Supercalifreakinawesome phone get it (Posted on 23/08/10)

Delivery was so-so, the site lists one day handling time to Sydney Metro. Mine took 3 days to get here even though i'm in the CBD

Contrary to the specs listed, I had a 4gb SD card installed on mine.

No complaints with the phone. (Posted on 20/08/10)

I placed my order Friday Morning of 31/07 and had it Monday 2/08 can't ask for better service from mobiCity!!!

It was exactly what we ordered.

Very easy to use the phone, no complaints at all.

Will recommend to friends. (Posted on 5/08/10)

The only thing I have found is occasionally the phone will answer some calls, but the other person cannot hear me. Might a small thing (Posted on 29/07/10)

Ordered this phone last Wed and shipped to me all within a week. This is my first Android smart phone, and was tempted to get the iPhone having been told by my family for the past few months. From the initial analysis, I am not regretting getting this one at all. Very light, fantastic and bright display, good design although the button can be more tactile. The Android market place made download apps a breeze, and the 7 x home screens are definately an advantage over the iPhone! Highly recommended! (Posted on 6/07/10)

I have had my phone for just over a month and it would have to be the best phone EVER!!
Very easy to use, great screen, brilliant apps, i just cant stop gloating about it when most of my friends (who have the iphone) cant keep THEIR hands off!!
the versatility of the wifi is great, and i love playing the games too!! Calls are easy to take, put the speaker on, everything... have absolutely no complaints with this brilliant little gem!! Well done HTC!! (Posted on 4/07/10)

Having been a WinMo user for a great many years, it was a big move to switch to Android. But after 3 weeks, no regrets from me.

The device itself is beautifully designed, so light yet feels solid. Everyone I've shown it to, include many iPhone users, have been impressed and in some cases left wanting. Great job HTC!!

As a corporate user, the key thing I was concerned about was Exchange integration. Unfortunately, Android 2.1 fails in this department. Thank goodness for apps like TouchDown, and after a shaky start, now fills the gaps very well (although it does lack some basic features I used to have with WinMo).

The overall performance is very very fast. The interface is extremely responsive, HTC Sense is a brilliant interface. Android too is a great OS and I love the fact it feels iPhone-like yet is fully customisable.

I do have three complaints with it though, and here they are:
1) I'm an Optus customer and after extensive troubleshooting with Optus, it seems that my device is faulty with regards to MMS. Very disappointing, thankfully I can live without MMS, but still a let down
2) Android can be a bit flaky at times. My device seems to be plagued with the well-publicised issue with the com.htc.bg error that pops up randomly. Can't seem to get rid of it, annoying but not enough for me to be too peeved off (yet)
3) finally, and probably the most disappointing, the internal storage. It's disappointing for two reasons: 1) the MobiCity website under specs for this device states it's "practically unlimited" - ahem, actually, that's not the case, it's very limited!! and it is used up pretty quickly. Major fail, sorry guys. 2) whilst I have a 16gb SD card installed, Android 2.1 doesn't let you use it to store programs, and only data if the app allows it. So as you can imagine, most apps being around 1-3MB in size, plus data plus I have synced diary/mail/contacts with exchange, you soon find yourself with precious little space available.

Granted, Android 2.2 promises to fix this by allowing installs to the SD card (only if the app is written to support that mind you) but there's no commitment on when HTC will release that so we wait and wonder...

Would I recommend this phone? Yes. Although these three issues are disappointments, they fortunately don't overshadow how beautiful the device is and how easy it is to use and for everyday use, it's a dream to use.

I hope my experiences help you to make the right decision or you.

Pete
(Posted on 4/07/10)

I have had this for a few weeks now, after giving my nexus 1 to a family member.
My old Iphone 3gs is a dim memory.
I cant stop playing with this just sitting on the couch on the wifi facebooking/twittering/games and net browsing.
That is something I didnt do with the Iphone.
Iphones bubble has burst (Posted on 21/06/10)

Great phone, i agree with everything thats been said.

