HTC Desire 600 Review

HTC has launched quite a good number of devices in the premium segments for this year viz. HTC One and HTC Butterfly S. HTC One had got raving reviews for its classy design and superb configuration. And now, HTC is turning towards low-range and mid-range smartphones through its Desire series. Desire 600 is the latest offering from the company in the mid-segment. We got a chance to play with it and here’s our thought about it-

 

 

Design and Build Quality

The device takes inspiration from both HTC One and Butterfly S resulting in the body which is combination of both aluminum and plastic. The phone is primarily having a plastic chassis and back, it also has a metallic edges running along the sides. It also features dual speakers at the front a la BoomSound feature. The front also has secondary camera and sensors at the top, and usual HTC’s capacitive buttons at the bottom. To give it a distinct look it has red accents below the speakers as well as the back around the rear camera. Other ports and controls follow a similar layout of HTC devices with volume rocker on right, headphone jack and power button at top, and microUSB port at the bottom. The back of the smartphone is glossy plastic and thus prone to fingerprints.

Overall device feels great in hands, however we would suggest going with a cover since the back can become slippery after prolonged usage.

Display

HTC Desire 600 sports a 4.5 inch S LCD display with qHD resolution of 540 x 960 pixels, resulting in average pixel density of 245 ppi. It offers vivid colors and good viewing angles.

 

 

Performance

The smartphone is powered by a 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM 8625Q quad-core processor and Adreno 203 GPU for rendering graphics. But, even though it has quad-core processor, the device felt sluggish often. Even the 1 GB RAM didn’t came to the rescue. During our usage, the device felt underpowered.

Memory and Connectivity

In memory department, it has an 8 GB in-built storage, out of which approx. 4.2 GB is available to the user. The smartphone also allows memory expansion up to 32 GB via microSD card.

The good part about the device is that it’s dual-SIM with both running simultaneously and able to connect to 2G/ 3G network. It also has Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS.

Interface

The device runs on Android 4.1 (JellyBean) OS with Sense 5 customization. The interface was pretty and clean, however HTC have added some apps and modified the interface. BlinkFeed feature brings latest updates and social feeds in a visual manner right at the home screen. It comes preloaded with most of the Google apps such as Chrome, Gmail, etc. Although, they become as duplicates since HTC has also added its browser and Mail application. Gallery offers really intuitive way of watching videos with 30 seconds highlights option.

Camera and Multimedia

HTC Desire 600 comes with an 8 MP shooter at the back with LED flash and Auto focus. Unlike HTC One which has an ultrapixel camera, this one is a normal camera. It also has several features such as face detection, geo-tagging, etc. However, the camera disappoints as it had average quality and the images show unnatural colors. The LED flash is also sub-par for taking image in low-light conditions. Same can be said about the quality of videos which can be shot for 720 pixels at 24 fps.

The best part about the device is its multimedia capabilities. Backed by dual speakers at the front, the sound output is a notch above the usual devices. Moreover, since the speakers are at the front, sound doesn’t get muffled when the device is kept on a surface. The device can play most of the audio and video formats natively. Although, there was a noticeable lag while playing mkv videos.

 

Battery Life

The smartphone has a 1800 mAh battery which can help the device to run more than a day of average usage of few hours of calls, messaging, multimedia usage, internet surfing and playing games.

Conclusion

HTC Desire 600 is an interesting proposition with some unique features at the mid-range segment. However, it faces tough competition from LG Nexus 4, Samsung Galaxy S3, etc. which offers better performance and features.

Author-

The Guest Author of this post is Julia. She wrote several tech posts for 91mobiles.com.Her passion for upgrading her knowledge puts her to research on topics relevant to her industry. Besides, she also likes to share her findings by writing about them in her free time.