HTC launched the brand new Desire 210 at an event in Delhi today. A global launch for the ailing smartphone manufacturer, the Desire 210 represents a new direction and renewed focus at HTC as it doubles down on the things that matter and aims at reclaiming it’s market share. We got to spend some time with the budget device to form our impressions of what is poised to be a hot seller in the entry level segment. Read on for our first impressions.
The Desire 210’s design language harks back to an older HTC but still manages to stand out from the competition. The design isn’t the most premium given the price point but it looks good enough and the quality of materials makes up for it. The front of the phone is dominated by a 4 inch WVGA display. The screen is of the LCD variety and we felt that the phone could do with a brighter panel. The color rendition is fairly accurate though viewing angles aren’t impressive at all. Additionally, the contrast ratio could be better. Sunlight visibility was just about average too as we had to crank up the brightness levels to the highest possible to view anything outdoors.
The port arrangement on the phone is pretty much the same as you’d see on any other entry level device. At the left lies the micro USB port while the top of the phone sports a headphone jack. Over on the right side of the phone is the volume rocker and power button. Tactile feedback on the buttons is satisfactory. The phone uses capacitive buttons under the display as can be seen above. We do wish that HTC had managed to reduce the bezel size on the device.
The back of the phone is made of a black polycarbonate material thought it appears more like slate grey. The material feels good to hold and doesn’t really attract fingerprints which isn’t something that we can say about the front of the phone. An HTC logo is etched into the removable back plate. The 5MP camera module can be seen up top and unfortunately it lacks an LED flash. This could prove to be rather disappointing for prospective buyers. We’ll reserve judgement on the camera module for the full review but suffice it to say that you won’t be doing any award winning photography on this piece of kit.
Under the back panel lies the 1300 mAh battery, micro SD card slot and the two SIM card slots. You get a combination of micro SIM and full size SIM card slots. Powering the phone is a 1Ghz dual core Mediatek MT6572M processor paired with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage. Performance in general was a mixed bag. There are occasional lags and frame drops even when navigating the interface but the app drawer is generally smooth enough. The phone performs no worse than other devices in it’s category. We’ll need to put it through further tests to see if there will be a perceptible drop in performance and usability over time.
HTC has a lot banking on the Desire 210. The success of entry level products like the Desire 210 and 310 are critical for them to recover their market share and improve bottom lines. The Desire 210 makes its mark felt by being a perfectly average device. A phone that is good enough and doesn’t try too hard. It competes and in our opinion should be able to stand it’s ground against other smartphones like the Nokia X. Watch out for the full review soon where we’ll put the device through its paces and get you more in depth information.