HTC Desire 820 review

CAMERA

The Desire 820’s 13-megapixel rear camera has also remained unchanged since the Desire 816, but we’re pleased to see that image quality hasn’t decreased. Outdoors, there was plenty of detail on show across the entire frame, and colours were bright and punchy. We noticed a tendency toward slightly crushed-looking whites on lighter objects, but overall we were pleased with the quality of its shots in Auto mode.

^ After the disappointing shots we took on the One M9, we were pleased to see the Desire 820 produced much more natural-looking photos

^ Bright buildings were a little overexposed, but at least shadow areas weren’t too dark and dingy

This is a relief after the wonky exposure levels of the HTC One M9, and we were pleased to see that switching to HDR mode didn’t make our pictures look too unnatural. Instead, it helped even out the contrast and brought some much needed relief to the slightly dark shadow areas. Our only major disappointment was the noticeable halo effect it produced around buildings in the foreground.

^ Enabling HDR mode really helped to tone down any overexposed areas, but it did create a subtle halo effect around the edges of buildings

It’s a small price to pay for such a flexible camera, though. Along with the basic Auto and HDR modes, you can also choose from Night, Macro, Backlight, Landscape, Portrait, Text,  Sweep Panorama, Anti-Shake and Manual modes. Moreover, HTC’s said that the Eye’s Auto Selfie, Split Capture features will be coming soon via an update, making it much more capable than your average mid-range snapper. It can also shoot 1,080p videos and slow motion clips at 720p

On the front, HTC’s increased the sensor from 5 to 8-megapixels, which will be welcome news for selfie fans. Auto mode was a little too harsh for our liking, as its noticeable amount of noise made skin tones appear quite hard and granular when viewed at its native resolution, but Portrait mode fixed these problems instantly. There’s also the ever-present Beauty slider if you want to eliminate every single last blemish possible, but you’ll decrease the overall level of detail in the process.

CONCLUSION

The HTC Desire 820’s battery life may not be as good as its predecessor, but in every other respect it’s easily the superior handset. With its decent screen, excellent performance and capable camera, it’s one of the best budget phablets available today. It’s a shame it doesn’t come with HTC’s new Sense 7 interface, instead making do with the slightly old-fashioned looking Sense 6 UI, but there’s a good chance we’ll see an update to Sense 7 (and Android 5.0) later this year.

It’s a very reasonably priced SIM free, but you’ll have to search around for a decent-value contract. We’ve seen a 1GB and 1000 minutes contract for as little as £21-per-month, but when you can also pick up last year’s Samsung Galaxy S5 for just a few months more every month, the Desire 820 starts to lose a lot of its appeal. To see how it fares against the rest of the mid-range competition, check out our Smartphone Best Buys and Buying Guide.