Released in 2010, HTC Desire Z is the second Android device of Taiwanese tech-magnet HTC. This handset has been meticulously designed combining the classy hardware, superior screen and an excellent QWERTY keyboard.
The well-constructed body of Desire Z flaunts a slide out keyboard with large and easy to use keys. Instead of gliding out, this keyboard folds out. But, flip side is that whenever keyboard is stowed away, the screen starts wobbling under touch input. Further, when we opened and held it vertically, we found the screen rocked back on our thumbs due to just a few shakes.
The on-screen keyboard is a bit cramped but it outshines most of the high-end touchscreen smartphones. In our opinion, the optical trackpad below the screen is unnecessary, as content can be easily selected just using the touchscreen.
Display
Design
Measuring 119 x 60.4 x 14.2 mm, the HTC Desire Z is a bit smaller in size in comparison to its rivals. Moreover, with massive 180g weight, it's around 14g heavier than Desire HD and 40g heavier than Apple iPhone 4. An aluminium casing renders the device sturdy feel. But in spite of this, the phone is comfy to handle courtesy to its 3.7 inches display screen.
The well-constructed body of Desire Z flaunts a slide out keyboard with large and easy to use keys. Instead of gliding out, this keyboard folds out. But, flip side is that whenever keyboard is stowed away, the screen starts wobbling under touch input. Further, when we opened and held it vertically, we found the screen rocked back on our thumbs due to just a few shakes.
The on-screen keyboard is a bit cramped but it outshines most of the high-end touchscreen smartphones. In our opinion, the optical trackpad below the screen is unnecessary, as content can be easily selected just using the touchscreen.
Display
The 3.7 inches screen of HTC Desire Z is although small and can't match with the Desire HD having 4.3-inch screen. But, with the 480x800 pixels resolutions, it shows sharper and colorful real estate in crystal clarity. With extraordinary contrast, viewing angles and saturation, it even outshines the AMOLED displays. In our eye, it's only iPhone 4, which can surpass it with slightly higher resolution of 960 x 640 pixels.
User Interface
Five customizable home screens of this device can be completely packed with plenty of widgets and shortcuts to applications. You can also access to large numbers of apps from the Android Market, which can be easily downloaded.
Internet Browsing
Applications
Multimedia
The music player of handset is beyond doubt impressive and songs are accessible by artist, album, genre, as you feel like. After lock, the music player sits on lock screen and thereby lets you skip the tracks without opening the phone. We found the quality of Audio, SRS Surround Sound and equaliser with bass booster pretty good.
The 720p video recording at 25fps is also better compared to HTC Desire HD. We found the video consistent enough, which was shot in lighter and darker area.
Calling and Messaging
As far as messaging concerns, it's also a cinch with the pretty nice keyboard. It also enables the option of predictive text through menu and XT9 function. The device provides support to Exchange email, webmail, IM, SMS, Facebook and Twitter via several apps. You can also enjoy integration of multiple email accounts in one unified inbox.
Battery Life
Specifications
User Interface
Desire Z runs on Android 2.2 Froyo OS, which supports the Flash Player 10 for kicking back online video on the browser of this device. With pre-installed widget FriendStream, you can enjoy the integration of social network sites. Further with its HTC Sense, you can take delight in some nice cloud-based services including remote tracking via GPS, remote wiping in case of theft or loss.
Five customizable home screens of this device can be completely packed with plenty of widgets and shortcuts to applications. You can also access to large numbers of apps from the Android Market, which can be easily downloaded.
Internet Browsing
HTC Desire Z runs the Webkit-enabled browser, which enables in using plenty of functions including text wrapping, bookmarking, web pages sharing via rich sources. But, the clink in the armor is slower 800MHz processor, which is overrun by the 1GHz processor of Desire HD. As a result, you can experience the flash video and opening of graphically rich webpages a bit sluggish. However, by turning off Adobe Flash and closing the odd tabs, you can find things swiftly flowing. HTC Desire Z supports slew of connectivity options just like GPS, HSPDA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 etc.
Applications
Desire Z is incorporated with new HTC Sense UI and with its HTC Hub, you can use several widgets to jolly overhaul the device. With HTC Likes, an apps collection, you can know the popularity of different apps just in a flash. The mostly used apps of this handset include Flashlight, News, Weather, Reader, SoundHound, Google Maps and many more. We found that built-in GPU perfectly handles even the heavy graphical on screen processing.
Multimedia
The 5-mega pixels camera of Desire Z comes with LED flash and a shutter button to capture the nice pics. Just after taking the pics, you get the option to share it on Facebook and Twitter. The camera is also enriched with several photo effects such as Vintage framing, Distortion, Solarise, which are handy to add a funny touch to images prior to sharing them on social networks.
The music player of handset is beyond doubt impressive and songs are accessible by artist, album, genre, as you feel like. After lock, the music player sits on lock screen and thereby lets you skip the tracks without opening the phone. We found the quality of Audio, SRS Surround Sound and equaliser with bass booster pretty good.
The 720p video recording at 25fps is also better compared to HTC Desire HD. We found the video consistent enough, which was shot in lighter and darker area.
Calling and Messaging
The contact menu on the Desire Z is indeed users-delighter and you can customize it as per your own choice by entering emails addresses, profile picture and many more details. We noticed the quality and volume of calling better in comparison to some of Android toting HTC devices. Due to smaller screen, we found it easy to position the earpiece at right place of the head.
As far as messaging concerns, it's also a cinch with the pretty nice keyboard. It also enables the option of predictive text through menu and XT9 function. The device provides support to Exchange email, webmail, IM, SMS, Facebook and Twitter via several apps. You can also enjoy integration of multiple email accounts in one unified inbox.
Battery Life
Desire Z packs a better battery life. After keeping the device on for 48 hours, we found just 30% depletion. We noticed that after moderate use, the battery needs charging every other night.
Specifications
- Full aluminum body
- Size: 4.7 x 2.4 x 0.6 inches
- Weight: 6.5 ounces
- Android 2.2 w/ HTC Sense
- 3.7 inch display with 800 x 480 resolution and SLCD technology
- 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and 720p HD recording
- HSPA+ integration
- WiFi b/g/n
- Battery: 1300 mAh Lion
- Talk time: up to 6.5 hours
- Standby time: up to 17.5 days
- Pop-out QWERTY keyboard
- HTC Fast Boot
- 1.5 GB of internal memory
- Pre-installed 8GB microSD card
- GPS with A-GPS
- DLNA Streaming and Media Sharing
- 3.5 mm stereo audio jack
- Ambient light sensor
- Proximity sensor
- Digital compass
- 800MHz Qualcomm MSM 7230 processor
Pros :
- Robust design
- Excellent, colorful and responsive touchscreen
- Comfy to use physical keyboard
- Nice browser supporting Flash
- Decent battery life
Cons:
- Heavy weight
- Slow Flash playback
- Ungraceful video interface
- Breakage prone keyboard components
The Bottom Line
Without doubt, heavy weight, slightly slower processor and optical trackpad of HTC Desire Z may annoy you a bit. But, the device also brings a sleek touchscreen, a comfortable keyboard, new HTC Sense and Android 2.2 OS. Jam-packed with plenty of specs, this handset ticks a large number of boxes.
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