HTC Desire V review

Introduction

Long gone are the glory days of the Desire line - once a cradle of flagships, it now gives in to the rise of the One series. With the Wildfires all but extinguished, the Desires got the lower midrange all to themselves. But instead of clinging to a glorious past, they're now trusted to start winning over the next generation of smartphone users.

The market is ripe for dual-SIM droids, and all the major manufacturers are taking note. Dual-SIMs have helped plenty of people optimize costs and make sense too as a stepping stone for anyone willing to move on from dumbphones. No wonder then, HTC are trying to tap into a niche that's just about started growing.

HTC Desire V official pictures

Whether the HTC Desire V is welcome in this niche is a completely different matter - competition has never been tougher. And we don't just mean the swarms of dual-SIM droids by manufacturers nobody has heard of. The big players in Samsung, LG, Motorola and Sony want a piece too.

The Desire V is based on the Qualcomm MSM7227A chipset and powered by a 1GHz Cortex-A5 processor and Adreno 200 graphic core. That's a pretty standard configuration in the lower midrange. Dual-SIM support is of course the key feature but with a 4" WVGA screen, Sense UI and a 5MP camera, the Desire V is more than just a starter package.

Key features

• Dual-SIM (Dual Stand-by) GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• Dual-band 3G support on SIM 1
• 7.2 Mbps HSDPA, 5.76 Mbps HSUPA support
• 4.0" 16M-color TFT capacitive touchscreen of WVGA resolution (480 x 800)
• 1GHz single-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 MSM7227A chipset, Cortex A5 CPU, 512MB RAM, Adreno 200 GPU
• 4GB of on-board storage
• Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) with HTC Sense 4 UI
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with hotspot functionality
• GPS with A-GPS connectivity
• 5 MP camera, geotagging, face detection
• WVGA video @ 21fps
• microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v3.0
• microSD slot (up to 32GB)
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Accelerometer, proximity sensor
• Polaris Office doc viewer / editor
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• Smart dialing
• DivX/XviD video support

Main disadvantages

• Modest chipset and below-par overall performance
• No front-facing camera
• Poor video recording
• Feeble loudspeaker

Surely the Desire V is far from the best spec'd smartphone you can get for the price, but it is easily among the more attractive dual-SIM droids on offer. Raw power and the latest in connectivity are typically not the target audience's top priority. But we're sure Android ICS with Sense 4.0 will be widely appreciated.

HTC Desire V live pictures

It's too early though to make judgments. We'll get to that but not before we've seen the HTC Desire V in action. Our usual hardware check-up is coming up right after the jump.