There’s a couple of things I don’t like about the iPhone and iOS. I think it could do with a homescreen (it’s tacky but it’s handy — I’ve lost count the number of times I’ve accidentally lost an application alert by unlocking my phone, with no way to get it back), and I would love it to have an FM radio. As much as I love internet radio, mobile data providers have yet to provide a good enough (and cheap enough) service to allow you to stream smoothly.
The HTC Desire solves all of these problems. As well as the built in radio there’s also the homescreen which works very well, and alerts are shown at the top of the screen. No more popup alerts that get in the way that you can’t get back: they’re nicely tucked at the top of the screen. The notification light is also a useful little addition – It’s the one thing I miss when I upgraded from my old phone to iPhone, and they prove very helpful
But enough of what I don’t like about the iPhone.
When you take it out of the box, the HTC Desire stands out as being a very good looking phone that’s pleasant to hold. Apart from it being hard to find where to put the battery and SIM (I actually had to read the instructions), it’s a doddle to set up, although I’m a little unsure about your phone being linked to your Google account
But once set up, the one thing I didn’t like is the sheer number of apps. The iPhone doesn’t have many apps on a clean setup (although even then I’d say there were too many – does anyone ever use Stocks?) – but the HTC Desire is just insane. There’s at least two mail apps, I couldn’t even find the address book app, and it’s just generally a lot of clutter that most people won’t really need (and if they did, they’d easily find it in the Android Market which is – yup – hard to find)
The earphones are also questionable. I know the Apple earphones are a bit crappy, but these are just plain bad. It’s like the cheapest pair you could find, but worse. There was no way they were gonna stay in my ears. But I do like the power cable: it’s a USB lead. I’m a big fan of reusing leads and I have a ton of USB cables around. It’s a nice little touch, and I’m looking forward to more phones doing that in the future.
So – my final thoughts. It’s a nice phone – a very nice phone. There’s a lot that Apple can learn from it. But just like the iPhone, there’s a couple of irritating niggles that I’m sure would annoy me just as much after a year and a half so of using it.
For those who don’t like Apple’s closed way of doing things, it’s a fantastic phone. For those don’t mind it, you’ve got a difficult choice. The HTC Desire is most definitely on par as being one of the best phones on the market to date, alongside the iPhone 4