Category Archives: Reviews: Hardware

I have been in possession of the Nexus S for 10 days now which is longer than I normally get to test a smartphone. This has given me a much greater insight into its performance and the downsides of what is supposed to be the flagship Android phone of the moment. I have a problem though and it is an unusual one for me- I have found no problems at all with this phone so far which flies in the face of some feedback I have received from another Nexus S owner who has had multiple problems with his phone (expect a review from him soon).

These problems have also been discussed on other sites and it seems as though Samsung needs to work through some software niggles to make the Nexus S a reliable and consistent performer. The problems are varied and in some cases wide ranging yet I have not experienced any issues at all. I feel that I am more likely than most to experience problems with smartphones which I presume is down to my usage pattern; I am still having big signal problems with the iPhone 4, my BlackBerry Bold is still suffering from charging issues and my Orange San Francisco continues to struggle with Wi-Fi. The Nexus S suffers from no problems at all for me. Calling, signal, battery and all of the other practicalities have come over as above average for me and it’s all good so far.

I am not going to detail each feature of the Nexus S at this time because I have spent a lot of time pushing it hard to try to find problems. It is an odd way to undertake a review, but in some ways probably the best thing to do. The overall experience of using the Nexus S is quite simply brilliant and the screen dominates like no other phones I have used, apart from maybe the Desire HD. The difference here though is that it comes with the Samsung build quality and a sense that this is a ‘pure’ Android phone. When you start using a phone that offers Android in its default state you quickly realise that all of the bells and whistles thrown in by HTC, Samsung and the like on other phones are just that, bells and whistles. The beauty of Android is that you can do almost anything you want with it and the Nexus S is the best clean slate I have seen to date.

It’s so good that I will be buying one next week and will then complete the second part of the review, but this is a seriously impressive phone and shows to me that some Android phones have the potential to rival the iPhone, and that the battle will get harder as each month passes. I use the word ‘potential’ because I’m not quite ready to offload the iPhone yet.

Available from Clove for £459.60.

Available from www.clove.co.uk for £459.60

Google Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)
Quad-Band GSM/GPRS
Tri-Band 3G/HSPA
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
4.0″ WVGA Super AMOLED Capacitive Screen
16GB on board memory
5 Megapixel rear facing camera
Front facing VGA camera for video calls
1500mAh battery

Why is the Nexus S screen curved? I still haven’t worked out a reason for that particular design decision besides the sheer novelty of it, but I am sure there is some intelligent thinking behind it somewhere. It isn’t curved enough to sit more comfortably on your face when making a call and it isn’t curved enough to make any discernable difference in normal use. So why is it curved?!?

Anyway, now that we have ascertained that the curved screen doesn’t need to be curved what is the rest of the design like? I have to say that first impressions of the form factor and materials used are exceptionally good. It is dominated by black plastic which would normally be seen as a negative, but this use of the right shade and shine of plastic on the front means that it is difficult to see where the screen ends and the surround starts when the screen is on. That sounds like a simple trick, but it is mightily impressive when you first start using it.

The plastic body and sensitive use of curves also make the phone feel smaller than it is which is clever when you consider that the 4.0” screen is a bit of a beast in mobile terms. Next to an iPhone 4 it looks significantly larger, but in the hand does not feel so. This makes me wonder if manufacturers like Samsung use plastic to keep down weight, improve build quality and make a device ‘feel’ smaller. The argument that this makes a device look cheaper is valid, but the benefits can far outweigh the downsides.

There is a ridge at the bottom of the back that feels uncomfortable at first and dare I say unnecessary which I presume to be there for a specific reason. Besides housing specific components in the bottom there is a good balance to the Nexus. I test this by simply balancing a phone on one finger and seeing if it stays there- this one did. The keys below the screen are no longer buttons and merely digital representations of functions that some do not like. I get that some like buttons, but can live with virtual buttons below the screen for commonly used functions. It’s a bit silly to complain about a lack of buttons on a phone that is almost 100% driven by a touch screen. The good news is that the on/off button is housed on the right and not the top which is a much more logical place for it and the volume buttons complete the interface. The only omission I can see is the lack of a dedicated camera button which many phone do away with now which is a shame because this flies in the face of smartphones building in every more clever cameras. It’s all very well having a highly specified camera on board, but touch screens are far from ideal for taking photos without complications.

