HTC Desire C review

Are you a seasoned Android user looking for ICS on a budget or a learner ready for that big step into smartphones? Is it the journey or the destination? HTC will be pleased to welcome you on board either way. And they're making sure you start on the right foot.

Meet the Desire C. The little one at the feet of giants. The adopted child of the blue-bloods in the One family. The HTC Desire C is about half the size of a One X and has only a fraction of its processing power but the C in the name doesn't only signify compact, it also stands for comfort and capability.

   

The Taiwanese have a solid record in the entry-level smartphone segment. To be fair, their pricing is not the most competitive but the build, fit and finish of their smartphones are hard to beat. Beauty anyway is in the eye of the beholder, so here are the solid facts about the Desire C.

Key features

• Light and compact
• Quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G support
• 14.4 Mbps HSDPA, 5.76 Mbps HSUPA support
• 3.5" 16M-color TFT capacitive touchscreen of HVGA resolution (320 x 480)
• 600MHz single-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 MSM7227A chipset, Cortex A5 CPU, 512MB RAM, Adreno 200 GPU
• 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
• VGA video @ 24fps
• 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
• 25GB of free Dropbox
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• Smart dialing
• DivX/XviD video support
• HTCSense.com integration
• Adobe Flash support
• Surprisingly good audio output

Main disadvantages

• Feeble CPU
• Modest retail package
• Fixed-focus camera
• No front-facing camera

That's a long list of features showing HTC have done their homework. Entry-level phones are usually ranked by the best bang-for-the-buck and the Desire C appears equipped well above the average. The biggest doubt is cast by the single-core 600MHz Cortex A5 processor but running Ice Cream Sandwich right out of the box is a nice way to make amends. This market is all about give and take.

   

The Desire C is super compact and lightweight for an amazingly comfortable feel in hand. It's still very well put together and oozes the usual HTC quality. Follow us after the break for more on the design and construction.

Samsung break smartphone sales record in Q2

The official numbers aren't out just yet, but according to Reuters, Samsung might have broken the smartphone sales record in what is otherwise considered a pretty slow quarter.

Reuters polled 41 analysts and, based on their estimates, claim that the Korean company shipped 50 million smartphones in Q2. That would make Samsung an undisputed smartphone leader as the second-placed Apple reportedly experienced a drop in its sales and shipped 30 million units compared to 35 million in Q1.

Undoubtedly the strong performance of Samsung is helped by the launch of its flagship device - the Galaxy S III, which first became available at the end of May. With the smartphone only finding its way to the US shelves in Q3 we should probably expect more good news from Samsung in three months' time.

As for Apple - the demand for the iPhone was naturally weaker in Q2 as it's starting to show signs of age (the 4S was already 8 months old at the end of the quarter). There are also rumors that this has forced Apple to move the launch of the iPhone 5 to an earlier date, reportedly at the start of August, instead of the planned October release.

	Mean	Median	High	Low	No	Yr ago	Change	Prev.Q
Global Smartphones	151	151	163	126	17	89.0	69.7	145
Global Cellphones	405	400	422	375	25	365	11.0	398
Samsung -Smart devices	95.8 50.0	94.5 50.0	105 55.0	88.0 46.0	12 9	70.0 17.0	36.9 194.1	93.8 42.2
Nokia -Smart devices --Windows	80.1 10.4 3.71	81.0 11.0 4.00	90.0 13.0 5.00	70.0 5.00 2.00	40 33 24	88.5 17.0 n/a	-9.5 -38.8 n/a	82.7 11.9 2.00
Apple	30.5	30.0	37.0	26.0	16	20.3	50.2	35.1
ZTE	24.3	24.5	29.0	21.0	6	13.0	86.9	19.1
LG	14.4	14.0	17.0	13.0	12	24.8	-41.9	13.7
Huawei	17.7	16.0	23.0	14.0	3	11.9	48.7	10.8
HTC	9.52	9.50	11.0	8.30	13	12.1	-21.3	7.70
Motorola	9.32	9.00	11.0	8.00	14	11.0	-15.3	8.90
Sony	8.11	8.00	10.0	5.70	12	7.60	6.7	7.90
RIM	7.99	8.00	11.0	6.00	16	13.0	-38.5	9.90

The Reuters report also points at Samsung as the World's number one cellphone manufacturer in general, a title the company holds for a second consecutive quarter after overtaking Nokia in Q1. According to the analysts the Koreans sold a total of 95.8 million mobile phones (that's smartphonesand featurephones) during Q2, compared to the 80.1 million that Nokia managed.

The bit of good news for Nokia is that the company managed to ship 3.71 million Windows Phone smartphones, which is a more than 65% increase over the 2.2 million in the first three months of the year. If the Finns manage to retain the same level of growth through the year they might be back in the smartphone game come the holiday quarter.

Samsung plans to unveil the Galaxy Note 2 on August 30

According to the Korean Digital Daily website Samsung is planning to have an Unpacked event for the Galaxy Note 2. It should happen on August 30 - a day before the IFA expo kicks off in Berlin, Germany.

According to the information the event will start at 19:00 (local time, CET) and will be all about the Galaxy Note 2. As the latest rumors have it, the Note’s successor will be powered by a quad-core Exynos chipset, will feature a 13MP camera and will actually be narrower despite the larger, 5.5" screen. Android 4.1 Jelly Bean should be powering the whole thing.

With the original Galaxy Note going official at last year's IFA, it was only logical for its successor to arrive at the same event a year later. Yet, Samsung decided not to bring the Galaxy S III to the MWC earlier this year, so there was always the chance that the Koreans will have a separate event for their other key device as well. It's good this isn't the case, though.

Naturally, we'll be onsite covering the Sasmung Galaxy Note 2 announcement live for you, so make sure to keep an eye on our homepage when the time comes.