Yet again, HTC doesn't disappoint

After Desire 816, the expectations from HTC were quite high. Thankfully, HTC Desire 820 ticks all the right boxes, says Himanshu Juenja

HTC recently launched its latest mobile phone, HTC Desire 820, for the Indian markets. A mid-range budget phone, it follows the very well recieved HTC Desire 816. Hence, it was natural that the expectations were high.

And it seems like HTC had decided not to disappoint either when it sat down to piece together the HTC 820. The company improved upon the HTC Desire 816 in nearly every way possible to come with another possible winner phone. But can the phone shine with sales despite a mediocre battery performance?

Let's see how good the phone actually is.

Build and construction

HTC decided to make minimal alterations with the popular HTC Desire 816's chassis, and as a result, the new phone looks a lot similar to its predecessor. The Desire 820 is 0.2mm slimmer and 10gms lighter when compared. It is a bit taller though (1.1 mm to be exact).

The phone boasts of a unibody construction. HTC could have gone with some other material than plastic, but that would have meant substantial increase in the budget.

The 3.5mm jack is located right at the top of the phone, whereas HTC decided to place the Power/Lock button on the right edge this time round. A plastic flap on the left side covers the nano SIM card as well as the microSD card slot. Finally on the bottom edge lies the microUSB port.

One striking difference between the two models is the dual tone colours used with HTC 820. Plastic shell means the phone is a finger print magnet. This could be a hit or a miss with the buyers. Built quality overall is pretty good.

Display

HTC again posed faith with the previous display of HTC 816 and hence the 820 is sporting the similar 5.5-inch LCD screen. With a resolution of 720x1280, the display is gorgeous.

Colours made the display spring to life and it looked natural and vivid.

With a pixel density of ~267ppi, it is indeed on a bit lower side, but HTC's technological brilliance makes this a non-issue. Text looked sharp on the screen.

Owing to its overall size, operating the device with a single hand becomes an issue.

Hardware

Powered by Qualcomm's new 64 bit octa core SoC, the phone is equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 octa-core processor. Four of the cores are Cortex-A53, clocked at 1.5 Ghz. The other four are Cortex-A53, clocked at 1.0 Ghz. The phone has Adreno 405 GPU and 2GB RAM a well (HTC decided to ramp up 816's 1.5GB RAM here).

The phone storage also sees improvement. While the earlier model had 8GB as internal storage, the 820 comes with 16GB as on board storage capacity. Users can expand the storage by another 128GB via microSD cards.

OS

The 820 comes with Android ver 4.4.4 (Kitkat), with HTC Sense's latest version slapped on top of it. HTC Sense has time and again proved itself to be the most light weight of the skin out there, and Sense 6.0 carries the tradition forward.

Starting from the lock screen, users have the option to launch instantly the apps they deem important. There is the clock and weather information as well. Moving forward, users can swipe up to be led to the last app used, or swipe to left/right will mean landing on BlinkFeed. BlinkFeed has won many fans while displaying the content from the preferred news and social networking websites.

HTC unfairly decided to take out the feature of double tapping/swipe to unlock. This would have been particularly handy in case of this phablet here. Unlocking hence is restricted via lock/power button only. The app drawer is again a vertical swipe affair.

Speaking of apps, apart from the usual collection, HTC has included some useful ones as well like Polaris Office 5 and Facebook. It was a surprise to see WeChat present as well.

Also on board is HTC's Zoe app, which is a huge asset while sharing remixed videos.

Apps can be sorted Chronologically, Alphabetically, or Manually to suit user's preferences.

Few loaded apps will change the colour scheme of the status bar on top to match their own. A nice little touch which people coming from previous Sense experience or that of iOS will be able to recall. Sense also gives the option to hide apps.

Kid mode allows parental control -- useful and necessary.

Overall experience again was pretty zippy and the fluidity marks the familiar traits of the much acclaimed skin by HTC.

Camera

While the rear camera still remains the same affair as that of HTC 816, HTC peculiarly decided to provide a plastic ring around the lens, which protrudes a bit and protects the camera lens.

The front camera received an upgrade. From 5 Megapixel of earlier model, to 8 Megapixel in the latest one. The camera app looked slick to use and made the experience all the more worthwhile. Users get to choose from a number of modes like Manual, Auto and Panorama.

The users also get to tweak the final results by selecting suitable filters of their choice. There is the depth of field mode available as well which adds to the repertoire greatly. Users are bound to like this one in particular.

On the performance front, the rear camera on HTC 820 performs admirably well. The details captured during day time photography were pretty good, with noise in the images being hardly noticeable. The 13 MP camera does an impressive job while capturing aspects like details, contrast and colours.

The low light photography was more than decent, and this was a huge relief. The rear camera is assisted with an LED flash. In the captured 1080p videos as well, the details were impressive.

The blemish was seen while capturing slow motion videos. Even with the resolution of 720p, the captured videos were not impressive.

Front camera being bumped up to 8 MP means improved performance, as the details captured were clearly better when compared to other smartphones. Selfie lovers will find this a welcome upgrade.

Media

The phone comes with HTC's trademark Boom Sound speakers in the front, which is a major draw. The enhanced sound is the best a mobile phone can aspire for and greatly enhances the media viewing experience.

The phone comes with FM radio as well, which means a well oiled music supply chain. But the most interesting feature has to be the Bluetooth 4.0 with aptX codec support. The aptX codec allows the music fidelity to be preserved to a good degree while transmitting the content to something like a Bluetooth speaker. Result is CD like quality and is surely a desirable feature.

Battery

This is one area where HTC somehow managed to slip a bit. The company decided to supply the Desire 820 with the same battery as from the previous Desire 816 model. Powerful configuration meant that the 2600mAh battery doesn't lasts as long as it did earlier. The phone surely deserved a slightly more capable battery.

Still, with a normal to heavy usage, the battery should last a little over 12 hours. This makes daily charging of the phone inevitable.

Verdict

HTC indeed did more than a decent job in bringing out a successor to the well-appreciated Desire 816. Not only did it improve the phone specification wise, it also revamped the looks nicely as well.

Officially priced at Rs 24,990, the HTC Desire 820 can be had for a shade under Rs 22,000 now.

At this price it provides a good solid option for users looking to enjoy a phone with good screen size, camera and overall impressive features.

Photograph: Courtesy, HTC