HTC Desire V

[Drillbit]

I recently picked up what appears to be a new dual SIM entry level smartphone by HTC. It is called a Desire V.





The basic specs include a 4" 480x800 resolution screen and a single core Qualcomm MSM7227A chip. I find it quite affordable, just over $300 brand new for a no contract unlocked phone for multiple prepaid carrier use. As my wife frequently travels, her aging dual iPhones have become a bit too inconvenient. And yes once again, this is a dual SIM phone. I checked out a dual SIM Nokia Asha, a classic candybar phone with a touch screen, but my wife insists she wants a pure touchscreen. I looked at a Samsung Galaxy Duo, but it was decidedly inferior to the Desire V although it costs less.

Despite what sounds like a meekly titled single core processor that isn't even a Snapdragon, the Cortex A5 was a pleasant surprise.



Scoring over 2000 in Quadrant, this is faster than any single core device I have seen including second generation Snapdragons and various Cortex A8 based chips. Yes faster than the Nexus S and Desire HD --- despite a crappier GPU. The Qualcomm M7227A only has the Adreno 200 first featured in the first generation Snapdragon (Nexus One for example). This shows how strong alone the main processor and its memory performance are. In fact its nipping at the heels of dual core devices using the Cortex A9.

Overall the phone looks like a baby One X. In a reversal from the One series policy, the battery is removable and it uses traditional SIMs. The screen is quite bright and sharp for a low end phone with neutral whites. HTC Sense seems quick enough but much more bare bones than I remembered and only has 5 homescreens. At least the UI is not as overdoing as last year's Sense. And yes it is powered by Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box.

Recently the type has a new sibling called the Desire X. Same body but loses the second SIM for a dual Cortex A5 processor.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

[weegie]

This went past my radar until your post DB, is available where I am as well, very cheap, it would do me if it had a better camera and video recording capabilities.
Would be interesting to know how it fares on battery when your wife has used it for a while

[weegie]

This went past my radar until your post DB, is available where I am as well, very cheap, it would do me if it had a better camera and video recording capabilities.
Would be interesting to know how it fares on battery when your wife has used it for a while

[Drillbit]

My wife is a bit busy so right now I can't borrow her iPhone and her laptop with the iTunes account in order to sync her contacts to Google. Right now, I got the phone for testing, and its been running idle for days now 24/7 on wifi with GMail working and the occasional app getting updates. So at least I know the idle mode is pretty stupendous.

[Drillbit]

Should note a few things.

1.) Unlike the One series, the battery is removable. Furthermore, given the specs, a 1650mah battery --- the size used on the Galaxy S2 --- is being used to power a 1GHz single core processing chipset, with a 4" screen and WVGA resolution. Its a good hunk of battery for the spec ratio.

2.) The phone is using a new architectural core from ARM called the Cortex A5. Its not using the Qualcomm Scorpion like previous HTC phones including even the One V. Its a new development separate from the ARM Cortex A8 and A9 cores. Marketing wise, its a pretty stealth development. The new core may better power management than previous single core designs.

[Drillbit]

Its about half a week now and the phone is still on standby with 50% of its battery left. I managed to sync my wife's contacts on her iPhone to her Google account and now all those contacts (seems to be tons of them) are showing up on the HTC.

Not easy finding a proper case for it though.

[weegie]

That sounds pretty good, the One X I had was very good in standby as well, not so good when using it though, my SII is dead so I don't even have a working android device at the moment and am at a bit
of a loss with what or even *if* I'll replace it.