There’s no denying that smartphones these days aren’t exactly cheap, especially when you pay up to $200 for a phone with a 24 -month contract. Here in Europe though, things are a little different – phones are pretty much cheaper or, at least they are for me in the UK. My One X for example was a free upgrade on my 24-month contract, sure I pay a little extra every month but I also get Unlimited Everything. This is great right? Well, it is if you can afford or want to spend the money on a contract every month. People are often more content with a simple arrangement of buying the phone outright and paying a small fee every month. This is a nice idea but, phones that are viable to buy at full-cost are pretty much always crap. HTC however, have been trying for some years to make a budget-oriented phone that makes little compromise. With the Desire X, it looks like they may have managed it.
The latest in HTC’s Desire line up is clearly styled like it’s older brother in the One Series – with styling cues from both the One X and the One S. Design wise this doesn’t look all that cheap nor does it scream budget device either, it really looks as if HTC have struck the right balance between form and function – as well as, price.
Specs wise this is packing a dual-core 1Ghz Snapdragon, it is in fact an S4 however, it’s from Qualcomm’s lower-end “Play” range so don’t expect this to calculate the meaning of life, the universe and everything. There’s a 4″ WVGA (that’s 800×480) display – which is said to be one of the better WVGA panels out there – as well as 4GB onboard storage with room a microSD plus 25GB free from Dropbox. The camera here, is less impressive at a middling 5MP however, there is autofocus, HDR and a flash so it’s not the end of the world. Battery life might be the only thing to drag the phone down, at 1650 mAh it’s hardly very big but then again, this is the company that thought 18000 mAh in my One X was a good idea so, I’d say it was more HTC than it has to do with price.
The phone is said to be coming to European and select Asian markets starting next month. Whether or not this phone makes it to the US is unlikely but, it’d be a real catch for one of the US carriers to perhaps offer this as free with a 2 year plan or even on Virgin Mobile.