HTC intros two new Android 2.1 smartphones: the Legend and Desire

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Posted on 17 Feb 2010 at 10:29

MWC 2010: HTC has announced two new premium smartphones that use the latest version of Google's Android mobile operating system at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, which has also prompted the firm to redesign its Sense user interface.

The HTC Legend is a follow up to the popular HTC Hero and it's poised to be another success for the Taiwanese phone manufacturer. It's constructed from a single block of aluminium and has a luxurious feel to it. On the back, there are a couple of well-placed rubberised grips to prevent the device from slipping out of your hand - the bottom can be removed to replace the battery.

The wedged bottom edge on the Hero is still present on the Legend, but it's less profound and the conventional trackball has been replaced with an optical 'joystick' with a metal surround that doubles as a button.

It uses a new 3.2in AMOLED HVGA (320x480) screen with capacitive multi-touch, a 600MHz ARM-based processor and has 512MB of on-board memory. There's also a five megapixel camera with LED flash, HSDPA/HSUPA, WiFi (b/g), built-in GPS, a 3.5mm headphone jack and Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR.

The second of the new phones, the Desire, looks eerily similar to Google's Nexus One - it's not surprising to see HTC do this though, as it was contracted to build the Google handset. The specs are almost a carbon copy of the Nexus One's, too - it uses the same 3.7in AMOLED screen, 1GHz Qualcomm SnapDragon processor. However, the camera, trackball and connectivity options match the HTC Legend's.

The Desire has another ace up its sleeve too: it supports Flash Lite 4 and, as a result, it plays video natively in the browser without the need for third-party applications.

HTC has also updated its Sense user interface, which is a direct result of the company's move to Android 2.1 - the latest version of the operating system. The new version of Sense allows you to split contacts into groups and assign individual widgets to each one, as well as a new 'Friendstream' which integrates updates from social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr into a single stream of information.

There's also a bunch of tweaks to other parts of the UI, with list views built into the email and calendar apps, as well as a useful browser tweak that allows you to quickly select text and search for it on Wikipedia, an online dictionary or even Google Translate. Overall, the tweaks look interesting and should help to make using either of these devices more satisfying.

Availability for the Legend is scheduled for late March or early April, while the Desire doesn't have a firm street date yet, HTC gave a conservative Q2 timeframe. It looks like the Desire, in particular, could be well worth the wait and, from our first impressions with both devices, it looks like they're going to live up to their name. Stay tuned for a full review on both handsets soon.

Author: Tim Smalley in Barcelona