But i have had mine for a month now and i suffer a reboot loop, so it is pretty much unusable now.

Not sure whats causing it and no information on how to fix it. Just something to watch for when buying this phone. (Posted on 10/06/10)

Got mine from Mobicity couple of day ago. Phone feels like a quality item, really fast, everything works well, Android Market including. I do not think there is a better phone out there at the moment, so it is 5 star from me for now.

So minor issues:
- scrolling thru long lists is by sliding fingers on the screen only, there are now hardware buttons to scroll (touchpad button in the middle is good for small movements only).
- video recording quality is average.
- it is integrated with google email, calendar, contacts but not with Google Tasks, etc.
- USB jack for charging/connectivity is the same as on the latest Samsung/Nokia. Maybe it is the new standard for mobiles, but it is not the same your regular mini usb cable.
(Posted on 21/04/10)

Unboxing the HTC Desire from MobiCity

After popping into MobiCity’s little customer service centre on Wynnum Road in Brisbane, I was greeted by a friendly sales assistant who asked for my name and query. Within seconds my ID was checked and she had a HTC Desire all bagged up and ready to go for me.

As you can see from the photo below, the phone was supplied brand new in its original box with an Aussie charger, original Hong Kong charger, quickstart guides (none of which were in English, but more on this in a second), USB charging cable & warranty information in a neat MobiCity drawstring bag.


Installing the battery & SIM card

This was relatively easy – after I reviewed the quickstart guide. But as you’ll have just read, there were no English copies. Thankfully, the guides contained pictures, which were easy enough to follow. So why weren’t there English copies? I’d say that this is because the phone was from Hong Kong and intended for Europe – for the guides were in languages from European countries. The phone too, when switched on for the first time, had a number of English locales to choose from – but none were ‘Australia’. This has no effect on the phone or the setup, though – because English is English and all regional information was set once I inserted my Australian Optus SIM anyway.


Turning it on!

Of course.. the fun part! The battery is supplied almost-flat, so I plugged my phone into charge via USB and left it for 5 minutes before turning it on and setting it up (with the charge cable left in, of course). Configuration was easy and you can skip the wifi steps if needed and come back to them later. As mentioned above, the “English (Australia)” locale was not available, but I just selected one of the other English locales and the phone continued without any issues.

The phone also took me through the basics of using the on-screen keyboard, which is surprisingly smart considering I have fat fingers – which causes the “touch point” to be almost half a centimeter below where the top of my fingernail is. I subconsciously tap a little higher than planned as a result of this, and the keyboard picks it up fine. The software is incredibly smart in guessing what you’re trying to say too (and in context, too), so it’s an amazing feature that makes typing fairly quick, particularly for me. I’m sure, with time, I will get even more used to it… after all, I used to use a Nokia E71 and gee whiz! …have you see the tiny 5mm x 6mm keys on that thing?! The HTC Desire’s on-screen keys are significantly bigger.

After the configuration was complete, I tinkered with ALL the settings (it’s always the FIRST thing that I do – without fail, haha) and setup wireless, ring tones and my 7 home screens. There is so much more left to play with, but I’m absolutely amazed at how fast this thing is. After all, it has a 1GHz (yes, gigahertz!!) processor in it. And it’s smaller & lighter than an iPhone. Who knew.



What impressed me the most

This would have to be the ease of use, the fact that I got used to the keyboard very quickly and, of course, the amazing resolution… 480px X 800px. On a phone?!?! My PC 8 years ago couldn’t even do 800 pixels! The 1GHz SnapDragon processor flys through anything you throw at it – but I’m yet to play a movie on it. Ask me again tomorrow ;-)


The ordering process at MobiCity

This was a breeze. One simply selects the handset type, adds it to the card with a warranty selection and any add-ons (screen protectors, etc) as required and then selects the shipping method. I chose “pay over the phone”, but instant online credit card payments, as well as money order & direct deposit were also available to me.

