Develop Bugs

Is the Desire actually any good?

I have been looking to replace my iPhone 32GB 3GS with a Desire but the more I read about the Desire on this and other forums the more it looks like a bad idea due to some very iffy limitations / flaws / bugs.
So has any one made this particular leap and if so how do you find the Desire compares to the iPhone and will I find I can be disappointed for a lot less than £400!
All comments welcome.
Cheers
S

Nah...it's rubbish. Don't bother...
But really...what did you think you would read in a forum? Here's one for you, go check out the iPhone help and support forum and come let me know how many postal are morning but praise and support.
Which particular "limitations" are putting you off, and if you've invested money on apps and media, why don't you just wait in the 4th iPhone?

I have just come from the HTC HD2 (very popular/top of the range etc) to the HTC Desire and must say the Desire is 1000x better.
Not one flaw at all, I come to this website as a matter of habbit as I actually have no issues whatsoever, in fact is surprises me how many problems people here are experiencing.
10/10 from me, I can see why this has been voted the number one phone in the world.\
I agree though if you can wait, it is very likely that the new iPhone will be the No.1 phone on the market, again.

can't compare most forums with one as xda which is a tad more technical and nitpicking. Regarding limitations you surely have a lot less than the iPhone. at the moment I can't say I find any major flaws and very few minor ones

My wife is having Iphone and this is my first android phone. I had more than 10 different WM phones. Never wanted to have anything else. Now I have Desire, and to be honest this phone is 10 light years ahead of any wm phone.
Closest thing to it is Iphone, but number of apps available for Desire is amazing.
Biggest selling point is of course social network integration, similar to Palm's Pre phone.
Also from me 10/10
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk

The Desire is the best phone I've owned (comparing it to the Nokia E61, HTC TyTN, HTC Touch HD, Samsung Omnia i900, Samsung Omnia HD i8910, SE Satio and some others I've forgotten).
The fact that you see so many comments here complaining about this and that is evidence to the fact that this phone has experienced massive sales and there's a good mix of experienced and unexperienced smartphone (and Android) users. It also means that people are being honest about their experiences by not sticking their heads in the sand, and the critical approach will lead to improvements, both from HTC and from the user community.
Look at the pace of posts here, too. Compare it with the pace in the X10 section. The sheer activity here is in itself one of the huge advantages of the phone.
For me, the biggest upsides of the Desire are the speed and Sense. The only things I'm reserving judgement for is the quality of the photos (after all, I'm coming from the Samsung i8910 with an excellent camera) and the lack of call recording (which is an Android 2.1 issue not limited to the Desire, but also hopefully something that will be sorted either in future Android versions or beforehand). Otherwise, this thing is the closest I've ever seen to an all-around excellent smartphone.

I have owned tens of devices, a lot of htc, nokia, blackberry, motorola (including milestone), couldn't bear to be an iphone owner but the Desire is pretty awesome. Best phone i've had to date bar none.

Quist said:
The Desire is the best phone I've owned (comparing it to the Nokia E61, HTC TyTN, HTC Touch HD, Samsung Omnia i900, Samsung Omnia HD i8910, SE Satio and some others I've forgotten).
The fact that you see so many comments here complaining about this and that is evidence to the fact that this phone has experienced massive sales and there's a good mix of experienced and unexperienced smartphone (and Android) users. It also means that people are being honest about their experiences by not sticking their heads in the sand, and the critical approach will lead to improvements, both from HTC and from the user community.
Look at the pace of posts here, too. Compare it with the pace in the X10 section. The sheer activity here is in itself one of the huge advantages of the phone.
For me, the biggest upsides of the Desire are the speed and Sense. The only things I'm reserving judgement for is the quality of the photos (after all, I'm coming from the Samsung i8910 with an excellent camera) and the lack of call recording (which is an Android 2.1 issue not limited to the Desire, but also hopefully something that will be sorted either in future Android versions or beforehand). Otherwise, this thing is the closest I've ever seen to an all-around excellent smartphone.
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Click to collapse
This very informative reply has defiently made me have the desire next.
After watching all the comparason vids on YouTube, ie - HD2 vs htc desire, and others.
Reading all the tech specs on both devices, Reading all the topics on the subforums here and over on the HD2 threads.
I can now see the desire is a very cool piece of kit.
I look forward to owning one.

