HTC Desire C (Golf) hands on

[dr.faramroze 703]

While browsing a galaxy of new smartphones launched in India, set off to purchase a smartphone which is manufactured in Q2 2012, so as a new phone will last well atleast for its first year. Ordered it on flipkart.com for Rs 12,300 inclusive of 8GB micro-SD card. The next day when I checked the purchase summary, it stated delivery after 9 days and so cancelled the order. Got a seal packed piece from Indraprasht shopping centre, Borivali, Mumbai for Rs 10,000 excluding the memory card with 1 year HTC warranty.

Initial hands-on:- A light press on power and it boots on, boot time is quite less. Device takes quite a minimal time to settle down. The 4.0.3-Sense 4A interface is identical to the HTC One series. The back cover is rubber coated to prevent slip-off. It fits well in an average sized palm. Google sync went through well though some users claim HTC Golf has sync issues. It supports social site syncing as well.

In-call:- Call quality showed a little more bass but it was reasonably clear both ways. HTC dialpad was easy to use, searching contacts was good too. The phone does not lag herein. Sad part here is, when in call, the proximity sensor does not sense the call, instead the screen goes off as soon as the call gets connected and then one has to press the power button repeatedly to switch on the screen till you hang up. It seems the phone has the proximity sensor bug which is not adjustable/repairable at this moment.

Network connectivity:- Phone works well in WCDMA preferred mode. Auto switching between 3G and 2G bands work properly. 3G data can download any file from anywhere without compromising on battery or overall OS stability.

Social Networks:- Facebook initialization, log-in and usage showed no lags of using a 600 MHz processor, Tapatalk, Forum Runner and Whatsapp worked flawlessly in this so called low powered device. Inspite of all the power hungry apps running in background, the back panel did not warm up. Touch was as responsive as it was designed.

Screen:- With a 3.5 inch HVGA screen, images did not look cheap, videos did not shudder at any time. The bottom padding and key size of HTC ime is not adjustable so in some websites/ form fills it can be a little hectic to space out the type margin while using the HTC ime. Auto brightness works well and this phone's lowest brightness level is lower than most phones. Chrome does have visual niggles on this phone as in others.

Camera:- No autofocus and no flash but still the image quality is not that cheap. HTC Sense 4 UI camera fits well with this phone's hardware aperture. Low light imagery is not good though. Camera can click fast and review time in gallery is fast.

Battery:- Cannot expect a week long battey life just because the hardware is limited and screen size is smaller. Battery lasts for about 4 hours talktime on WCDMA and 5 hours on GSM. 3G data does take up the jiuce fast but slightly better than faster devices. Battery never heated up at any point of time. Music time lasted very well.

OS-UI:- HTC's Sense UI 4A on 4.0.3 ICS on a low powered entry level device. The performance of this combination did not let down HTC's reputation. But this is surely not a gamepad. Games do not work well on this phone.

Overall:- A better entry phone with a workable and tweakable OS. Future ROM developement can improve phone operations drastically. At 98 gms it is worthwhile for those using for heavy duty calling. Music quality with Beats Audio is fine.

Hint:- Do not unlock bootloader and root your phone, custom roms (fewer) are unstable and not daily drivers. Reverting back to stock RUU is not possible because of non-availability of stock boot.img, Bootloader re-locked will continue to show warnings, CID errrors and more.

Specifications

General

2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 3G Network HSDPA 900 / 2100

Body

Dimensions 107.2 x 60.6 x 12.3 mm Weight 100 g Touch-sensitive controls

Display

Type Capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors Size 320 x 480 pixels, 3.5 inches (~165 ppi pixel density) Multitouch Yes HTC Sense UI v4.0

Sound

Alert types Vibration, MP3, WAV ringtones Loudspeaker Yes 3.5mm jack Yes Beats Audio sound enhancement

Memory

Card slot microSD, up to 32 GB Internal 4 GB storage, 512 MB RAM

Data

GPRS Yes EDGE Yes Speed HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot Bluetooth Yes, v4.0 with A2DP NFC Optional USB Yes, microUSB v2.0

Camera

Primary 5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus Features Geo-tagging Video Yes Secondary No

Features

OS Android OS, v4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) Chipset Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU 600 MHz Sensors Accelerometer, proximity Messaging SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email Browser HTML, Adobe Flash Radio TBD GPS Yes, with A-GPS support Java Yes, via Java MIDP emulator Colors Polar White, Stealth Black, Flamenco Red SNS integration MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV player MP3/eAAC+/WMA/WAV player Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk Organizer Document viewer Voice memo/dial Predictive text input

Battery

Standard battery, Li-Ion 1230 mAh

This is a personal review and does not represent the product as a whole nor is a matter of generalization.

[zen_search 14]

Good review. I was thinking about going for this handset, but will reconsider because of the power button issue!

[mac_lion 13]

very nice review ... as expected from an exp. member ..... keep posting...