A screen as large as this one does make the entire Android interface feel less cluttered and when you consider that this particular phone is pure Android without all of the extra apps thrown in by other manufacturers it feels cleaner still. Android is a great operating system, but can suffer from an aesthetic overload when too much is installed by a manufacturer and the Nexus phones highlight how simple it can be to use in the first few days. You still get everything you need, but with all of the nonsense moved to one side which ultimately makes for a much better experience. It could be time for other manufacturers, including Samsung, to learn lessons from this. They won’t, however, because they are looking to create differences between their Android offerings compared to the rest and hardware is just one differentiator among many.

Over the first couple of days the performance (speed) has been excellent and I have suffered no stutters or freezing at all. It is powerfully specified and it seems as though the hardware and software work almost perfectly together to offer sublime performance. This is a high priced smartphone and my first impressions lead me to believe that the hardware reaches the standards you would hope for. In part two I will look in detail at the software, camera and all other aspects of what is supposed to be the flagship Android phone. It has been almost all good so far, but that kind of positivity rarely lasts throughout the whole of one of my reviews…

So, the iPad found its way to eBay and was eventually sold for £20 less than I bought it for, and that is after postage and charges. It shows how popular the iPad is and how much some people will pay for a second-hand one, even in near perfect condition. On a side note, the price of second-hand Apple products never fails to amaze me- old iBooks regularly sell for over £300 and 3 year old Macbooks still garner between £400-500 on average. I considered going for an older Macbook for my mobile needs when I realised that my Son’s Netbook was near the end of its life, but eventually decided that a full-sized laptop was too big and a Macbook Air was far too expensive for what I needed.

Two hours and a mere £150 later I was in possesion of an Acer Aspire One AOD260 which I bought on a whim from eBay. It was brand new and had never left its box and after picking it up locally I started to have a play when I got home. I knew nothing about the device, but was down heartened by the price of Netbooks in general and refused to pay £300 for something that included Windows 7 Starter and that did not come with a long battery life and decent keyboard. In my ignorance I ended up buying a Netbook that has an excellent battery life, decent keyboard and a very good screen, but there is much more to this story.

Once I had spent the first hour removing anything with McAfee and Norton in the title (oh how I hate every product these two companies have ever made) and installed my most needed and best performing software; Firefox, Thunderbird, AbiWord and Paint.net I started to have a look around the system. For a start I realised that the battery runtime is much better than I expected with a projected life per charge of more than 5 hours. As I write this the meter states that there is 32% remaining which equates to 3 hours 17 minutes. This seems very high, but from what I have seen does not seem unreasonable and that is my first concern done with.

The keyboard is flush which is how I like them following months marvelling at how brilliant the standard Apple keyboards are these days. I was quickly bashing words out at a fair old clip and would rate is as the best Netbook keyboard I have used to date. The screen is none too shabby either and is above par, but bright sunlight could potentially be problematic. If I ever see the sun again, has been raining for days on end, I will update this review with a more conclusive opinion.

The design of the AOD260 is somewhat business-like and far from emotional, but the build quality feels strong and there is some personality to the etched covering that subtely covers the front, back and inside. I feel that little attention has been paid to making the AOD260 look like a consumer product, despite a range of available colours, but it is far from ugly and does exude an air of quality from almost every angle.

I wasn’t expecting much from Windows 7 Starter because of the limitations imposed around customisation and the media functions, but it really isn’t too cut down for a Netbook. Certain elements are removed such as DVD playback, which you are unlikely to want to do on a Netbook anyway, and the inability to customise the main wallpaper is by far the most noticeable change. You can easily get around the wallpaper issue though with a simple program or you can pay approximately £70 to upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium. At this time I do not feel hampered enough to pay another £70 on the upgrade and I am still considering the possibility of loading up Mac OS to make my Netbook experience complete.