I think it is excellent
I have my desire for 3 days now and it is excellent however...... mine came on Orange contract and it was crippled with Orange junk from the start. After a complete weekend of fiddling about and altering settings I still couldn't get onto my wifi router. Google Talk was missing and other Orange imposed glitched. I have now installed a different unbranded rom (details elsewhere in this forum) and everything is working exeptionally well, smooth, fast, brilliant.
No stylus required and no more little X's to click.

Thanks guys,
I've bitten the bullet and ordered it today seeing as it's payday.
Will be back for more info soon no doubt!
Thanks
S

I have also iPhone 3GS, and what I can say is generally Desire is better than iPhone 3GS, at least for me.
iPhone is still better for multimedia player, mostly due to the quality of the speaker. Also, in term of stability, iPhone is a little bit better than Desire with stock ROM. But for other things, I prefer Desire, and I'll be patiently waiting for the "better" ROM for this pretty thing.
btw... if you came from 3GS, you might be a little disappointed with Desire's speaker quality.

You have understand that most people come to the forum and post are usually the one that has the problem. The one that has no problem using the device doesn't even bother coming on.

Heya, I own and still own a iphone 3GS 32GB.
I've had the Desire for around 2 weeks now.
I have been waying up which device I should keep as they are both great devices.
In terms of speed, I can't really see much difference between the 3GS and Desire. Maybe the Desire is slightly faster.
The screen on the Desire however, is way better than the 3GS. The black on the Desire is real black. If you compare the colours from Desire to 3GS the Desire will win every time.
The interface on the Desire wins hands down compared to the 3GS. Iphone interface is plain boring now.
It's the media player quality where I am stuck. On my iphone, every single song has album art (1400+ songs) yet on the Desire only around 60% of tracks have album art. I know how to fix it but it's a painstaking task which I don't really have the time to do..
I also wish the Desire would list the Alphabet in each list in the media player so you can just click on a letter rather than having to first scroll a little bit and then touch the slider.
The Desire sound quality is good providing you are using decent headphones. If it was louder, I'm sure it could complete with headphones to the iphone. However the loud speaker is crap. Not much more can said about that. That isn't a deal breaker for me.
Apps, face it apple has heaps and heaps (alot are crap). But for me, volume isn't the issue. It's quality. I'm sure though give it time and the apps on the android market will get better so this isn't a huge issue either.
I'm going to wait until I can re-jail break my iphone and until the Desire is 'rooted' so I can can get the best out of both devices and then make a decision.

For album art - try the '3' music player from the market.. its pretty neat and will cycle through your albums and download album art for them..
very handy feature.. i dont think it embeds the art in the ID3 tags.. but it displays the art fine..
drewsta_j said:
Heya, I own and still own a iphone 3GS 32GB.
I've had the Desire for around 2 weeks now.
I have been waying up which device I should keep as they are both great devices.
In terms of speed, I can't really see much difference between the 3GS and Desire. Maybe the Desire is slightly faster.
The screen on the Desire however, is way better than the 3GS. The black on the Desire is real black. If you compare the colours from Desire to 3GS the Desire will win every time.
The interface on the Desire wins hands down compared to the 3GS. Iphone interface is plain boring now.
It's the media player quality where I am stuck. On my iphone, every single song has album art (1400+ songs) yet on the Desire only around 60% if tracks have album art. I know how to fix it but it's a painstaking task which I don't really have the time to do..
I also wish the Desire would list the Alphabet in each list in the media player so you can just click on a letter rather than having to first scroll a little bit and then touch the slider.
The Desire sound quality is good providing you are using decent headphones. If it was louder, I'm sure it could complete with headphones to the iphone. However the loud speaker is crap. Not much more can said about that. That isn't a deal breaker for me.
Apps, face it apple has heaps and heaps (alot are crap). But for me, volume isn't the issue. It's quality. I'm sure though give it time and the apps on the android market will get better so this isn't a huge issue either.
I'm going to wait until I can re-jail break my iphone and until the Desire is 'rooted' so I can can get the best out of both devices and then make a decision.
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Click to collapse

Rant: HTC phones speakers are sorry pieces of crap

So, I recently ran into my old BB9700 phone and was playing music on its speaker for a bit. I have to say it was amazing.
And that reminds me how horrible my current G2 speaker is. If any of you have a BB 9700, you know what I'm talking about.
HTC makes amazing phones but when it comes to speakers, it is just a sorry piece of crap. I hope they will improve it soon.
Ok, rant off. Happy Sunday, everyone
Oosp, just realized this is in wrong forum. Mod please move it to approprite section. Thank you.

