 times higher in quantum efficiency than chemical film. When you have sensors that sensitive to light, having a big lens only becomes useful when you're trying to capture extremely distant images where the lens acts as a gatherer to keep the CCD filled.

And even at that, having a massive CCD array is far superior to a gigantic lens focusing on a tiny CCD. A perfect example of this is with astronomical telescopes like hubble.

Certainly for a photographer though, a huge lens is cheaper and has better manual control and results in more manageable image file sizes than a big CCD array, so that makes sense, and is what could be considered a real camera.