29 August 2011

Review of HTC desire Z

Introduction

It’s my second HTC phone after TYTN II. TYTN II was a legend. fantastic phone but it came useless because I spent hours on talk with my wife and I needed to change to phone (my choice was Sony Ericsson Naite) which can handle fact that my wife loves talks with me ... and talks and talks and talks and talks  anyway.... I decided to buy android phone to use as internet device, organizer and test platform for my application written for android.


Android OS
This is a first device with android OS, which I have.
My general first impression is that android is baby stage and I takes some time before it will be enough mature.
It is stable but it is buggy (multi-touch for example) and can cause sometimes lots of annoying experience.
With SDK is exactly similar. Its buggy and even installation can be quite interesting voyage thru world of bugs.
Over time I found that Android OS is great. OS works quite well. Android market offer application for every occasion.
I must say that applications for android OS, has worse quality than software for iOS but still you can find lots of them are useful and works.
Another issue is that is much more crapware for android OS than for iOS, so I think Iphones are more safe, but still blackberry is winner in safely.
However Android allows you to modify OS which give advanced user design own OS. This gives marvelous chance to create own custom OS tuned to weird needs.
It takes 2-3 years when android will be enough mature but it is already quite impressive.


¥£CPU, graphic card and performance

It looks like 800 MHz is not enough but ...it is enough to do few things at the same time and everything works smoothly (usually) and if u using multitasking extensively then u will feel lack of power. Is it an issue? No (maybe will be for advance users).
It has enough ram for storage but if want store maps and mp3s then 6GB SDHC card will be useful or 8GB for store movies as well.
Games works fine but some poor quality games that use way too much resources can cause some issues with performance.
In my opinion 800 MHz is acceptable minimum for high-end phone.


¥£Display

Display is huge and big enough for internet and watching multimedia.
Quality is great as long as u haven't see Samsung’s amoled+ screen.
It consumes 84% of battery. It is a battery killer in most mobiles, anyway.
Touchscreen is quite accurate but i found that press display in corners works strange for me. 

¥£Keyboard

Keyboard is fantastic because is well design for small and large fingers, works very well and quality is excellent.
Dpad is crap (One of worst pad in mobiles). It makes navigate thru menu, aplications an annoying experience. HTC screw up badly.
Another issue is slide it works very well but they looks like old matches and you have feeling that they are very fragile but in practice is OK except one little thing is too loose when you are on bed and look on roof and you slide screen to use keyboard  then screen closes. I have no idea how to describe this issue.

I found that jack for handset is in wrong place because it makes using marvelous keyboard more difficult when you plug-in handset.


¥£Battery
HTC design amazing phones with crap battery. Desire z has battery very tiny one. It is like put engine from Toyota IQ to big …18wheels lorry full of heavy goods and send to Mount Everest. This mobile weight like brick so add bigger battery which will be more heavy just increase chance to use as stone.
so or u can buy bigger battery .Muggen battery 1800mAh is be good and allow you to use mobile for one day with stress that battery died when is really needed in the middle day.
I see few solutions. Another HTC battery which is really  annoying if u replace battery once or twice a day or buy big battery (1800mAh , 2400mAh, 3600mAh) but if you buy choose good quality one (for example Muggen (they should pay me for this advertisement :) ).


HTC! I have a simple question. W H Y?

¥£Software included

UI sense is great.

Open office is really useful but QWERTY keyboard working. Only party, because FN button doesn’t work so forgot about numbers shift doesn’t work so forgot about capitol letter too.         
It is big minus for that.
If u press home button then ur changes will be discarded so in my opinion office require major improvement.
It is usable but issues are really annoying if u planning do minor editing for example

Rests of OS software are.... typical for plain OS, and doesn't have anything unique which is noteworthy.


¥£Camera

So.... if u want do picture , then u can do and they will looks ... acceptable as  long as you doing in daylight  but if u like quality pictures then ...keep in mind that this phone has  one of worst 5mpx camera which I used. It’s not tragic but quite disappointing.
Btw. try to press camera button few times which will cause OS to slow down , screen start backlight to be more bright and less at the same time which looks that mobile getting mad. Good fun.

¥£Others

Sound quality is good.
Speaks generate clear voice and has better quality than some laptops even.
Microphone is not too bad either.
However quality of sound came from jack is poor .It's enough for basic usage but if you are addicted from music then quality of sound can be painful (especially for people who use high-end headsets.
GPS works well.
Radio is OK.I used ones however.
Bluetooth works fine.
Wi-Fi works quite well.
USB connectivity is excellent. I transfer lots of data and I never had any problem.


¥£ Everyday experience

I use internet and built-in web browser is good. Static html pages works very well (so blogs, much designed news sites without useless fireworks will work fine).
JavaScript’s works fine but frameworks like JQuery doesn't work unfortunately.
Adobe flash works very well on mobile.
If you are social media sites works very good.
Checking emails works smoothly

I used mobile for support with navigation (based on GSM, Wi-Fi and GPS) in big and small places and it works very well and it will makes your life much easier as long as you keep in mind that software is ... more less right.

I used my mobile as organizer and android calendar is great. Maybe built-in software is not very useful, but third-party soft makes this mobile as perfect organizer for you, your notes and data.

I used mobile for sending and received text and it great.

It lots of useful application on market which makes your Smartphone like your assistant.

I start use camera and I stop very quickly, because I was disappointed with quality .I still prefer use my SE Elm for making pictures which has 5mpx but quality is much better than in HTC.

I love listen a lot of music. Quality is bellow my requirement. It's not too bad with Bass however. In general multimedia works very well on this mobile. Music, videos.... no problems.

Alarm clock doesn't work when mobile is turn off. IT'S A DISASTER.


¥£ Summary

It's outstanding mobile with lots of brilliants elements.
Good screen, fantastic keyboard, lots of memory, OS work fast and it is reliable, Sense UI, connectivity is great and works without any problems (USB, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi), speakers quality.

Yes, it has few issue too ... that should be improved
Battery capacity is pain in the ass (but it can be solved by buying replacement batter with bigger battery (Muggen 1800 is very good),
Screen’s backlight should consume 75% less energy,
Replace shit navigate pad to something useful.

Apart of that it's perfect device for what is design for.

In my opinion this mobile is for people who need good multimedia device as “IPod” replacement or netbooks replacement or use for business purpose.

This mobile is useless for people who needs talk a lot. If you are talking machine then almost all Smartphone are not too useful anyway but if u addicted from desire z and you must talk a lot then ... buy huge battery like Muggen 3600mAh and go to gym to improve your hand and arm muscle.

It is a One of the best Android devices so far.

Btw. this review was written on HTC desire Z.

My mark 2+/4 

Explanation for my Mark Scheme

4 ==  Perfect (4! it is something which is visionary ,beyond current time and which competitions should copy as part of future standards )
2 == Above average
1 == Average
0 == Below average (0! is a crappy junk . DO NOT USE)

+ means that something has something special 
- has better mark but some major issue suggest that mark maybe should be worse. 

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