[Closed] So, this HTC Desire thingy ?

I've got the HTC HD2 with T-Mobile. I use it for business and pay £30 for unlimited and I've never managed to get outside the tarrif.
Coverage has been fine.

bloke posted about ordering one the other day - think his deal was good too.

Desire not actually released yet!

Yeah thats the thread i saw, pretty good deal, you can even get them for £15 a month if you go for a 24 month contract.

I'm looking to upgrade my phone this month and the Desire certainly seems to tick a lot of boxes - the reviews are very favourable; a friend's got the HD2 and loves it.

It seems to offer a slightly higher spec and greater flexibility than the iPhone but I guess you won't have quite as much scope for "apps" & add ons.

I can't offer any hands on experience (are they actually available yet?) but I don't think you'd be disappointed.

ooOOoo

Imminent though, just thought we may have a Tmobile employee or somebody with access to one within the STW collective !

I'm looking to change contract from Voda to potentially T-Mobile and was wondering about this as well.

Normally I got for Sony Ericssons and was going to go for the W995, which is free if I go for £20/month on 300mins/300texts + booster pack thing over 24 months or £15/month for same package paying £68 for the phone.
I did wonder if it would be worth getting the HTC desire instead and paying a bit more. Not sure though.......HTC & the iPhone seem to have the only touchscreens I have used that just work although I'm not sure about the whole touchscreen thing in general.....

ooOOoo... if the Desire isn't realised yet, then how come I have one sat next to me on my desk? :o) It was sent through from T-Mobile on Saturday morning... but I believe they are now out of stock!

It's my first smartphone, so can't really compare it to anything else, and have only had it about 4 days, but so far it seems to be rather good and very easy to use. It's fast, looks pretty good for a phone I think, the display is beautifully clear and really nice to look at and with the multitouch stuff in Android 2.1 it's lovely to use too...

I'd definitely recommend it if you are after a smartphone. The only thing the JesusPhone has over any of the Android phones is the number of apps, but I would imagine that will change as more phones like this come out.

funkynick

Whats it like size wise, some of the reviews comment its a bit bigger than you would expect, its still pockatable easily ?

fbk... I'd say ultimately there is far more scope for add-ons and apps on the Android OS than the iPhone one purely due to Android being fully open source and you are able to install non-Market apps without having to jailbreak your phone with all the risks that entails.

As I said above, currently there are more apps for the iPhone, but that will change as more and more Android phones like the Desire hit the market.

After reading various reports I had horrible thoughts that it would be huuuuuge... but as it turns out it's smaller than I thought it would be, and sits really nicely in my hands (which aren't huge).

When I compared it to my old Nokia 6210 Navigator, it's taller and wider but a lot thinner, and sits pretty nicely in a pocket. Took it out for a run last night as well, and although I could tell it was in my jacket pocket, it wasn't too bad.

The only thing, as with all these things, is that the battery life isn't the best, but with lots of playing about (it's new after all) it still had about 25% of charge left last night... that's after using the GPS for a 50 min run, and playing You-Tube vids, and other surfing on WiFi...

I am also Desire owner (got mine Saturday morning too) and so far am well impresed with it. I was new to Android and maybe had some of the concerns about the whole operating system stuff, I should not have bothered thinking about it. The apps available for Android are really pretty good (yes, even an Iplayer equivalent, where's that on your Iclones??) the enthusiasm you can get from people of android forums is obvious. The whole fixed memory, fixed battery, have to use itunes meant I would not get a iclone, nor would I ever. Tmobile have so craking deals at the moment, if you think the desire is too much the Legend is very nice indeed.

Hmmm all sounding good, might give O2 one last chance to some up with a deal, which they won't of course

I have to admit i like the look of the Legend over the Desire but its not on the TMobile site anymore.

I stand corrected, you early adopters you 🙂

I'm waiting for the X10 myself, but the desire is still desirable.

