Today we’ll be reviewing the HTC Desire V. This is yet another version of the HTC Desire. With all the alternative versions to that phone lying around, and more and more coming out by the minute, you’d think HTC would want to turn this into a series of phones, just like the Galaxy or Optimus series. Thing is, if you really want to keep creating alternative versions for phones, you’d probably think a bit more about increasing their features as well. For a phone coming out in 2012, we do tend to have some standards set by the major phone producers that manage to keep up with the times and demand.
Still, let us not be so judgemental and begin this little review.
SUMMARY
I’ve decided to add a small summary to my articles in which I would say in a few words what the phone being reviewed is good for and what are its bad parts. The main advantage of the HTC Desire V is that it is a dual-SIM phone. On the other hand, it isn’t very useful as far as performance goes. Not many of the new apps and games will run on it since it has a pretty weak hardware configuration compared to the one demanded by the programs of today. On another notion, it’s probably cheaper to get one of these if you want a Dual-SIM phone with Android v4.0. Other more powerful phones will cost much more than this one. Dual-SIM phones in general cost more than the regular ones.
GENERAL
We’ll begin by taking a look at the general aspects of the HTC Desire V. Here you can find out a bit of info about the supported networks and the announcement and release dates. The HTC Desire V uses both 2G and 3G networks. And, as I mentioned before, the HTC Desire V is also a Dual-SIM phone. Those networks are as following : GSM 850, GSM 900, GSM 1800, GSM 1900 ( SIM 1 ); GSM 900, GSM 1800, GSM 1900 ( SIM 2 ), those being the 2G ones. The 3G ones are only available on the SIM 1 and they are : HSDPA 900 and HSDPA 2100. This phone was announced in June 2012 and is said to come out somewhere around July 2012. That’s about it for the general stuff, so let’s move on.
BODY
Next up we’ll be taking a look at the aspect of the device. Here you can find out a thing or two about the size and weight of the device as well as see whether or not the HTC Desire V has any particularities related to the body. That HTC Desire V is around 118.5 x 62.3 x 9.3 mm big. This phone also weighs somewhere around 114 grams. It isn’t a bad looker but it’s relatively small. The only particularity of the HTC Desire V is that it has Touch-Sensitive Controls instead of frontal buttons. That about all that can be said about the body of the HTC Desire V, so let us move on to the next part.
DISPLAY
Next up we’ll be taking a quick look at the display of the HTC Desire V. Here you can find out a thing or two about the type of screen of the device, the screen size, the screen’s resolution and pixel density as well as see whether or not this phone has any Screen Protection on it and any particularities related to the screen. I don’t know for sure the screen type of the HTC Desire V since it isn’t specified, but I do know it is a capacitive touchscreen with 16 million colors. The size of the screen is 4.0 inches and it can house a resolution of approximately 480 x 800 pixels. The pixel density of the HTC Desire V is approximately 233 ppi. This phone also has Multitouch, although it isn’t the advanced sorts of Multitouch which can support more than two simultaneous fingers. Unfortunately the HTC Desire V has no means of screen protection, so you’ll have to be extra careful with it. This phone also has HTC Sense UI v4.0 installed on it, should you choose to activate it. That’s about all there is to the screen, so let’s move on now to the next part.
SOUND
Next up we’ll be taking a look at the audio output capabilities of the HTC Desire V. Mainly we’ll try and see whether or not the HTC Desire V has any sound enhancement whatsoever on it, be it software based or otherwise since most people already know the standard get-up for an Android phone’s sound. The HTC Desire V has Beats Audio sound enhancement, which by many people’s standards is one of the best sound quality. Frankly, I’m not a big fan of Beats Audio. Why pay $200+ for a set of earphones if you’re going to use them to listen to bad quality YouTube rips anyway. Too few are the people that listen to FLACs with things that actually improve quality. And trust me when I say, the BEST headphones aren’t the Beats Audio ones, contrary to popular belief. I’ve actually seen the best ones and they cost somewhere around 1000 euros. That’s about all I’m going to say for this part, so let’s move on now.