androidtoy09 said:
So, I recently ran into my old BB9700 phone and was playing music on its speaker for a bit. I have to say it was amazing.
And that reminds me how horrible my current G2 speaker is. If any of you have a BB 9700, you know what I'm talking about.
HTC makes amazing phones but when it comes to speakers, it is just a sorry piece of crap. I hope they will improve it soon.
Ok, rant off. Happy Sunday, everyone
Oosp, just realized this is in wrong forum. Mod please move it to approprite section. Thank you.
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Click to collapse
My bro just got the Lg optimus one and we compared speakers and his killed mine lol .. g2 speaker is garbage!

I would agree. My Galaxy S has a much better sounding speaker, no where near as tingy or high frequency like.

HTC - sh*t speakers, sh*t cameras, and in this phone a sh*t hinge. Its a trade-off that I put up with for the dev support HTC handsets get, and if you're not into rooting then usually HTC software works mostly properly out of the box, unlike Samsuck and Moto.
I sure would like it if HTC just "did it right" though, and specced every single component decently - I would just pay the extra to have an awesome phone with great screens like Samsung, great speakers like Apple, great keyboards like - well HTC manage that part ok.
I wonder if LG are going to step up their game with a qwerty super-phone any time soon...

i have to admit, the g2 has one of the worst speakers I have ever heard on a phone

ill agree with the g2, my wing wasnt that better, but my TP2 killed all the phones i ever had. loud, clear, great for phone calls and energy rom was the beast.

my g1 speaker was actually pretty good

My incredible has a great speaker and a great camera
Sent from my HTC Incredible running myn's warm twopointtwo RLS5 using the XDA app

Wrong sub-forum.

yea I'd have to agree, the G2 is terrible...as was my Nexus One. Before that I had a Nokia N95 and good lord those things rivaled my laptop speakers. They were so clear and LOUD! Ughh but Symbian is terrible

Desire Z vs LG Optimus vs iPhone
Of the 3, I found the iPhone 4 was the best speaker (OS not for me though)
, but the Desire Z is MUCH better than the LG Optimus.

I have to agree with the op, in general, htc phones of late, desire onwards, have had exceptionally dire speakers, my DZ is about on par with the original desire - pretty useless. It's a shame cos it does make a huge difference to daily useability, so many times I look at my phone and find notifications I've not heard go off. Some of the best ones I've owned would have to be, nokia n91, nokia n95, nokia 5800, SGS, SE xperia min pro (amazing for size) and moto milestone.
Come on HTC, get it sorted, oh yeah, HTC TP2 was awsome too as someone said, only one really

The speakers on my sisters cliq are amazing. Even the bass sounds high quality and it is easily 30% louder than mine. I can't really complain though my phone is almost always on vibrate.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

It's okay... I have heard much worse in the past but the HTC Surround has some nice ones! They should add some speakers in all future HTC quertys.

lol.. all of HTCs WM phones have awesome speakers as someone said their TP2 had a awesome speaker. i had that phone too and it was loud and clea, same with the HD2. i think its tmobile lol. cause the incredible has an amazing speaker. i have the mytouch 4g and it sounds like a peice a poo high pitch idk

Why would u buy a phone just to complain about it? The speaker isn't very good though your right I been using this coming from the vibrant and the speaker was way better still debating on keeping the trade or not
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

Don't want to believe it, but it's DARN TRUE. IT'S GARBAGE! (Loud enough for phone ringtones but still, it's bad)
I really have no idea why they decide to put a GARBAGE speaker into a super device. Common, a better speaker doesn't cost too much more rite???
HTC~ Hello~ super phone users deserve a super-speakers too don't we?

i hate my G2s speaker. my roommate has a droid and it can completely drown out my G2s speaker. fortunately enough the g2s performance among other things are superior to any other phone (currently imo).

Not sure why a rant about hardware is in the Themes and Apps section, but Oh well...
Yeah -- I was hoping the speaker would be better than my previous phone (Kaiser) but its not. But to be honest I rarely listen to music from the speaker anymore -- I might put it on low to get some background music at night but thats about it.
From my Kaiser days -- someone discovered that if you put the phone on top of a Styrofoam cup (empty of course) so that the rear speaker is pointing into the cup, it resonates and sounds amazing. I have yet to try that with my Desire Z though.

