HTC Desire - The Super Phone

The DESIRE has a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a huge 3.7-inch OLED screen and the latest Android 2.2 OS,
The latest edition of Sense, HTC's patented OS, overlays Android 2.2, adding a wealth of very welcome functionality.

If you are trapped on T-mobile and the upgrade to Froyo 2.2 is not yet available there are various methods to easily de-brand the phone. Search google for Leedroid which is a very fast and stable custom rom for the desire. At XDA developers you will find all the tools and guides to unlock and debrand your tasty desire.

With seven home screens and a large stable of widgets, you can customise the Desire to within an inch of its life with music, weather, stocks, favourite friends and more to download too.

Better Still the deisre has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, and a standard micro usb duel power socket and PC connection port. Its the same connection as a Nokia data cable and a Blackberry.. At last you can stop buying a new car charger every time you change your phone.

The music player by the way is pretty good, if you want your album art to show up put it in the media folder on the memory card...

The HTC will find media files anywhere on your SD card, If you transfer files using an application on your PC then that application often creates a folder called Music on the SD Card.. Unfortunately this is not helpful as the device is programmed to look for album art in a folder called Media.

1st thing to check
You need to place your music files in a folder called Media
Easiest way to copy them is to connect to a PC via the USB cable and chose the Disk Drive option. Just drag your music folders in there and you are done. SIMPLE!

Still not working?

Check the file actually has an imbedded image file. I-tunes is good at sticking them in for you, but it needs to be in MP3 format and you need write permission on the file.
Open the file in I-tunes, then advanced options and create MP3 version. Right click on the new file and choose file info If the album is still not there you can manually add a picture from your hard drive on the Artwork tab

Failing all that go to the Android market and download Album Art Grabber and it will do it all for you.

Want a really coot MP3 player for your Android?

Look no further than Power Amp, free trial in the Android market.

This powerful player does it all..
Scrobbles to Lastfm, automatically dowmloads album art, lets you stuff with the equaliser until your hearts content..

plays mp3, mp4/m4a* (including alac), ogg*, wma*, flac, wav, ape, wv, tta.

Makes the standatds HTC player look and sound like a pre-installed freebee (which it is)

Beacuse the DESIRE is an Android device it is fully customisable and can be fitted out with your favourite selection from Google's Andoid Market.

Out of the box you get..

HTC Widgets

Bookmarks, Calendar, Clock, Footprints, Friend Stream, Mail, Messages, Music, News, People, Photo Album, Photo Frame, Search, Settings, Stocks, Twitter, Weather.

The best way to find Apps is to go to the Android Market directly from your phone, but the choice is quite overwhelming. Below I have listed my favourite must have apps.

One strength of the desire is its amazing social networking ability, it can link contacts across social networks seamlessly. But the DESIRE is not just a toy. The desire is a fantastic smartphone that is a great business device. The are thousands of very useful aps for productivity too.

Angry Birds has been downloaded over 5 million times on the i-phone. This brilliant game is available now in the Android Market for free. It is aiming to be the ultimate android game..

Hours of hilarious pig smaking, bird squawking fun.

Proof that Google is in league with Satan is "Google Goggles"

This incredible app takes a photograph of anything, scans it, and then lists a google search. Scan a bottle of Guiness and you will see links to the Guniess website, Wikipedia articles, even where you can buy some.

Photograph a copy WANTED on blue ray, you will get the Wiki article and options to compare prices... Its a little weird but frick'n cool.

Guaranteed to drain your battery and make i-phone freaks green.

Assuming you have hooked up with a hefty data plan, you will want to stream your favourite tunes to your lovely new desire. Look no further than Last.FM

Just search for last.fm in the android market and download this free app. You will need to register. Then simply type in the name of your favourite artist and last.fm will build a songlist of similar artist and play you an unlimted string of music. It saves your preferenece and at the same time displays album art, latest gig details, etc...

So Google maps will run on most smartphones, but the giant screen of the desire and the uber fast processer make maps pretty awesome on this Android masterpiece.