As I started to have a look around the system I noticed a familiar little green face on my desktop, the Android robot! In my ignorance I had never realised that the AOD260 comes with both Windows 7 Starter and Android which you can dual-boot as you wish. Android on a Netbook? Yes indeed and it’s there by default. Unfortunately version 1.5 in installed which is a bit of a downer as this takes away the options to install extra apps and all of the goodness of future Android versions. What it does offer, however, is instant-on and a surprisingly impressive experience. I expected it to feel like a budget Android tablet, but it actually felt as though it was built for a Netbook. I suspect that the limitations of the OS version are deliberate because of the compatibility of apps, but will take a look around to see if anyone has managed to make a later version run on the AOD260. If they have, and apps and games like Angry Birds and some of the more complex productivity solutions work, this could be a killer feature. As it stands it is a bit of a novelty that adds some curiosity to the product rather than an entire new operating system.

I need to spend some more time with this Netbook to really get underneath all of the features, but I can clearly say that I have been blown away by the quality, practicality and price of the AOD260 so far. My next purchase is a 3 MiFi to give me internet anywhere and then I should be all set. I loved the iPad and I dearly wanted a Macbook Air, but the realities of life meant that I still ended up with a device that cost me under £200 which is capable of almost everything I need to do when away from home.

UPDATE: Five days later and I am still waiting to charge the AOD260. It is amazing what a supposedly basic piece of technology can do when the form factor and the components work well together. I decided to buy a basic dongle from 3 for £31 (90 days mobile access @ 3GB) and my setup is complete. I am absolutely delighted by this device and never expected to be.

Available from Clove for £276.13

The Motorola Defy has proved to be a quirky smartphone for me so far. There is little doubting the practicality built in and the build quality, but how does it stack up against the plethora of Android smart phones that are currently swamping the market?

It is a small phone, despite the 3.7″ screen, and does feel like a throwback  from an earlier time when in the hand. It is very light at just 118 grams and doesn’t feel or look like a smartphone that costs over £250, but I can appreciate the features and innovation included in the design. When you consider your current smartphone use, it is quite possible that you spend a lot of time protecting it; whether it has a screen protector, case or you are just ultra careful, many of the high-end smart phones seem to demand this attention. Price is one factor, but the materials used and sense that they are designed to look good rather than be used during all of your activities are the major issues. Rightly or wrongly, I still treat my iPhone 4 like a baby and am somewhat paranoid about dropping it or scratching it. The Defy takes away all of that paranoia and from the first minute I had no qualms about dropping it in a bag, or even on what was left of the recent snow.

It is built incredibly well and I have to say that Motorola has fulfilled the hype with the materials and design tweaks employed. So, let’s get back to how it performs as a smartphone.

Battery (9/10)

The practicality isn’t just centred around the outside because  the internals are designed to take some punishment as well. I charged the Defy up fully on the first day and it only ran out of juice at the end of the third day. My use was sporadic, but when on standby with some text and email use now and again the battery meter barely moved.

This is the first touch screen smartphone I have used that can handle normal usage with ease and it is not that far from the BlackBerry Bold 9780 in how well the battery handles multiple tasks. I read a review of the Defy the other day that suggested that the battery was a one day charge experience, but I just haven’t experience that at all, and I am usually very hard when it comes to battery power on any phone.

Screen (7/10)

The resolution is impressive and everything within the slightly cluttered Android interface looks as it should. Despite the toughened glass frontage, screen taps were accepted perfectly and the same was true of scrolling. I expected it to perform better in bright sunlight, but the colours wash out a little and it is quite reflective. The reflectivity is the biggest problem so an anti-glare screen protector would be a good move. One other point to note is that the screen takes up so much of the real estate that the flush buttons below it are very close to the bottom of the phone itself. This can make quick use slightly slower than is ideal.

Camera (7/10)

The camera performs very well for stills and video in good lighting outdoors, but does suffer indoors when the lighting is not as natural. The good news is that it focusses and takes a snap almost immediately and is reminiscent of the old Treos in the way it works.

Some examples are below, but as a smartphone snapper it does the job very well. Just don’t expect too much when you are in areas with poor lighting.

I tried to upload a video direct to YouTube from the device (link is here), but for some reason it took forever to process. Hopefully it is now working.

