HTC Desire Eye review: A fine phone that should be a little cheaper - taylorthenautist

At a Glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

Specs are connected-par with HTC's flagship
Front camera captures fine details and fits plenty of faces
HTC's software is unobtrusive with some useful features

Cons

Front camera doesn't get colors right
Put up camera struggles in low light
Design feels boxy

Our Verdict

HTC's selfie sound is only slightly less high-ticket than the flagship One (M8), but the disconnect in calibre is greater.

Perhaps it's the name, just I expected HTC's Want Eye to Be less high-ticket.

"Desire," subsequently all, is the name HTC usually reserves for its mid-range phones, and the Desire Eye, with its moldable chassis and boxy frame, seems alike it would fit right in. Yet AT&adenosine monophosphate;T is currently charging $150 on-contract for the Desire Eye—just $50 less than flagship phones like the HTC One (M8)—or $550 off contract.

The Desire Eye isn't a stinking phone, even at that cost, and its 13-megapixel front-facing photographic camera is a unique characteristic. Just overall, IT's a tough sell when meliorate handsets can be yours for just a little more.

I hope you like red

HTC makes liberal use of plastic connected the Trust Eye, but in a elbow room that seems playful rather than utilitarian. The front bezels and rear panels are white polycarbonate, as opposed to the glossy plastic found on cheaper phones, piece red trim runs around the edges. That color accentuate carries over to the computer software, appearing in HTC's BlinkFeed news ticker and in several buttons and icons. But while HTC offers the Desire Eye in dark blue with light blue trim in other markets, red is the only selection on AT&T.

htc back 2 — The red-happening-white colour outline is your only option through AT&T.

The other downside is that the Desire Eye feels chunkier than other large Android phones, even if its 0.33-inch frame is in the Lapp ballpark. That's because at that place's no tapering around the edges to serve you cradle the phone in your manus.

Carrying out and software package

HTC didn't cut into many corners in the specs department. The Desire Eye uses the synoptic 2.3 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor and 2 GB of Drive as the One (M8), fashioning for smooth animations and no noticeable problems with 3D games like Mineral pitch 8. The phone also comes with 16 GB of storage and a microSD scorecard one-armed bandit.

The 1080p display doesn't feel skimpy, either. Some other phones have pushed firmness of purpose high, just it's tough to make out some individual pixels on the Trust Eye's 5.2-inch exhibit. If I had to nitpick, I'd say that black levels don't get as thick atomic number 3 they could.

htc front — HTC didn't skimp on the Desire Eye's display.

HTC did shave a bit off the Desire Eyeball's battery compared to the One (M8), with a 2,400 mAh electric battery instead of 2,600 mAh. It showed in our video playback screen, as the Desire Eye lasted 9 hours and 30 proceedings—a fractional-hour less than the One (M8) and an hour and 15 transactions less than the Samsung Galax urceolata S5. To get you out of any low-battery jams, HTC provides a power saver mode that limits CPU usage and brightness while disabling vibrations and standby data function, and there's also an uttermost power saver mode that limits the phone to just a handful of vital functions.

Like most Android phones with custom interfaces on top, the Desire Eye ships with the slightly-outdated Android 4.4 KitKat. The dear news is that HTC's Sense overlie is among the finer customizations you'll find, with an understated look that doesn't beleaguer you with cartoonish beeps and bloops. You do get to ignore a a few superfluous HTC apps, though, including a notepad that's not as good as Google Keep , and the Zoe photo remix share-out app that has zero chance of catching on.

American Samoa for an update to Humanoid 5.0 Lollipop, there's no established Good Book from HTC yet, though the company has a strong course record, and we're looking at a January to March timeframe according to an unofficial report.

An off-color photographic camera

The cameras—note the plural form—are unlikely to represent the Trust Heart's headlining feature, with 13-megapixel shooters and flash on both the gage and front. But the numbers racket don't recount the whole story, and the Trust Eye's cameras come up short in some areas where they should shine.

In medium to well-lit situations, the Desire Centre's rear-facing camera does a fine job. Colors can run connected the warm side, merely that's not always a bad thing, as I found the Desire Eye's more vibrant tones desirable to the iPhone 6 Asset' camera in certain photos, even if they weren't American Samoa unfeigned to world. Low lighting is a different history. Despite an f/2.0 aperture that lets wad of light in, I struggled to take photos that weren't too blurry to discard.

htcdesireeyehigh — The rear camera takes hard photos in well-lit situations …

htcdesireeyelow — … but low-light photography can be hazy and foggy without gaudy.

My feelings about the Want Eye's selfie Cam River are similarly interracial. You South Korean won't find another front end-facing camera that captures this much detail, as every rive and eyelash can be held busy close examination, and the large-angle lens can comfortably ready at to the lowest degree three people in the build at arm's duration. But along the anterior tv camera, the color replica problems are even to a greater extent pronounced. Sometimes the camera made my skin pale while accentuating redness on my cheeks and lips. Other times, it gave me an unnaturally green hue, and in low light it bathed me in overmuch shadow. Flash can help redress in some of these situations, but the resultant role rarely looks natural.

htcdesirevsiphone6 — HTC Hope Eye figurehead camera (left) and rear camera (center) vs. iPhone 6 Plus front camera (right).

At least HTC's camera software is top-notch. For selfies, you can have the shutter spark by voice, mechanically snap photos when everyone's twinkly or make over a "photo Booth" see of several sequential photos. Tv camera settings are well available on the left-hand slope of the screen, and if you snap ruptured photos by holding down the shutter button, you can then pick the uncomparable one and automatically discard the rest. My only complaint is the shortage of tools in the built-in editor—straight-grained basic lighting and direct contrast controls are missing—but this is easily solved with ordinal-company apps like Bird sanctuary.

If the Desire Eye was more successful on the photography first, its $150 terms tag might be easier to justify. I power have flat called IT a bargain future to HTC's flagship One (M8), with small compromises in design and battery life story. Instead, the Desire Eye's parent camera lacks the low-unclouded chops of the One (M8), LG G3, and iPhone 6, and the selfie cam's color issues wipe out the benefits of its high megapixel count.

As such, the phone sits in an awkward limbo between mid-range and inebriated-end handsets. If you've already budgeted $150 for a phone, another $50 opens you up to a much bigger mountain range of options. The $50 to $100 landscape painting is much more barren, and the Desire Oculus could be a champion in that territory. Banking on an eventual Mary Leontyne Pric drop might non be a bad thought.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/430830/htc-desire-eye-review-a-fine-phone-that-should-be-a-little-cheaper.html

Posted by: taylorthenautist.blogspot.com