The HTC Desire (codenamed Bravo) is the first
smartphone
A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
of the
Desire series developed by
HTC
HTC Corporation ( zh, t=宏達國際電子股份有限公司, s=宏达国际电子股份有限公司, p=Hóngdá Guójì Diànzǐ Gǔfèn Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī, first=t) or High Tech Computer Corporation, (literally ''Hongda International Electron ...
. It was announced on 16 February 2010 and released in Europe and Australia in the second quarter of the same year. The HTC Desire was HTC's third flagship phone running
Android
Android may refer to:
Science and technology
* Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human
* Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system
** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
2.1 Eclair which can be upgraded to
2.2 Froyo or
2.3 Gingerbread. Internally it bears a strong resemblance to the
Nexus One
The Nexus One (codenamed HTC Passion) is an Android smartphone designed and manufactured by HTC as Google's first Nexus smartphone. The Nexus became available on January 5, 2010, and features the ability to transcribe voice to text, an addition ...
, but differs in some features.
Availability
In the United States, the device was available from Alltel,
U.S. Cellular
United States Cellular Corporation (doing business as UScellular) is an American mobile network operator. It is a subsidiary of Telephone and Data Systems Inc. (which owns an 84% stake). The company was formed in 1983 and is headquartered in ...
,
Cellular South
C Spire, formerly known as Cellular South, Inc., is a privately owned technology company headquartered in Ridgeland, Mississippi. The company consists of three business divisions – C Spire Wireless, C Spire Home Fiber, and C Spire Business.
C ...
,
Cox Wireless,
nTelos Wireless,
Cellcom, and United Wireless in southwest
Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...
. In
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, the device was released by Telus Mobility on 6 August 2010.
In
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, the carriers were Elisa in
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
, Vodafone UK, Vodafone Ireland,
Meteor Irl, BT Broadband Anywhere, T-Mobile UK, O2, Orange UK, 3, and Virgin Mobile UK. In Australia, it is exclusive to
Telstra
Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets voice, mobile, internet access, pay television and other products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 ...
. In Japan,
Softbank
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the ...
Mobile started sales in April. In
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
, Vodafone started sales in late November 2010.
In
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
, SK Telecom began sales in May 2010.
In
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
, the official launch date was 14 May 2010, and the phone was subsequently for sale by all carriers.
In mainland
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, HTC launched its four flagship smartphones including the Desire on 27 July 2010. Unlike in other markets, the device was shipped with
Android 2.2
Android Froyo is the sixth version of Android and is a codename of the Android mobile operating system developed by Google, spanning versions between 2.2 and 2.2.3. Those versions are no longer supported. It was unveiled on May 20, 2010, duri ...
("Froyo").
Many of the
UK mobile networks were unable to keep up with demand; Virgin Mobile UK, Vodafone UK, 3, T-Mobile UK and Orange UK experienced very high demand. The disruption caused by the
2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull
Between March and June 2010 a series of volcanic events at Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland caused enormous disruption to air travel across Western Europe.
The disruptions started over an initial period of six days in April 2010. Additional locali ...
led to some customers waiting a month getting their HTC Desires due to much of European airspace being closed.
In
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, HTC and TATA DOCOMO, the GSM brand of Tata Teleservices Limited, announced a partnership to launch HTC Desire in India on 16 August 2010.
Hardware
![HTC Desire SLCD vs AMOLED](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/HTC_Desire_SLCD_vs_AMOLED.jpg)
The phone uses a 1 GHz
ARMv7 "Snapdragon" processor, includes a 5 megapixel auto-focus camera and an optical trackpad, and was among the first consumer devices to feature a large, full-color
active-matrix OLED
AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode, ) is a type of OLED display device technology. OLED describes a specific type of thin-film-display technology in which organic compounds form the electroluminescent material, and active matrix ...
(AMOLED) display.
During late Q2 2010, HTC made the decision to switch the Desire's display to a S-LCD panel, manufactured by the company S-LCD a co-operative between Sony and Samsung. Although this was brought on by a severe AMOLED panel supply shortfall, the new display greatly enhances text readability because of its improved effective resolution, one of the few complaints people had with the original Desire model. Compared to the original AMOLED display, the SLCD display has more accurate colour reproduction, far less susceptibility to burn-in, similar peak brightness and very good viewing angles, but a lower contrast ratio. The new SLCD display was claimed to have similar or better power efficiency compared with the original AMOLED display; however, this has proved to not always be the case because with AMOLED pixels' ability to completely turn off, black or dark pixels use very little power. However, in situations when the screen is predominantly bright (such as when viewing many web pages), the AMOLED display uses more power.
The hardware is capable of high-definition (720p) video recording and playback; the 720p video recording feature has been added to the HTC Desire when updating to the official HTC modified
Android Froyo
Android Froyo is the sixth version of Android and is a codename of the Android mobile operating system developed by Google, spanning versions between 2.2 and 2.2.3. Those versions are no longer supported. It was unveiled on May 20, 2010, duri ...
firmware.