General Performance (8/10)

I was quite impressed by the speed of the Defy and given that it is packing an 800Mhz TI processor alongside 512GB of RAM this is not surprising. Everything moved along nicely and multiple open apps made no dent in the performance either. Even MOTOBLUR ran smoothly which makes a nice change, although there cabe the merest hint of sluggishness at times. It seems as though Motorola has got the balance between battery and processor just right on this one.

Media (8/10)

Sound quality is pretty good through a decent set of headphone, which is obviously not the supplied ones, and it is even better through the external speaker. It is one of those phones that offers an external sound that defies the size of the unit and this is advantageous time and time again.

Video playback is also at a level to suit most users and despite the high resolution doesn’t quid offer the near perfect experience some others offer. However, please don’t think that it is poor because it is far from a low quality mobile video player.

All of the usual media suspects such as YouTube are included and, on the whole, work well with the Android OS.

Data Entry (7/10)

The included keyboard really is not great, particularly in portrait mode, and I struggled a lot on the first day. Swype is included which makes a huge difference and it is this that saved it. The advantage of Android is that you can change various aspects of the input software so there are options to tweak it to your needs. I have to say that with Swype I managed some decent speeds which is testament to how useful this software can be.

Calls and Signal (9/10)

Crystaltalk PLUS is built in which uses two microphones to filter background noise and to improve the overall voice experience. In reality I can’t say I noticed the system working, but I did notice that the actual voice quality was exceptional. I tested it on a few calls with friends and they were more than impressed with the definition of my voice, just as I was with the definition theirs. Throw in a top quality speakerphone and this makes the Defy one of the very best smartphones I have used in terms of voice with only the Galaxy S topping it for clarity.

Signal strength is immense and I managed to grab 3G / HSDPA almost everywhere. The Wi-Fi antenna was even better and offered my 8 local networks. As a comparison, my iPhone 4 offered only 3.

Software (8/10)

Android 2.1 isn’t the latest build, but does feature almost all of the goodness included in the latest version. MOTOBLUR is there to make HTC feel even better about Sense- it offers some nice tweaks, but overall manages to cheapen the Android interface and at times slow it down a little. It’s hardly the end of the world because Android is great, but a vanilla version would top off the phone nicely.

Conclusion (9/10)

The Defy does not stand out in any way when you first pick it up- it is a smartphone that feels like it was built two years ago, but after a few days the goodness starts to shine through. This is an extremely well balanced smartphone; from the battery life to the general performance it all works very well indeed. Throw in the ability to do whatever you want with it and we are left with a smartphone that offers feature phone throw anywhere attitude. That attitude quickly takes you over as all of the worries about what you are doing with your phone quickly disappear. Some smartphone manufacturers talk a lot about how a smartphone can help you live your life, but to really do that you need to have no worries about damaging it. This is a seriously smart phone, in more ways than one, and the price is also highly competitive considering the unique features it comes with.

It may not have all of the super high-end features of the Desire HD, Galaxy S or iPhone 4, but it does have something none of them have- immense practicality.

I’m not going to say what I did to the Defy to test it because it is a review model, but when Clove get it back they won’t even know I took it out of the box…

Available from Clove for £276.13

I am a firm believer that smartphones will start to become tougher as time progresses and that this will be one of many battlegrounds that the big players will fight over to grasp yet more customers in the future.

The Motorola Defy is the first consumer smartphone designed to give the user the security of knowing that their phone is safe no matter what they do to it, within reason. Previously, all tough phones have either included very basic technology in a phone the size of a small laptop or they have been designed purely for specific industries, with a price that is out of reach of most people.

The word ‘Defy’ is quite apt when you first pick up the phone because it defies the toughness by looking quite flimsy and dare I say it, cheap. I will go into more detail on the design later, but let’s start with the box and contents-

Motorola Defy
2GB MicroSD Card
Stereo Headset with mic
MicroUSB Data Cable
AC Adapter (UK)
Battery 1540mAh
Supporting Documentation

Pretty standard stuff in the box including a 2GB MicroSD card which is enough to start you off, but most people will want to upgrade to 8GB fairly quickly I would presume. The battery, at 1,540mAh bodes well for some decent power beneath the surface and the rest of the contents are  adequate if a little uninspiring.