I was most impressed at the speed of MobiCity’s delivery. I ordered my handset at 4:30pm on Thursday – by 9am Monday my order was updated with a FedEx tracking number, showing the item had been picked up from Hong Kong on Saturday morning. By 2pm I received another email saying my phone had arrived in store (since I’d chosen in-store pickup as the collection method). As such, I can only say that the shipping from Hong Kong was incredibly fast.


The Verdict

* The phone: 9/10 (so far; will update as I get used to it)
* The Google Android operating system: 9/10 (so far; will update as I get used to it)
* The MobiCity ordering process: 10/10
* The MobiCity delivery process: 10/10

This is HTC’s best yet and is truly an “iPhone killer”.

You can read our full review at: http://www.leisurereviews.com.au/consumer-goods/htc-desire-from-mobicity-brisbane-qld (Posted on 19/04/10)

First, a bit about me so you can understand my perspective. Having long been a fan of physical QWERTY keyboards, the HTC Desire was the first touchscreen phone I've had the pleasure to own. I'd played with iPhones a bit and although they get a lot right, the uncertain future of Flash support in their devices made me want to seek an alternative when upgrading from my Nokia E71. Until now I'd always been a Nokia owner, but the Symbian Operating System was growing stale on me and the Maemo Operating System was only on one phone. Android was gaining support in the community worldwide, with a rapidly growing Market (app store) and the latest version was getting some pretty positive reviews from the community.

First of all, you can't help but love the screen. It's got quite high resolution for being a 3.7 inch screen, and the AMOLED technology it utilizes allows for awesome colours. Sliding across the different home screens is fairly fluid, with only a minor drop in frame rate if you have a complex home screen you're navigating to. The "Leap" feature to display all the home screens is very handy too.

Physically, it's an attractive unit, although I don't think it's so stylish that it'd be winning awards for design. Power button at the top, volume toggle on the side, and a few physical buttons for Home, Menu, Back and Search. There's also the optical trackpad which works well (although I don't tend to use it that much). There's a miniature USB connector on the bottom, the type that if you lose the cable that comes in the package you should be able to pick up a generic replacement at your local electronics store.

One thing that would really appeal to a lot of people is how customizable the user interface is. Having not used a phone that has the native Android user interface it's hard for me to say where SenseUI (HTC's own user interface) picks up, but it's absolutely great. The only limit is what's available in terms of widgets and programs from the Market, but even the out-of-the-box Scenes are more than adequate. FriendStream is a great feature but as with a lot of widgets on the Desire, you need to have a pretty decent data pack or be within a Wifi zone an awful lot to really get the full experience.

Bluetooth, Wifi, GPS, messaging and calling haven't been a problem for me. All work smoothly and as fast as you'd expect when paying this much for a phone. After being involved in a few forum discussions, those who come from the iPhone believe that the accuracy of the touchscreen is a bit off even after a calibration, but considering this is my first touchscreen I have a hard time seeing an issue with accuracy. Typing SMS's with the landscape format is good, with predictive text fixing minor mistakes you might make if you use your thumbs like I do.

One common complaint is that the battery life is average, but considering it's a device that's powering a high resolution screen and a essentially a computer running at 1GHz with half a GB of RAM, I think it does alright although is definitely not outstanding.

Overall, I'm really happy with this phone. Although I don't think it's an iPhone killer as such, it definitely offers an excellent alternative with a few features that would make it better than an iPhone for some people. It surely is a big step up from my aging E71, although it was solid in what features it did offer. I'd strongly recommend reading the Whirlpool forums as there are a lot of technically minded people there who have really explored deep into the Desire. As most of them would agree though, even though they might be a bit disappointed by one or two little things, the HTC Desire as a whole is a very impressive device. (Posted on 18/04/10)

Great Phone !!! (Posted on 21/02/10)