MEMORY
Next is the memory of the HTC Desire V. Here you can find out a bit about the internal storage space of the HTC Desire V, the RAM memory and info about expanding said storage space. The RAM of the HTC Desire V is 512 MB. Normally I would say it’s half decent, but right now the maximum is 2 GB instead of 1, so it’s not exactly that powerful anymore. The internal storage space of the HTC Desire V is 4 GB. Should those 4 GB not be sufficient to fit your greedy space needs, know that the HTC Desire V has a Micro SD card slot that can use any Micro SD card of up to 32 GB. That’s it for the memory, so let’s move on now.
DATA CONNECTION
Next up we’ll be taking a look at the connectivity of the HTC Desire V. Here you can find out a thing or two about the GPRS and EDGE of the device, the Speed and WLAN as well as the Bluetooth, USB and other ( if any ) connections. The HTC Desire V has both GPRS and EDGE. It is unknown what Class or Speed they each are, however. All we know for sure is that the EDGE is only present on the SIM 1. The only thing we know about the Speed of the HTC Desire V is that it is HSPA but we know what the the exact speed in MB/s is. The WLAN of the HTC Desire V is a Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with Wi-Fi hotspot. The Bluetooth of the HTC Desire V is a v3.0 one with with A2DP. The USB port of the HTC Desire V is a Micro USB v2.0 one. That’s about it for the data connectivity of the HTC Desire V.
CAMERA
Next up we’ll be taking a look at the camera of the HTC Desire V. Here you can find out a bit about the main and secondary cameras ( if any ) and see their features and capabilities. The main camera of the HTC Desire V is a 5 MP one that can photograph at resolutions of approximately 2592 x 1944 pixels. The features of this camera are as following : autofocus, LED flash and geo-tagging. It is also capable of recording video, however, it doesn’t appear to be one of those advanced 5 MP camera that record in 720p HD at 30 frames per second. Unfortunately the HTC Desire V has no secondary camera. That’s about it for the camera of the HTC Desire V, so let us move on now.
BATTERY
Next up we’ll be taking a look at the battery life of the HTC Desire V, since this is usually a great issue in Android phones. Here you can find out about the battery type of the HTC Desire V and see how long it can function. It is known that the HTC Desire V has a Standard Li-Ion 1650 mAh battery. It is unknown, however, how long this battery can function since it isn’t exactly mentioned. That’s all I can say here, so let’s move on now.
HARDWARE
Time to take a look at the hardware of the HTC Desire V. Here you can find out a bit about the three main hardware components of the HTC Desire V : the processor, the motherboard and the graphics card. The processor of the HTC Desire V is a Single-Core 1 GHz Cortex-A5. This processor is accompanied by a Qualcomm MSM7227A Snapdragon chipset and an Adreno 200 GPU. All and all a pretty weak hardware configuration, especially for today’s standards. That’s it for the hardware, so let’s move on now to the next part.
SOFTWARE
Time to take a look at the software of the HTC Desire V. Here you can find out a bit of info about the OS version of the HTC Desire V and see whether or not it can be upgraded to a better one. The HTC Desire V has Android OS v4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich installed on it. Since there is no new OS available and chances are there won’t be one any time soon, I’d say there’s nothing left to say here. Let’s go now to the final part of the review.
FEATURES
Time to take a brief look at the features and capabilities of the HTC Desire V. The sensors of this phone are as following : Accelerometer, Proximity and Compass. The messaging on this phone can be done via : SMS ( with Threaded View ), MMS, E-Mail and Push Mail. The browser of this device uses HTML and has Adobe Flash Lite installed on it. The HTC Desire V also has a Stereo FM radio with RDS and a GPS with A-GPS support. Also, this phone has Java via Java MIDP emulation. The HTC Desire V is available in two colors : Black and White.
Here’s a list of what the HTC Desire V can do :
- Dual SIM (dual stand-by)
- SNS integration
- Dropbox (25 GB storage)
- MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV player
- MP3/eAAC+/WMA/WAV player
- Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk
- Organizer
- Document viewer
- Voice memo/dial
- Predictive text input
This concludes our little review of the HTC Desire V. If you feel that anything is lacking from this review feel free to leave your suggestions in the comment section below for things which should be added and I will be sure to take them into consideration when writing my future projects. In the meantime, I sincerely hope you had as much fun reading my little review as I had writing it.