Design / First Impressions

As I stated earlier, the Defy offers little indication on first glance that it is a tough phone and indeed, it looks less well built than the high-end smart phones such as the Desire HD or BlackBerry Torch.

A closer look reveals some small tweaks that come together to make the Defy much more practical than almost any other competing smartphone; the headphone socket has a rubber filler that sits in the socket about 3mm to ensure that water or dust cannot enter the workings of the phone through this port. The MicroUSB slot also has a plastic covering that swivels around to cover it when not being used- this particular covering does not appear to be tight and waterproof, but I guess it must be or the slot itself is well protected internally. The battery cover is held in place by a sliding button that once slid pops up the cover immediately. Beneath the cover a pleasant site shows up by way of a battery that fills almost all of the main body.

Reattaching the battery cover takes some force which would normally be a negative, but here you just know there is a reason for it- a water tight seal. Beneath the battery are the SIM and MicroSD slots which is another design trait that some see as a bad thing, but again we know the reason this time.

The on/off and volume buttons are quite stiff and not as easy as on other phones, but (sounding like a broken record here) there is a good reason for this. The only other buttons are the standard menu, home, back and search keys below the screen and these are not physical buttons at all and are completely flush to the screen surface. This makes them difficult to use in the first few minutes, but over time they start to feel better. I am presuming this to be another consequence of the need to make every area as tough as possible. Finally, the only other design feature of note are the exposed screws which serve no particular purpose. I presume them to be there because they look good and add a sense of ‘tough’ to the otherwise plastic design.

I haven’t spent much time playing with the Defy software, but will cover that in part 2. I will also do my best to test Motorola’s claims that it is ‘life proof’, but won’t tell anyone at Clove I am doing that:) Some bold claims are made, especially in the video below-

It does feel small and somewhat reminiscent of smartphones from 2 – 3 years ago, and very light as well. To include a 3.7″ screen which runs at 480 x 854 pixels is an impressive use of space and so far I have to give the Defy a big thumbs up.

Available from Clove for £469.99

The HTC Desire HD is probably HTC’s flagship smartphone of the moment, and without doubt its flagship Android phone. The specifications below show why-

1GHz Processor
Google Android 2.2 with HTC Sense Interface
4.3 inch touch screen 480 x 800 resolution
8.0 Megapixel Camera with auto focus and 2 x LED flashlight
1.5GB Internal Storage
Bluetooth 2.1 with FTP/OPP, A2DP, PBAP
WiFi IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
Dolby Mobile and SRS Surround Sound
DLNA Compatible

The numbers above are highly impressive, but specifications alone do not always make a great smartphone. There are countless devices on the market that boast considerable specifications, but which fail to match the numbers, and others with lower specs often punch above their weight and offer a more usable experience. The Desire HD is designed to offer all of the numbers serious smartphone people want and to bring with it usability enhancements that only some phones on the market currently enjoy; the iPhone 4 and Galaxy S are good examples.

In the box

It is all pretty standard, as you can see from the list below, and is typically HTC from the box design to every single accessory. You get what you need, but no extras like a screen protector or case.

HTC Desire HD
Battery
USB Cable
Mains Charger
8GB MicroSD Card
Stereo Headset
Documentation

The battery capacity, at 1230mAh, is a cause for concern when the large 4.3” screen is considered, but let’s not jump the gun just yet. It would also be nice to see a 16GB card bundled because 8GB cards are quite cheap these days, but maybe I am just being greedy now…

Design / Build Quality

Wow! The screen dominates this phone unlike any other I have used. It is gargantuan at 4.3” and brings many benefits with it besides just being bigger than most competing phones. Typing is easier and so is navigating around the operating system, and this on top of the enhanced media experience. The screen is housed in a metal body which is deceptively shallow with a curved shape designed to make the phone feel slimmer in the hand. It isn’t deep at all at just 11.8mm, but each edge must be approximately 7mm so it really does feel like you are holding a huge screen rather than a powerful smartphone- the surround is minimal and the fact that there are no physical buttons on the front adds to this effect, and it truly works from a design, and practicality, point of view.