How well built would you say it is? Metal housing?

I believe the Legend is gonna be exclusive to Vodafone...

The phone feels pretty solid to me, although it is plastic there does not seem to be any flex or bend in it, and feels good, although the Legend, being machined out of a block of alu, would be more solid still...

But the Desire feels far from being cheap and plasticy..

I've got a Nexus One, which is pretty much the same phone:

Good points: slick interface, android is pretty good, lots of apps available, huge screen.

Bad points: battery life if you use it a lot (esp. web, bluetooth...) Price.

ooOOoo

Not metal housing, thats exclusive to the Legend i think, the techradar review suggests the build qaulity is good and solid

mogrim... is the N1 even officially released over here? I've not seen it on any of the networks yet.

I'd not say the Desire was particularly expensive, I paid more on my last contract for my Nokia 6210 than I am now.

Mine's a grey import, here to Spain. And as you say, price is relative.

I'm liking the look of the Desire...shame it looks as expensive as the iphone if you want to buy it on Prepay though 🙁

funkynick does t-mobile brand their hansets at all? I really dislike vodafone for the branding they seem to put everywhere. iphone doesn't allow it so i'm ok for now but Desire is one I am seriously thinking about as a replacement.....

No branding bar the boot up screen

fwb2006 cool good news indeed, sounding better all the time, though I have uintil the 17th July (thought it was sooner) so plenty of time to see what Apple bring out!

apparently the desire is coming soon on o2

Billybob, where did you hear that?

Its been rumoured for a while, looks like end of April:

http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/o2-confirms-htc-desire-for-uk-too-670968

I'll be getting the Legend when I upgrade from my HTC Hero, but the Desire looks like a good middle ground & that price isn't too bad.
Although, see how much more it costs each month to get the phone for free - say it's £10/month then you might as well do that as it'd be the same as paying outright now.

Expansys.co.uk occasionally have a good deal on where you can get an unbranded phone on the same network & tariff and it's almost exactly the same deal. I actually did better than going to T-Mobile direct by using them.

does t-mobile brand their hansets at all?

Dibbs - have a look on XDA-Developers.com put HardSPL on it, then you can flash the updated ROM onto the phone (use something like SPD back up to save all your data on the phone - things on your memory card wont be touched)

I did that pretty much as soon as i got the phone.

tho saying that - it does invalidate your warranty, but there are instructions on how to return the phone to factory settings if you need to for warranty purposes

That said - I'm in the same situation as the original poster, I went through to 02 retentions a couple days ago & they said what phones are you looking at & I mentioned the desire & the iphone, they wouldn't offer me a better deal on the iphone than on the website if I was a new customer & didn't say anything about the desire coming to o2.

Now if they were switched on you'd think they'd say just hold on sec we've got the desire at the end of the month just display some patience...

billybob

Worth trying retentions again, they offered me an 8GB iPhone 3G for £24 a month, i think it depends who you get on the other end of the phone.

looks like i'll have one in a couple of months; virgin just got 'em too and i'm due an upgrade. nice.

billybob

Worth trying retentions again, they offered me an 8GB iPhone 3G for £24 a month, i think it depends who you get on the other end of the phone.

They're too late now - just got a desire from Carphone Warehouse - to be fair to o2 they offered me the iphone 3g for the same price - but again it can be found on the front page of their webstore & it's a refurb with only 100mins talk time (or at least that's what they offered me!)

billybob, i'll be interested in your opinion of it.....

so far impressed - mildly spooked by getting contact cards when updating it with facebook - anyone who put there mobile contact details in there is now in my phone...

I like it very much, my first smart phone so am pretty impressed with what you can do.

Anyone thinking about flashing a custom ROM - wait for a week or two to make sure the phone works properly. HTC will not honour warranties for phones where the bootloader has been unlocked.

Had mine almost a week now. This is my 3rd smart phone, previous 2 were MDA 2 & 3 running Windows Mobile.

