HTC Desire Eye review
The HTC Desire Eye is designed as a selfie phone, but how does it compare to other smartphones on the market?
HTC has set out to create the ultimate selfie phone with the Desire Eye. It's got a massive front-facing camera with its own dedicated flash and a load of filters and effects to play with.
Launching with a £400 cover price means this isn't the cheapest phone on the market, but it's far from the £539 you'll need for the cheapest iPhone 6 model.
In fact, HTC has given the Desire Eye some pretty powerful components even though it's supposedly a mid-range phone. It's got a Full HD 5.2-inch screen, twin 13MP cameras and a Snapdragon 801 processor backed by 2GB of RAM.
Those specifications are comparable to the Taiwanese company's flagship HTC One M8 model that launched back at the start of 2014. Even the Samsung Galaxy S5 isn't far away from that kind of power.
There's only 16GB of storage – a far cry from the 128GB option on the massive £699 iPhone 6 Plus – but there is a microSD card slot hidden along the side of the phone. That means you can expand the memory by up to 128GB if you've got a lot of music or movies you want to carry around with you
Aside from the focus on selfies, the main difference between this phone and other top handsets is the plastic casing.
HTC has gone for a polycarbonate mould, rather than the more premium metal in order to keep costs down. There's a side benefit though: the HTC Desire Eye is waterproof. So you can get it out in the pouring rain without any worry that you're going to damage it.
Like the majority of HTC, Samsung, Sony and LG phones, the HTC Desire Eye uses Google's Android operating system. However, HTC has put its own spin on the software to give it a slightly different appearance from those other manufacturers.
HTC Desire Eye: Design
The Desire Eye comes in a choice of two different colours; either white with red trim or navy with a lighter blue trim. And even though the chassis isn't the premium metal of the iPhone 6 (or even the Samsung Galaxy Alpha), it's still one of the best parts of the phone.
The matte polycarbonate unibody makes this phone feel particularly sturdy and obviously a lot of effort has been put into its construction.
Alas, there are a couple of drawbacks. Firstly, for anyone with smallish hands, the 5.2-inch Desire Eye is going to be massive for you. Trying to operate the phone one-handed is next to impossible
Secondly, while the matte plastic body is comfortable to hold, it's also a bit slippy. It's a good thing the phone is sturdy, because you might drop it a couple of times.
Along the right hand side are the buttons: a power on/off switch, volume rocker and dedicated shutter button while the left hand side houses the nanoSIM and microSD card slots. Each slot is covered by a small flap to keep the phone waterproof.
HTC Desire Eye: Features
The front-facing 13 megapixel camera is clearly the headline feature of this phone and, while it's great to see HTC pushing camera tech forward, the results aren't the best we've ever seen. The cameras on the Nokia (now Microsoft) Lumia handsets tend to set the bar pretty high in this area.
The camera does reasonably well in low light areas thanks to the LED flash, but it suffers from overexposure a little bit in bright light.
However, you're not short of filters and effects to choose from and HTC has made sure there are plenty of software tools on the phone to crop and edit as you choose.
HTC Desire Eye: Performance
The HTC Desire Eye handles day-to-day performance very well. It's got plenty of power thanks to the impressive Snapdragon processor and 2GB of RAM – which is more than some tablets. Battery life takes a bit of a beating from the 5.2-inch 1080p high definition screen though.
Unless you really hammer the Desire Eye, you'll get 12 hours of use out of it without too much trouble. And, if you do find yourself running low, HTC has a nifty power saving mode you can use to shut down all the non-essential programs.
Although the phone is really big, it does make it an excellent choice for enjoying video and gaming. The phone gives you full access to Google's Play Store and you can buy and download all the latest games and movies. There's no lag in any of the demanding 3D games and it'll obviously display content in high definition.
Sound is also a really strong part of this phone thanks to HTC's front-facing BoomSound speakers. The company invented them for the original HTC One back in 2013 and has kept them going since. It means you get loads of volume and a good deal of range from the phone when you're listening to music or watching something.
HTC Desire Eye: Verdict
The Desire Eye isn't HTC's flagship phone, but its still a very good gadget in its own right. Even if you're not a big fan of selfies, the phone has enough in terms of performance and features to keep you happy over the course of a 24 month contract.
It's not perfect though. Many will find that a 5.2-inch phone is too big. And even though you can add a microSD card, there's still only 16GB of storage to play with.
Despite those issues, we really liked the HTC Desire Eye because of its impressive design and decent specifications. The screen and sound are great as well, making this a good choice for media power users. Battery life could be improved – but then again, it could on all smartphones.
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