David Mankellow

HTC Desire

As a follow-up to the article I wrote on The Smartphone Dilemma I thought i’d bring all 3 of my readers up-to-date as to where I am now, what I know and any conclusions I have reached.

As we all know by now I’ll want the newest gadget that flutters its eyelids at me and so for my own sanity I have whittled my “wants” down to the newest cluster of Android 2.1 devices. This is despite the new “sightings” of the HTC Supersonic which is rumoured to have a 1.5GHz processor! I’m discounting any Windows Mobile 7 devices. I’ve heard that the OS is vastly improved but i’ve had a WinMo device for ages and I have grown to hate it!

HTC Legend

At present i’m simply watching the news of the impending releases of the wanted devices gradually roll in faster and faster like the boulder in The Raiders of the Lost Ark. Of course these devices are the HTC Legend and HTC Desire. On top of this there is the up-coming release of Googles Nexus One in the UK (Although we can all purchase it from the US) and bringing an old Smartphone crush back into the mix – the Xperia X10.

Let’s look at the specs:

*Prices taken from www.clove.co.uk and www.google.com/phone

There are advantages to all of the devices in different ways.

Xperia X10

The Desire has the worst of all of the batteries, likely because of all of the powerful hardware that it’s running. In this category the Legend and X10 hold up very well. The X10 has a bigger battery to power the device whereas the Legend is a stripped down Desire so that makes sense. From a hardware sense The Desire is probably the most impressive with the bigger processor and more RAM but this is why the battery life is affected. The X10 has a huge screen and the most impressive camera too. From a software point of view the Desire and Legend are running the HTC Sense UI where-as the Nexus one is running the Google UI and the X10 is running the Sony-Ericsson Rachael UI. I’ve heard mixed reports regarding the Rachael UI so far and i’ve also heard that the X10 is a little laggy. These could easily be from early builds so that info isn’t 100% reliable. From what i’ve read it seems to be universal that the new Sense UI is nicer than the Google one. I know people have their own opinions and mine is based on others’ findings but that is all I have to go on right now.Finally we come to the price. For the money it seems that the Nexus One is best value for money in what you get in comparison to the rest. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is because of the exchange rates being favourable to us and when the phone is officially retailed from the UK the price will be much higher. For me the X10 is too expensive for a device that could be deemed a little experimental. From the videos I have seen and the reviews I have read it would seem that the Legend is a real winner. Despite losing a bit of processor speed and RAM to the rest of the gang it is snappy, nice to look at and good to use but for the money there isn’t much difference between that and the Desire so you’re better off just going for that!

Nexus One

In conclusion I seem to have made my own mind up and this article is going down a route where i’m trying to justify getting a Desire. In my opinion if you’re going to spend silly money on a device you may as well go for the best you can get and it would seem that this is it. I know that you can install Desire ROMS on the Nexus One and that more can be done with them right now but i’ve also got some silly bias toward HTC. They have built both phones and aren’t as recognised for it with the Nexus One because it’s marketed as the Google phone. So there isn’t much method in my madness other than I just want a Desire!

Then again, let’s be honest; come June/July i’ll probably be buying a 4G anyways!