Mobile phones? Most people have owned at least one of these small communication devices during their life times, with some people owning quite a few, even going as far as to be those that sit waiting outside carphone warehouse at midnight in order to be the first to get their hands on the very latest piece of communication technology, (other mobile phone shops are available).
Anyway, my point being that a mobile phone is now part of every day life with most areas in the world being capable of receiving some from of signal in order for the little technological crammed pieces of plastic to be able to do what they are designed to do.

I myself have owned a few phones over time, although I'm not one to be found waiting outside a shops doorway at midnight. I tend to wait until a phone's been out for a while before I think about departing with my hard earned cash.
It is one particular phone that I bought a while back, one which I still use on and off but, to be honest, these days, is not my 'everyday' phone. But when I looked at this the other day I realised that I had not actually wrote anything about it, even though I thought I had, but I had not, although thinking I had... so I thought I would as it is one of those phones that is a very nice introduction to the world of the smart phone.

Anyway, the phone I am talking about is in fact from a well known company called HTC, who make many many phones, with this phone being the HTC desire, (which is not to be confused with the other Desire phones).

* Firstly, I want to get a few of the more basic specs out of the way as I find that this will help when it comes to deciding if this may be the phone for you.

The screen is a full 3.7inch touch screen with a 480 x 800 pixel and is made of what they call 'gorilla glass'
It gives you several options to connect to the mobile internet, such as 2G, 3G and Wi-Fi. (note: 2G and 3G will need mobile service providers data package and will cost extra. Wi-Fi can be used in wireless hotspots, with some places giving free service, such as a well known burger house that sounds like a farmers name and a coffee shop that can costa fortune).
You can also connect to certain other devices using the Bluetooth technology, which is free but is, A, very slow and B, not very secure at all.

It has a 1 Ghz CPU which runs quite nicely indeed, especially for a phone, making browsing the internet a rather pleasant experience indeed.
The camera is a 5MP offering 2592 x 1944 pixels, and has auto focus, LED flash and more.
The camera can take both stills and video footage, with the video coping nicely with MP4 and WMV for video
It also has an inbuilt music system which can deal easily with It can cope with MP3, AAC, WAV, WMA.
It also has a few sensors, which help out in such things as apps, message writing and other things. These sensors are an Accelerometer, a compass and proximity
As with all mobile phones these days you can send messages, SMS, MMS, E-mail and instant message
The browser has Adobe Flash and Java so that it doesn't struggle on certain web pages.
There is also a built in FM radio which you do have to plug in the ear phones which act as an aerial, (or antenna, depending on where you live)
It did come with a rather old Android OS, that being the 2.1 éclair, but it was easily upgraded to the Android 2.2 Froyo OS, which offered more or less the same, give or take, but made the phone run a lot smoother

The built in rechargeable battery gives up to 340 hours of stand by time, depending on what apps you have switched on and whether you're running 2G or 3G.
It can also give up to 6 and a half hours of talk time, again, depending on what is running.

* Now, the phone itself, and whether it looks the part if you have to answer it when you're out with you 'with-it' mates?
It's not the smallest on the market, but it's not massive either. It is actually 120mm long by 60mm wide and a mere 12mm thick, weighing in at no more that 140 grams.
It has a few buttons along the bottom on the front, these being the search buttons, on the far right, with the tiny optical trackball in the centre, the menu button to the left slightly and then the home button on the far left.
The screen the covers the main part of the front, with two holes acting as the ear piece above the screen in the centre.
On the top itself there is the power button and a 3.5mm jack for the headphones, then down the left side, as you look at the screen, there is the volume button.
On the bottom of the phone there is a small hole which is the microphone, then there's a USB connector to connect this to your PC and also to charge the battery up, which is done via a PC connection or a plug using the USB lead that comes with the phone.
On the back there is the camera and the single speaker next to it

Speaking of coming with the phone, you also get a 4GB micro SD card, a USB cable with a detachable plug......


* Is it easy to get going..?
If you've used a smart phone before then yes, it is easy to get going. If you've never used one then it can get tricky but it's nothing that you'll pull your hair out about.
Setting it up is a simple as setting most smart phones up. In fact, it's as simple as setting most phones up. But for those that don't know, or have never set a phone up, it simply a matter of flicking off the back cover, which is done using just your nail. Then remove battery, insert SIM card, using the image to show you which way to slide it in. and, if you want to boost up the micro SD card storage, as this comes with a 4GB one already in place, you simply slide the 4GB one out and slide your larger storage one in.
Then it's a matter of simply replacing the battery and clicking the rear cover back into place.
Job done. All you have to do now is slot the USB cable into place and charge the battery up until it has full power.