You can turn on selected layers, for example ATM's or petrol stations. A quick tap of the screen will pull up a street view of your next intersection. I recently took a trip and compared my TomTom to the free sat nan now offered by Google... Who would have guessed the Google version is best. It gives clearer detail of the road ahead, and very clear top of screen instructions. In fact as it runs in portrait mode you can see far furher ahead.. What idiot designed sat-navs to be lansdscape is beyond me.. unless you drive like a crab why do want to see whats beside you?

In short HTC-Desire worth a look for Google Maps alone.

Handcent SMS lets you customise the look and feel of your text messages. Show converstion streams in bubbles with contact pictures (like the i-phone).

Change the background image, make bubbles transparent, manage pop-ups, auto replies.. Complete SMS freedom..

Uou know what to doe.. just search "handsecnt" in the Android market.

A fun way to waste hours rescuing cows and sheep from alien abduction.
Abduction for Android lets you control your cow via the accelerometer.

If you enjoyed Abduction then you will love slugs!
Dodge big nasty squishy things, Throw stones, protect the crumpet, set off a nuclear bomb, or become a slug yourself...

Just search for Slugs in the market..

Enjoy!

Little fish swimming around your home screen.. but that's not all,

Tap the water to feed the Koi little android icons and make waves in the water.
Tap the fish and they swim away.
Customise the background anyway you like!

With seven screens on the DESIRE you can keep one free just to play with your fish!

The Desire has a 5MP camera. It takes brilliant photo's in low light, the ISO can be adjusted up to 800, however the auto setting works pretty well. The ability to touch the screen to determine if you want to focus on a light or dark area is very handy.

I have had to shrink them to upload. They look fantastic even on a 42 inch LCD. There is a widescreen option so you don't even have to crop the pictures to put them on your telly!

Oh and word is under Android 2.2 (Froyo) the videa camera is now cable of HD recording!

Physical
Weight: 135 grams (4.76 ounces) with battery
Size: see picture..

CPU Processing Speed - 1 GHz

Platform Android 2.1 (Éclair) with HTC Sense

Power & Battery
Battery type: Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
Capacity: 1400 mAh

Talk time:
WCDMA: Up to 390 mins
GSM: Up to 400 mins

Standby time:
WCDMA: Up to 360 hours
GSM: Up to 340 hours

Camera

5 megapixel color camera
Face detection capability
Auto focus and flash
Widescreen photo capture
Geotagging

Connectors

3.5 mm stereo audio jack
Standard micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)

Sensors

G-Sensor
Digital compass
Proximity sensor
Ambient light sensor

Social Networking

Facebook integration
Friend Stream
Photo sharing on Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter
Video sharing on YouTube
HTC Peep for twittering

Display

Type: AMOLED capacitive touch screen with pinch-to-zoom capability
Size: 3.7 inches
Resolution: 480 X 800 WVGA

Storage

ROM: 512 MB
RAM: 576 MB
Expansion slot:
microSDmemory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
Supports up to 32 GB

Network Bands

Europe:
HSPA/WCDMA: 900/2100 MHz
GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
Asia Pacific:
HSPA/WCDMA: 900/2100 MHz
GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

Internet

3G:
Up to 7.2 Mbps download speed
Up to 2 Mbps upload speed
GPRS: Up to 114 kbps downloading
EDGE: Up to 560 kbps downloading
Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g

Bluetooth

Bluetooth® 2.1 with Enhanced Data Rate
A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
FTP and OPP (object push) for file transfer
Other supported profiles: AVRCP, GAP, GOEP, HFP, HSP, PBAP, SPP, Service Discovery Application Profile

Multimedia

Photos application for viewing photos and videos
Music
FM Radio
Audio supported formats:
Playback: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma
Recording: .amr
Video supported formats:
Playback: .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv
Recording: .3gp

Location

Internal GPS antenna
Google Maps
HTC Footprints

Click the picture to jump to the HTC Flyer lens