The quality of the materials used is better than I have seen before from HTC and the subtle buttons and ports make barely a dent in the overall look of the phone. The MicroUSB port is on the bottom which is useful for the future development of desktop cradles, but so is the headphone jack which is unusual. However, it really is the best place for it because you are much less likely to have the headphone wire drooping over the screen when on a call or watching a video. I hadn’t even considered such a placement previously, but it really does work.  The on/off button is on the top over to the left which is slightly tricky for one-handed use and the volume buttons are on the left. Sadly there is no camera key which I presume to be part of trying to keep the outer design as simple as possible.

The back is, as I said earlier, curved and is only broken up by the extended lens of the camera. The dual LED flash sits in its own panel next to the lens and the only other part is the removable section at the bottom which houses the MicroSD and SIM card slots- you have to remove the whole of the bottom section to allow for the MicroUSB and headphone jacks to also be positioned on the outer bottom edge. The battery is, unusually, accessible from the side and simply requires the lifting of one small section of the back cover. It looks and works great, but more than likely will preclude the production of more powerful batteries in the future because the bulk of the back cover is not removable.

That’s about it for the design except to mention that slim silver speaker above the screen and the flush buttons below it. These buttons are larger than normal thanks to the big footprint of the HD and are extremely easy to use once you are familiar enough with them to tap without thinking.

The Desire HD is a quality piece of hardware and it manages to feel good in the hand despite its size- the only quirk I found was that the removable bottom section was not as flush as I would have liked against the top half of the outer cover. I suspect that it is just this phone, but it will be interesting to see if this is repeated on other HD’s.

Screen (8/10)

This is a pretty good screen and any of you who have played with the original HTC HD2 will know the emotions it inspires. Some say that it is too big for a smartphone, but I have to disagree. It has a large footprint, but a quick comparison to three other popular smartphones highlights how efficiently the screen is implemented-

HTC Desire HD-     120.5 X 67 X 11 mm / 157 grams / 4.3″ screen

LG Optimus 7- 125 x 59.8 x 11.5mm / 157 grams / 3.8″ screen

Acer Liquid e- 115 x 62.5 x 12.5mm / 135 grams / 3.5″ screen

Samsung Galaxy S- 122.4 x 64.2 x 9.9 mm / 119 grams / 4.0″ screen

The fact that it is viewable in most conditions and that it is perfectly sensitive when selecting apps, browsing the web and with almost any other activity only helps push it further up in my estimation. In bright sunlight it suffers somewhat and this is where the TFT technology is highlighted- the coating is prone to fingerprints and glare in bright sun which is a shame. The WVGA resolution does not compete with the Retina display on the iPhone 4, but it is still very crisp and the entire interface looks great. I have to say that I would take a larger crisp screen over the smaller super crisp Retina display purely because it offers much more space with which to work and play. The Desire HD screen is one of the best HTC has produced yet. It hits the limit of screen size on a mobile phone and HTC has cleverly built the phone around the screen to make the whole unit as small as is technically possible. It isn’t perfect by any means, but is much better than some other sites would have you believe.

Camera (8/10)

The camera is rated at 8 Megapixels and includes 720p video recording. I believe that a software tweak is needed on the video side because the focus changes were often times so harsh it effected the output. Check out the example below-

The stills side is much better and I had little trouble in quickly capturing decent shots, but a closer inspection on my desktop revealed the small tweaks that would be needed to make the pictures acceptable for blowing up. Having said that, it is by some distance the best camera HTC has produced to date and 99% of users will be more than happy with it. The range of effects within the camera app are useful too and the software is extremely easy to use.

Average light outdoors

Good lighting outdoors

Good lighting indoors

Vintage effect

General Performance (9/10)

If you are going to pit Android 2.2 against a second generation Snapdragon 1GHz processor and 768MB of RAM the experience is likely to be fluid and incredibly fast. It is.

The performance is very smooth and rivals the iPhone and Windows Phone units for sheer delight when tapping and swiping through the OS. Android does not have the same level of human interaction as these operating systems, but this is the best it has felt so far.

Media (8/10)

HTC boasts about the the integrated Dolby Mobile and SRS Surround Sound for video playback, but in all honesty I wouldn’t have noticed the technology when I first played a film through headphones. However, the sound quality is excellent and on a par with any other smartphones I have used in terms of being able to recreate the layers good music deserves. In movies, the marriage of sound and the immersive screen is breathtaking at times.

