HTC Desire Vs HTC Desire S – Specs, Size and Software

Here it is, the official DesireFanatics showdown between the mighty HTC Desire and the new boy in town: the HTC Desire S.

Having owned the HTC Desire since it’s launch on the T-Mobile network last February, I must say I’m still happy with my phone. There have been a couple of additions to the Desire range but they didn’t quite have the same impact as the original Desire (possibly the Desire HD being the most talked about out of the two – the other being the Desire Z of course).

So let’s see what HTC have tweaked and improved with a year’s worth of feedback and reflection. The reason I say ‘tweak’ and ‘improve’ is because the Desire in its own right was pretty much perfect in both design and features.

[update 09/06/11) I have just made a video to compliment this story which you can see below. I still recommend reading the rest of the article once you’ve watched the video though ;)]

So let’s get down to business.

Size

For those of you who say size doesn’t matter – it does – at least when phones are involved. Bigger is certainly not better but too small and it’s unusable, the size of the handset is very important.

As you can see, the HTC Desire S is slightly smaller than it’s older brother. The only thing you would notice really however is the fact it is thinner than the Desire.

CPU and Memory

HTC Desire:1GHz with 512MB internal memory
HTC Desire S: 1GHz with 1.1GB internal memorye th

The Desire S still ‘only’ has a 1GHz like the Desire. This is disappointing. As we start to see new Android handsets shipping with dual-core CPUs I was hoping for something more from HTC.

The internal  memory has been more than doubled in the revised Desire. This is good news for speed and app space improvements however it isn’t a huge amount. It would have been nice to see maybe 4GB of internal storage – just for future proofing but this would have put up the production costs I suppose. As more and more apps support moving to SD storage it should become less of a problem but I still can’t help feeling a little underwhelmed.

Platform

HTC Desire: Android 2.2 Froyo
HTC Desire S: Android 2.3 Gignerbread

The Desire started its life with Eclair 2.1 but was then updated to Froyo 2.2. This brought with it speed and functionality improvements. We can expect the same improvements from Gingerbread.

Battery

HTC Desire: 1400mAh
HTC Desire S: 1450mAh

What?! Did HTC not see the problems users had with battery life in their Desires? Increasing the battery size by 50mAh is not really going to help. Let’s hope that Gingerbread brings even more improvements to the battery life so the Desire S with it’s increased bells and whistles can last at least a day.

Camera

HTC Desire: 5MP camera with single LED flash
HTC Desire S: 5MP cameria with single LED flash + front facing VGA camera

This is the big physical change on the desire – the inclusion of a front-facing camera. In no way is this new or amazing technology to have on a phone but it is nice to have as an option. I must admit, none of the phones I have had with a front-facing camera have had any use out of it but that might just be me. In a increasingly “FaceTime” (I hate that word) world, people start to expect these kinds of things. Skype will soon support video calls (if it doesn’t already) so it’ll be useful for many users. Still only a 5MP camera on the Desire S I would have thought HTC may have opted for 8MP at least.

Design

The second physical change in the handset is the new unibody design of the Desire S. This makes it a lot stronger and lighter (by 5 grams) than the Desire. HTC have also removed the physical buttons from the Desire S. This is something I was unsure about until today when I had the pleasure of using an HTC Wildfire. The touch-screen buttons worked well and the feedback received when pressing a button was sufficient enough for my liking. There is an interesting omission of the optical trackball. I often use this to move the text cursor around when correcting spelling errors so let’s hope Gingerbread introduces an easy and precise method of navigating through text.

Final thoughts

If I didn’t have a Desire I would get the Desire S in a heartbeat. Sadly I do have a Desire and I also have 12 months left on my contract. I admire HTC for improving the near-perfect Desire but it’s not enough to make me want to spend £400 on a new toy. I’m quite happy to spend another 12 months with my Desire however, I haven’t gotten bored of it yet like I have done with other phones. I think in the ever evolving world of apps and software updates it keeps consumers occupied for longer and thus the product’s lifespan also increases.

If you don’t have a Desire then go for the Desire S. If you do, I’d hold out until the Desire HD 2 comes out and we’ll see what that’s like 😉

Tags: android, camera, comparison, Desire, hd, HTC, mobile, phone, s, specifications, specs, z