When Google announced the Nexus One smartphone earlier this year, there was little doubt that the manufacturer, HTC, would eventually put its own version out for sale, too. Sure enough, during last month's in Barcelona, the HTC Desire was unveiled.
Upside
Most of the features found on the Nexus One are in the Desire, too. You get a 3.7-inch AMOLED display with a screen resolution of 480 x 800 pixels, as well as a slim sub-12mm chassis. Connectivity options are also plentiful in the Desire with support for HSPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and A-GPS for satellite navigation.
Performance-wise, the Desire seems to have some improved specs compared with its older twin. While they both contain the 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, the Desire has more RAM at 576MB, 64MB more than the Nexus One. A reason HTC may have done this is to accommodate the Sense UI software which requires a little more system memory to run smoothly.
HTC Sense is a big selling point of the Desire. This is absent on the Nexus One because Google uses it to showcase the vanilla Android software. HTC's custom software gives the user more widgets and a deep integration of social-networking services into the address book. Other standard features in the Desire include a 3.5mm audio jack, accelerometer for screen orientation and a proximity sensor that will turn the screen off when you are making a call.
Aside from those, this Android 2.1 smartphone also comes with some special features. For example, you can mute the ringer by simply flipping the phone face down. Also, certain settings and data such as text messages and bookmarks can be backed up onto the microSD card.