The Desire / Android OS is WAY better!!!

Bought one of these today on t-mobile & so far am well impressed.

Not too big, easy to set-up screen works well although text entry if u have large fingers might be a pain.

Not sure I'm that impressed with Facebook taking over a bit, but can always remove/deactivate.

Not sure I'm that impressed with Facebook taking over a bit, but can always remove/deactivate.

At least it's given my contacts some nice pictures.

I'm also liking how I can sync with ical/google calendar/phone calendar, & even putting my facebook events onto my calendar...

i'm getting frustrated by lack of options in google calendar - birthdays & other things not being done properly, it can't be that hard, sort it out!!!

So, where is the cheapest place to buy?! Don't mind paying a bit for the phone if it works out cheaper overall, I will be a very low user for calls and texts, just the data I will need 🙂

Mine was from T-Mobile for 15 quid a month - 300 mins 300 texts, unlimited internet & flexible booster. Contract is 24 months & phone cost 129 quid.
Never paid for a phone before, but felt like treating myself.
Just found the first issue though while typing this - there's no pound sign I can find, hence me typing "quid"!

Try mobiles.co.uk, but also expansys.co.uk to see what deals they may be doing themselves

The pound sign is on the 2nd page of symbols. Bit of an ars£ (typed on my Hero)!

Thanks Stumpy, that doesn't sound too bad...works out about the same overall as buying it prepay 🙂

Best deals I've found for this phone are either direct through T-mobile, or mobilephonesdirect.co.uk do some good "free" phone contract deals.

I wouldn't touch mobiles.co.uk - they're owned by the carphonewarhouse (along with an awful lot of other big name online retailers!)

What is T-Mobiles coverage like compared to the likes of O2 and Voda ?

Very much depends on where you live. Orange is generally the best round here (mid Wales) but T-mobile seems to be catching up and may improve with the Orange/T-mobile merger.
They've got a facility on their website for you to put a load of post codes in and it will give you an idea of what you can expect. They also say that if you use this feature, then buy a phone and the coverage isn't as good is they say, you can get a refund...

Cheers for that d_r - found it! Didn't notice the 2nd page. Thought the symbols page was a bit sparse!

There is nothing wrong, per se, with mobiles.co.uk - I trialled an HTC TD2 on O2 with them, and returned it no problem within the fortnight cooling off period.
I did borrow a friend's sim card to test it though, to avoid using the bundled one, as doing that would have meant I accepted the contract.

Got mine on Wednesday from mobilephonesdirect.co.uk. Fast delivery, and slightly cheaper than t mobile direct. Got it free on a 25 a month 18 month. Works out a bit cheaper than paying 129 up front.

Dead impressed with phone, screen is incredible, and makes my iPhone look a bit poo. Screen surround (the bronzey bit) is metal, and feels pretty solid all round. Battery life similar to iPhone, seems to be some good apps on the marketplace, and pretty impressed with Android so far. Not immediately as easy to use as the iPhone, but with a bit of practice should be fine, and I think you have a bit more control over things.

Would definitely recommend it.

Ed

I got one last week...i honestly think it's be best designed object i've seen for a very long time. HTC really appear to be firing on all four cylinders at the moment. Even the manual is really well written. I am really impressed. Do they do a smaller version, cuz my wife (who's a total technophobe) is actually impressed.

@lodious

Consider the HTC Legend for your wife.

Do they do a smaller version, cuz my wife (who's a total technophobe) is actually impressed.

Boo! Waited three days for one of the local T-Mobile shops to get it in stock, then when there was no prospect of delivery I ordered from their online shop on Friday. 3 days was the delivery estimate due to demand...just had an email, rather than the expected 'dispatched today 48hr delivery' it was 'sorry out of stock, will be in 'very soon'.' Now maybe I'm being cynical but the lack of dates/estimates makes me think 'very soon' means a week or two...