IT Pro Verdict

A powerful device whose large screen is particularly well suited to media rich activities. HTC’s Sense user interface adds extra pizzazz to Android, and the operating system is fast becoming very business-relevant while still retaining a lot of consumer-focused positives. Battery life is a potential problem, though, and it could be an issue with Android for some time to come.

By Sandra Vogel

Published 6 April 2010 In Reviews

Business users may also like the copy and paste feature, which you can use while web browsing. Tap and hold on the screen to get a pair of markers you can drag to surround the area you want to copy. It is a little fiddly but nonetheless one of the best implementations of copy and paste we've seen on a smartphone.

The capacitive touch screen is very responsive, and helps make text entry both quick and comfortable. The large screen means that even in tall mode the QWERTY tappable keyboard is big enough to use without making too many errors, and in wide mode we were able to tap away with two thumbs at a good speed. Because of this, email-related work is easier on the Desire than it is on many other smartphones we've tried. The predictive text system is fast too, and we found it made good guesses at words when we miss hit a letter completely. Email user will also like the PDF reader and version of Quick Office for reading Word, PowerPoint and Excel files.

The large screen isn't all good news though. Some people simply won't be able to reach across it for one-handed use, and it makes the HTC Desire sizeable. Its 60x11.9x119mm will make it too large for some pockets. But that is an inevitable trade-off and one many will be happy to make.

Page 2 Next

Sandra Vogel is a freelance journalist with decades of experience in long-form and explainer content, research papers, case studies, white papers, blogs, books, and hardware reviews. She has contributed to ZDNet, national newspapers and many of the best known technology web sites.

At ITPro, Sandra has contributed articles on artificial intelligence (AI), measures that can be taken to cope with inflation, the telecoms industry, risk management, and C-suite strategies. In the past, Sandra also contributed handset reviews for ITPro and has written for the brand for more than 13 years in total.