The only reason it loses a point is because the external speaker is slightly tinny. It is nowhere near as bad as the one on the Desire Z, but it could be deeper in the bass area. I am presuming that this is down to the shallow depth of the design and thus a smaller speaker housing has had to be employed.

Call / Signal Quality (8/10)

Call quality to the ear is very good indeed and I was more than impressed by the loudness and the deep quality in reproducing voices. On the external speaker it is not so loud and suffers slightly from the aforementioned point surrounding the external speaker.

Signal quality is excellent on the phone side and I achieved a consistent HSDPA signal in places that I could not even grab with Desire Z. Strangely, the Wi-Fi signal seems to be quite weak and the signal bars dropped quickly as I moved more than 20 feet from my router. I need to do some more testing, but I haven’t experienced this with other smartphones which all tend to keep a full signal anywhere in my house.

Battery (6-7/10)

This is a difficult one because the Desire HD will get through a whole day if you are not using the power hungry features. However, start using that screen to its fullest and a charge will be needed at some point during the afternoon. The marriage of a 4.3” screen and a 1230mAh battery don’t sound good on paper, and the reality is that it does struggle at times. As I said earlier you won’t be seeing larger replacement batteries available so a spare would be a good option to take up. Most very large screened devices suffer in this area, but HTC has also managed to limit the battery options as well which is not the best idea.

Further testing has revealed that it is better than I first thought, but will still struggle for power users. I now believe that I could get a day out of this phone under my normal usage patterns.

Data Input (8/10)

The large screen helps a lot in terms of quick data entry on a touch screen and the spell correction is on the whole quite accurate. It is flaky at times, but then so are all touch screen smartphone correctors so all in all the experience is positive. In landscape it is very good and the extra size of the HD works better for me because I have long fingers and this makes it feel more natural than a smaller phone in landscape mode.

Software (9/10)

I have complained before about the vast number of apps and features that are bundled with Android, and in many way this phone is no different, but it comes back to the screen again. Somehow it all feels less crowded and HTC has included useful apps that the users will genuinely need on a day to day basis. None of the basics are missing and everything from turn-by-turn navigation to eBook reading is included. eBooks look great on the Kindle app and the eReading experience is yet again greatly enhanced by the larger screen.

Quick Lookup is an excellent app which offers the ability to search once and see the results in Wikipedia, Google, YouTube, Google Translate and Google Dictionary- it quickly became my default app for research.

Car Panel is just a fancy looking shortcut windows to various GPS related features, but the Nearby feature is especially useful. You can also get to Footprints through it which remains one of the most pleasing apps that HTC has implemented to date- it doesn’t do a great deal, but could come in handy time and time again.

The Android Market gets better every time I look at it and a quick search through the free and paid for titles shows that many of the mainstays of the iTunes App Store are now present. It isn’t quite as polished as the App Store, but a small amount of familiarity will soon make it an easy to navigate and complete resource to you.

At times it felt like I was typing on a mini tablet and the simple Calculator app highlighted that more than anything else. The keys are huge and it was all so easy to use for when the time comes (back to the screen size again).

There is so much to cover in terms of the operating system and the apps that I would be here all day if I attempted to do so. What I can say is that Android is growing on me and that it feels more complete as time goes by. I cannot think of another smartphone platform that offers so much out of the box and as the third party offerings improve, it will start to compete with the very best.

Conclusion

This is a truly excellent smartphone that proves that a 4.3” screen is possible on a phone that is still portable enough to use every day. The build quality and design are exceptional and the entire experience is only slightly marred by the battery performance. It seems that every smartphone has a flaw, and the battery is the weak area, but I am still convinced that most people will get though a day’s use quite happily.

It is one of the best smartphones I have used and the first to genuinely make me question my iPhone 4 ownership, but the battery is the one thing that plays on my mind. Having said that, the iPhone is hardly a powerhouse when it comes to battery performance. If you are happy to buy a spare battery or if your daily use is ‘normal’ then I would 100% recommend this phone- it is brilliant in so many ways and one more step up the ladder to smartphone perfection.