* Do I need special glasses to see what's on the screen..?
Not at all really, it is easy to read, in a phone reading sort of way, with everything showing nice and clearly on the good sized screen.
All the apps, information, pictures and everything else all show up nice and clear, with enough speed so that you're not standing around for too long in the rain, although it will get wet in the rain and is then difficult to see what is on the screen.


* My opinion...

This is not a bad little phone at all really, which feels nice in my hand and doesn't really look out of place when I'm out and about.
The most important thing on a phone is obviously the call quality, which on this one is not that bad at all... I've had worse. I can clearly hear who ever I'm talking too and they can here me without too much trouble, which is what you want with a phone.
The internal memory isn't that good to be honest, being a measly 512MB, but you can add a micro SD card, up to a 32GB version, and as a 4GB version comes with this phone your really getting 4 and a ½ GB of memory built in... sort of, if you think about it.

As for the other things that mobile phones offer these days.
The camera may be a 5MP but it is a bit of a let down when it comes to actually taking a clear picture. In fact, it's that bad that when I tried using a barcode scanner on it it couldn't even read the barcodes of the things I tried to scan, not one of them, so I soon gave up on that idea. The video function is another little let down, but not bad enough to warrant getting that upset about videoing someone falling
Don't get me wrong, the pictures it does take are visible and you know what is on the
screen, but if you're after a crystal clear camera on your phone then you won't get one here.

You can use the settings to personalise the phone to the way that you want it, even adding security settings so that your mates can't get into your face book account and send silly messages to your other friends, causing no end of trouble.
Adding apps is a breeze, although you do have to sign up to google play in order to download and install the apps you want, but once you've signed up you can go ahead and get the apps, free or paid for, they're all there to get, there's just so many of them offering lots of different things.
For example, there's calendars, list takers, barcode scanners, audio/video apps, kindle, anti-virus, timers, stopwatch... the list is endless, but each app downloads and installs simply and quickly, (an internet connection is required, either 2G,3G or Wi-Fi).

You can add your own songs onto this and use any of them as ring tones, or, if you want to be a bit quiet, you can use the vibration to tell you that you have a message or an incoming call, although the vibration is a little loud to be honest.

Listening to music is quite a pleasant experience with the speaker managing to give out a good sounding track, although it can crackle a bit when the volumes turned up to the max, as they say, but then again, this is more down to the music on your phone to start with.

It does claim to give over 300 hours on stand-by, or 6 and a half housr talk time, but unless you don't use any apps and keep the internet connection off all the time then you'll get no way near these times. But if you're not going to use apps or the internet then why get a smart phone?
Personally, I found that it does need charging up more or less everyday, so I do recommend taking a charger with you to boost up the power when ever you can. But most smart phones do drain batteries in no time at all. Luckily, the battery indicator is simple to understand, green for good, amber for not bad but can last a bit longer, and red being not so good so it's time to find your charger.

* So what more can I say about this lovely little communication device?
In a nut shell. If you're after a bargain of a smart phone, maybe for a youngster who is starting off in the smartphone world, or a grannie who likes to look like they can keep up with their grand kids, then this is well worth looking at, or maybe even buying.

It does come in a few colours, those being black, silver, brown and this one, which is white, but all the colours look quite nice indeed.

* So what about the price for this well known phone..?
This phone sells for about £90.00 these days, which is not bad at all for what you get in such a small case. But, the other day when I was in carphone warehouse, they are having a few good deals on at the moment concerning upgrades. When I asked about this phone, out of curiosity, they offered it to me for £69.99, which was a great price indeed. The only thing I would have had to do was tell them the phone number of the sim card that I was going to use in this phone. So, as I was only asking, I gave them an old phone number of a nokia phone that I have knocking about the house, which is still active. The chap then clicked the number into his computer, smiled, then said that the number was alright for the upgrade, so I could have had the phone for the £69.99 on orange, (other networks cost different prices). His smile soon dropped when I shook my head and said "you're alright mate, I've already got one".
My point being that you can get a bargain on this phone by simply shopping around.


©Blissman70 2012