Software
The Desire was shipped with Android 2.1. HTC made an update to Android 2.2 (codenamed "Froyo") available on the following dates:
* Europe: 1 August 2010
* SE Asia: 30 August 2010
* India: 1 September 2010
* Japan: 8 October 2010
* US: 8 February 2011
HTC has released a software update to upgrade the Desire to Android 2.3 (
Gingerbread
Gingerbread refers to a broad category of baked goods, typically flavored with ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon and sweetened with honey, sugar, or molasses. Gingerbread foods vary, ranging from a moist loaf cake to forms nearly as crisp as ...
). Originally, they planned to do this in June 2011. On 14 June 2011, HTC announced via Facebook that there would be no Gingerbread update for the HTC Desire, citing memory constraints. This is because HTC had been unable to fit both Gingerbread and HTC Sense together in the phone's 250 MB system partition. However, on 15 June, they released a statement saying the Desire would receive the Gingerbread update, with the possibility of some apps being cut. The update was finally released for download from HTC's developer website on 1 August 2011, and is not available as an OTA (over-the-air) update.
Comparison with Nexus One
The Desire internally bears a strong resemblance to the
Nexus One
The Nexus One (codenamed HTC Passion) is an Android smartphone designed and manufactured by HTC as Google's first Nexus smartphone. The Nexus became available on January 5, 2010, and features the ability to transcribe voice to text, an addition ...
. The differences found in the Desire are:
*A different body shell
*An
optical trackpad
An optical trackpad is an input device based on an optical sensor, which detects the displacement of a finger that is moving on top of it. The sensor is used typically in smartphones, where it replaces the D-pad, and in ultra-portable or ultra-mobi ...
in place of the trackball
*Hardware function buttons instead of touch-sensitive buttons
*FM radio activated (FM radio in Nexus One is disabled by default but can be activated through hacked firmware)
*No second microphone for enhanced noise cancellation
*No dock pin connectors, instead micro-USB is used
*576 MB DRAM instead of 512 MB DRAM
*Dual band HSPA/WCDMA: 900/2100, 850/2100 or 850/1900 MHz depending on vendor
instead of 850/1900/2100
tri-band
In telecommunications, a multi-band device (including (2) dual-band, (3) tri-band, (4) quad-band and (5) penta-band devices) is a communication device (especially a mobile phone) that supports multiple radio frequency bands. All devices which ha ...
*
HTC Sense
HTC Sense is a software suite developed by HTC, used primarily on the company's Android-based devices. Serving as a successor to HTC's TouchFLO 3D software for Windows Mobile, Sense modifies many aspects of the Android user experience, incorpo ...
Android skin (not present in the Nexus One)
*All support and updates directly through HTC rather than partially through Google
Because of the strong similarity to the Nexus One "developer phone", the Desire enjoys a highly active third-party developer community. Th
Desire subforumwas one of the most active at
xda-developers
XDA Developers (also known simply as XDA; often stylized as xda-developers) is a mobile software development community launched on 20 December 2002. Although discussion primarily revolves around Android, members also talk about many other opera ...
, and notably
CyanogenMod
CyanogenMod ( ; CM) is a discontinued open-source operating system for mobile devices, based on the Android mobile platform. It was developed as free and open-source software based on the official releases of Android by Google, with added origi ...
and
MIUI
MIUI (pronunciation: ''Me You I'') is an Android (operating system), AndroidFork (software development), -based mobile operating system developed and maintained by Xiaomi independently of Google exclusively for its smartphones. MIUI includes var ...
are available for the device.
Reception
The HTC Desire received extremely positive reviews. CNET UK reviewed awarded the phone 9.2/10.
TechRadar
''TechRadar'' is an online publication owned by Future and focused on technology. It has editorial teams in the US, UK and Australia and provides news and reviews of tech products and gadgets. It was launched in 2007 and expanded to the US in ...
awarded the phone 5 out of 5 stars and stated, "In short, this is a phenomenal phone—one of the best we've ever had."
From TechRadar's "Top 15 best mobile phones in the world", the HTC Desire is simply the best so far: "It's like a
Nexus One
The Nexus One (codenamed HTC Passion) is an Android smartphone designed and manufactured by HTC as Google's first Nexus smartphone. The Nexus became available on January 5, 2010, and features the ability to transcribe voice to text, an addition ...
only better. For this reason, the HTC Desire has entered our top 10 at number 1, and the Google Nexus One has dropped out completely. It's tough at the top."
MobileTechWorld found the HTC Desire to be a fairly capable product that "manages to please casual users with HTC’s flashy Sense UI and geeks who love to tweak their handsets on a daily basis thanks to the Google’s Android OS".
See also
*
Comparison of smartphones
This is a comparison of the various internal components and features of many smartphones.
Hardware and OS
2020s 2022
2021
2020
2010s
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2000s
2009
...
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Htc Desire
Desire
Desires are states of mind that are expressed by terms like "wanting", "wishing", "longing" or "craving". A great variety of features is commonly associated with desires. They are seen as propositional attitudes towards conceivable states of aff ...
Android (operating system) devices
Smartphones
Mobile phones introduced in 2010
Discontinued smartphones
Mobile phones with user-replaceable battery