The much-hyped Nexus One has been something of a glorious failure in the world of Android: the experts at HTC created an exemplary handset but Google’s insistence on selling it solely through its own web portal – a choice it has since rescinded after lacklustre sales – stymied the commercial aspirations of the device.
The HTC Desire – which is essentially the same phone but in different clothing – can therefore be seen as the Nexus One’s rebirth and resurrection. The phone has been available for a few weeks now and there have been reports of stock shortages due to incredible and unexpected demand.
One might, therefore, be tempted to merely take the Nexus One review and slap a different name on the top, but there are a few key differences which separate the two siblings.
Heart’s desireIn terms of pure aesthetics, the Desire well and truly lives up to its name. While the Nexus One was not a repulsive phone, it did feel like it was designed by committee. The Desire is a far more pleasing proposition, boasting the look and feel of a true smartphone heavyweight.
Much of this is due to the removal of the cheap-looking trackball controller which made the Nexus One look slightly awkward. In its place is a touch-sensitive optical pad – identical to the one seen on its stable mate the HTC Legend. As always, precious few apps actually require you to use this interface but it’s nice to have all the same.
In terms of technical specifications, the Desire lacks the Nexus One’s noise cancellation hardware, omitted due to its high cost. However, it does benefit from slightly more RAM (576 MB DRAM over 512 MB) and the troublesome touch-sensitive menu buttons have been replaced with physical equivalents which are a lot more satisfying to use.
Stop making senseBeing a pure HTC phone, it should come as little surprise to learn that the Desire is packing the company’s proprietary Sense User Interface. As ever, this software complements the features of Android 2.1 perfectly, with exclusive widgets, intuitive menus, and additional home screens. It’s currently the best iteration of Android available on any handset in the world and that looks unlikely to change any time soon.
However, as HTC Hero owners will be painfully aware, such individuality comes at a cost. Because Sense sits on top of the Android code it has to be updated by HTC itself, which means the Desire is bound to miss out on the latestAndroid’s angel
Moving away from such tiresome concerns, every other element of the Desire is a close match for the Nexus One. It has the same touchscreen display so the issues regarding multi-touch confusion apply here also: when you’re touching two points on the screen they sometimes switch positions. It’s a lamentable shortcoming of the hardware behind the screen itself rather than a software bug, so it’s unlikely that Google or HTC will be able to apply a fix.