Hmmm...
Just got my G2 today and wasn't happy with the speakers.
Reboot to recovery, flash the attached DSP Manager, and reboot.
When the phone comes back up, open up your newly installed DSP Manager. If you go into the Equalizer, just tick the box and you should be good to go. Don't adjust the settings up, because it will be distorted... the settings are already included in the attached zip... all you have to do is enable.
This worked very well for me... just passing it along!

Mediocre voice call quality compared to SGS2 or iPhone 4S - is it typical?

Hi, I'm calling all SGS2 or iPhone 4S owners to help me identify whether my device is somehow broken, or it's "normal" for the GSM version of Galaxy Nexus:
In short, voice in-call quality is definitely worse than on SGS2 and iPhone 4S. I tried all those phones with exactly the same SIM card standing at the same place, calling exactly the same number (my voice mail), hearing the same message on all three, so it's not a matter of card/operator/signal.
I noticed, when using the ear speaker, that:
1. At maximum in-call volume, on Galaxy Nexus I hear some occasional creaking noise, like if the volume level was too high for the ear speaker to handle. I don't hear any noise like that on Samsung Galaxy S2 or iPhone 4S.
2. At maximum in-call volume, GNexus is still the quietest phone out of those three. iPhone 4S is the loudest (and without the creaky noise), Galaxy S2 is second (without creaky noise as well), and Galaxy Nexus is the quietest of them and yet develops some creaky noise at the same time.
3. Some high pitch sounds are unpleasant to hear on Galaxy Nexus, while they are fine (the same word from my voicemail) on both SGS2 and i4S. I'm not sure how to describe it, some words (I know only polish words that cause this at this moment) are really unpleasant to hear on GNexus..
4. I'm not sure if it's because of the creaky noise or not, but the voice from GNexus sounds the most 'robotic' out of those 3 devices. As I already wrote, I was hearing exactly the same messages on all three phones (my voice mail), and while they sounded pretty much identical on SGS2 and iPhone 4S, they sounded a little bit more 'robotic' on GNexus.
Ok, that's all. Don't get me wrong, my GNexus is capable of making/receiving calls. The problem is I'm a little bit hearing impaired and in order to understand people (especially when they don't speak in my native language) I need to turn the volume up a bit, otherwise I can't hear them. And unfortunately my GNexus is _definitely_ the worst phone in regard to call/voice quality out of those 3 phones. Anytime when I talk with someone for longer than "just a minute" when my SIM card is in GNexus, I wish it was in SGS2 or i4S just because I know I could hear someone better then. For short calls it doesn't matter.
So, the question is: does anyone who owns either SGS2 or i4S noticed this as well? I wonder whether there's something wrong with my specific device and I should replace it, or it works "as expected"..
Maybe it's caused by 2G network? I'm very often on 2G network, though with good coverage (4 signal bars)..
I appreciate any help, thanks..

I bought the GNEX because my wife constantly complained that my International SGSII was unbearable. Well there were other reasons also, but voice quality was her biggest gripe.
The GNEX is much better.
My wife has an iPhone 4S BTW (we are both on ATT).

ericshmerick said:
I bought the GNEX because my wife constantly complained that my International SGSII was unbearable. Well there were other reasons also, but voice quality was her biggest gripe.
The GNEX is much better.
My wife has an iPhone 4S BTW (we are both on ATT).
Click to expand...
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Interesting. But that's from her side, suggesting that mic on GNex is better than SGS2. I have no idea whether it's true, people can understand me no matter what device I use.
What about your side - did you notice any differences (especially something related to what I described) when it comes to voice quality compared to SGS2?

I get crackling on occasional calls. But it's not consistent and not every call. Hasn't bothered me a ton. Volume is fine.

enumBoss said:
I get crackling on occasional calls. But it's not consistent and not every call. Hasn't bothered me a ton. Volume is fine.
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Click to collapse
Any chance crackling happens only on 2G networks?

macfre said:
Any chance crackling happens only on 2G networks?
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Nope. Both 3G and HSPA+. But very infrequently.

I have no issues with the Nexus. People always complained that my voice was muffled with the International SGSII.

jasbur17 said:
I have no issues with the Nexus. People always complained that my voice was muffled with the International SGSII.
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Click to collapse
That's interesting point and I admit I never asked anyone if they hear me better when I use GNEX. I'm a little bit selfish though and more interesting in how I hear other people, than how they hear me, especially since my hearing is quite bad
Perhaps GNEX has better noise detection mic than SGS2?

