HTC Desire C Sim Free Smartphone - Black (discontinued by manufacturer)

This is a very nice little phone. Some magazine and website reviews are a bit sniffy but a lot of that seems to be because they loved the ground-breaking HTC Desire and are dissapointed that this new phone doesn't excite them the same way. I didn't have the original Desire so don't look at it that way. This phone is at a very good price for what it does. As smartphones go this is cheap, yet it has lots of features and capabilities you would take for granted on a much more expensive phone. The screen is nice and responsive and the phone feels good in your hand. The latest version of Android and an adequate processor make it easy and fast to use. I'm not a phone gamer and I'm not watching lots of videos so I am not worried that its not quad core etc. The pre-loaded DropBox app. is useful though easy to install on any smartphone as are the social network pre-loaded apps. One thing to note, which is a mistake I made. If you are an Orange mobile and broadband subscriber and you saw this phone in the list of phones that can use the Orange "Signal Boost" facility on your home broadband, be aware that only phones bought directly from Orange can do this and it cannot be downloaded as an app!! No one I know would every willing have a smartphone with the awful "Orange World" interface and pre-loaded apps. especially when you can have the lovely HTC skin, so I will have to find another way round the lack of signal at home problem. Battery life is always a problem with smartphones and this one is no worse or better than others. The phone is small, so the screen can seem a bit tight when typing and it is annoying that pre-loaded apps. you don't want and even unused ringtones etc. cannot be deleted but these are minor niggles. All in all, well worth the money.

1Very good audio, power amp player has srs option which I did not have on my xperia ray (license issue). Play almost every day at work for 2 or 3 hours (I have a dead end job - basically I have been doing the same thing for 20 years and I am going to get some cert for it, not exactly the Queen's Silver Jubilee....but!!! :)), I only play FLAC. The new vlc player also works well, flac only - never play mp3!Also Beats Audio adds extra volume enhancement without distortion, better audio than xperia ray.2gps is as good as it can be, use free gps from navfree, works off-line too, very accurate but I still prefer to use 2 gps devices the other being sony psp gps - personal preference when driving.3The video works well in light, it is easy to watch video even in the car. As it is not too large or distracting, with higher contrast still visible with driving routes I know by heart.4Tesco sim works well which did not work well with my xperia ray which was also a smaller phone.5After 6 months of use mainly listening to FLAC audio, and playing paper plane 2 (free) and 3 - video seemed to be going choppy, and iplayer went seriously bad including video playback, but a hard reset fixed the issue, though the xperia ray could do a reset without deleting apps, but this was almost double the price and it did need resets once in a while!6It has a lower processor of 600Hz Cortex A5 but it can still play Air Navy Fighters well enough, and this is a very good fighter plane simulation which works with the motion sensor!!!7Do not connect to XP!8For me battery life is not that big an issue as it is an A5 energy efficient processor, and I am constantly connecting to the computer moving new music and deleting old music and it charges automatically in the ...9U can keep adding apps and moving to micro sdhc card whereas with my Xperia i was always deleting apps that i could not move and i needed another app to move the apps whereas the c does it for u in apps so it just feels more generous than the Ray (which probably is a good comparison phone)???10I asked somebody at work who has an iphone to try out iplayer, it was just a little bit quicker - then he played a video and said - no problem, it works. But I pointed out that it had stutter and audio and video were out of sync! So this was problem not with the c desire but with the iplayer.update after 1 years use1 You cannot root it, you have to unlock bootloader first2 Installed CynagenMod 4.1 for greater stability and speed - everything is fine and stable.3 Put in a new Kernal which overclocks the phone from 700 to 900.4 My 64GB card works well now with no time lag5 I can run Neutron Player which uses 64bit DAC on high settings so even art work bounces when you play music

I bought this phone as I needed to- Use Whatsapp & Skype to speak to my girlfriend who lives abroad- Finally have a camera phone (following a year in Asia using a £20 basic phone)- Use dictionaries and translators for learning foreign languages.Basically, if you don't have a smartphone, it's a life saver. It does more than I initially thought, the maps function is fast and accurate, I'm constantly playing music (downloaded Mixzing Music App (free) - highly recommended) on it, and the interface is just gorgeous, as with all HTCs. I'd rather have this small thing than an iPhone, the only thing you'd gain from that is a faster processor, then you pay 3x more for it.Things I wish I'd considered: A forward facing camera. Then it'd tick all boxes, Skype still runs quite incredibly well, and it's nice to have it facing you if you're cooking and talking for example, but you won't be able to see the recipient (unless you're handy with mirrors).I knew the processor would be slow, that's the one thing that lets it down. But then for the price it's definitely worth putting up with. Actually, it only actually started being slow after I heaped lots of music files on it, so can hardly be blamed. I had little money to buy this, so if you've got £50 spare, maybe get the HTC Desire S (didn't go for the One V as half the reviews I read were about how many faulty units are being put out), for a faster processor. Can't remember but maybe it has a front facing camera too.All in all, so impressed with this unit! Would buy it again if it got trod on by a mule.