HTC Desire review

You also have access to the Android Market, with thousands of apps at your disposal. The only app installed by T-Mobile on our review sample was the trial version of QuickOffice, which lets you view Office and PDF files, but for editing you’re better off using the mobile version of Google Docs using the Webkit browser.

The 5-megapixel camera has a flash, but low-light performance is typically poor, and no substitute for a proper digital camera. However, the screen is great for browsing photos, or watching video; the AMOLED display has vibrant colours and superb contrast. There’s a slight controversy regarding its exact pixel count, as it uses a slightly different pixel pattern to ordinary LCD panels, but there’s no doubting its image quality in the flesh.

We were pleasantly surprised by the Desire’s battery life of almost 20 hours in our light usage test; with WiFi, 3G and GPS turned on, however, you’ll get far less time between charges, so daily overnight charging is still recommended (as it is for all android smartphones and iPhones).

There’s no doubt the Desire is a powerful and beautiful device, and HTC’s Sense software adds many useful features to Android. However, its build quality isn’t up to the iPhone’s standard, and Sense’s inability to work in landscape mode, plus its frustrating copy and paste mechanism, are annoying. The HTC Legend is far sturdier and much better value, while the iPhone is still the pinnacle of design and build quality.