[Q] Candid discussion re: Nexus Speaker/Mic Sound quality versus rezound?

At the verizon store it is not only too noisy to test this effectively, but the security devices smother the speakers. So for those who have heard both, can you comment on the extent of the difference?
I will be using the phone heavily for business, so speaker phones and a good Mic for meetings are critical. Although I wanted to go with the Nexus, I must say all in all, I need a good phone with quality speakers/sound pickup.
I've heard some chatter that the speaker quality is not as great as the rezound, but have not found any fulkl threads dedicated to this topic.

This isn't precisely what you were after, but GSM Arena did a speakerphone comparison that may help.
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_nexus-review-699p4.php
Sent via phone - nuff said

Thanks this actually is helpful. Rezound it is.

Quality control problem?

I've been on the fence for a while as to whether I get an HTC 10 or Galaxy S7 on contract.
I'm coming from a Google Nexus 4 so the thought of getting something as close to stock android is appealing (I've waited this long so I should probably wait the 2 weeks to hear about the new Pixel/Nexus phones before making a choice).
I can't help but notice though, that when you take a step back and look at the subject headings in this forum, that a large proportion of them relate to faults/complaints. People have listed WiFi issues and associated battery drain, 4G issues, SD card issues, pinkish screen tint, audio port issues, charging problems.
I've never owned a Samsung so not a fanboy, but when you browse their forum there seem to be way less complaints about hardware issues.
Begs the question, does the HTC have a serious problem with their quality control when it comes to this phone?

Randy Lahey said:
I've been on the fence for a while as to whether I get an HTC 10 or Galaxy S7 on contract.
I'm coming from a Google Nexus 4 so the thought of getting something as close to stock android is appealing (I've waited this long so I should probably wait the 2 weeks to hear about the new Pixel/Nexus phones before making a choice).
I can't help but notice though, that when you take a step back and look at the subject headings in this forum, that a large proportion of them relate to faults/complaints. People have listed WiFi issues and associated battery drain, 4G issues, SD card issues, pinkish screen tint, audio port issues, charging problems.
I've never owned a Samsung so not a fanboy, but when you browse their forum there seem to be way less complaints about hardware issues.
Begs the question, does the HTC have a serious problem with their quality control when it comes to this phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, hTc doesn't - Samsung does..
Sent from quite brutal hTc 10 ..

Randy Lahey said:
I can't help but notice though, that when you take a step back and look at the subject headings in this forum, that a large proportion of them relate to faults/complaints. People have listed WiFi issues and associated battery drain, 4G issues, SD card issues, pinkish screen tint, audio port issues, charging problems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pinkish screen tint affected not many phones, and it goes away after a while.
There are no audio port problems with this phone, it was just a problem with a custom kernel me and some people had. About WiFi, it`s good, but apparently because the phone is made out of metal, the wifi range is a bit weaker than on other plastic phones. I have no drain with wifi.
I would say that HTC 10 has one of the best quality at this moment.

I've had 2 HTC phones before the 10 HTC DNA and m8 and I never had any issues with those phones. Absolutely loved them and still have them. The 10 is by far the best Android phone I've owned and I love it. No issues whatsoever. I highly recommend it. I had a LG g4 before I got the 10 and I hated it. Only got the g4 because I didn't feel the m9 was a significant upgrade over the m8. As soon as the 10 came out I dumped the g4 and couldn't be happier. Some people have some issues but you probably aren't going to hear about all the people who love the 10 and don't have issues. I'd try the 10 out in the store if you can before you buy but I can tell you that it's a great phone from my perspective.
Sent from my HTC6545LVW using XDA-Developers mobile app

Randy Lahey said:
I've been on the fence for a while as to whether I get an HTC 10 or Galaxy S7 on contract.
Begs the question, does the HTC have a serious problem with their quality control when it comes to this phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm on my seventh HTC, not had a problem with any of them

I got mine through HTC directly. The grey/black one... whatever it is. Looks good, don't have any hardware issues, other than the software related ones that everybody is experiencing (50-60fps stuttering *fixed it*, WiFi funk *no real fix*, camera is iffy *still no real fix*, etc.)
Oddly enough, even trying my best to bring it out, I could not find any red-hue on my display panel when I received my 10. I had a pure white on both my old M8 and the new 10, and the 10 just generally was brighter and had cleaner whites. No red, at all.