Comparative Review of Desire HD & HD7 (with photos)

[Guest Spinstorm]

Comparative Review of HTC Desire HD and HTC HD7 (also posted in HD7 forum)

Desire HD

For

- Great Feel and Fantastic Build

- Great Camera

- Amazing App Choice

Against

- Android is bloated

- Software feels like miss mash of ideas

- Poor Battery

HD7

For

- Fantastic WP7 that feels more Apple than an iPhone

- Speedy and never feels bogged down

- Amazing keyboard

Against

- Poor Battery life

- Feels less solid that Desire HD

- Camera adequate but not as good as Desire HD

Overall Choice:

I would chose the HD7 as despite its build not being up to the Desire HD it is a slicker smoother easier to use OS with more games and a better user interface than Android. You use WP7 and come away feeling like everything is easy and beautiful in life. Add in Xbox Live games and Zune streaming/downloads and it is everything you can want in a phone. You can still use your Gmail account with WP7 and have the benefits of a keyboard, which is on par if not better than the iPhone’s standard-bearer.

Critical Comparison:

I chose to pick the high lights for those who don’t want to read lots… but I have many more thoughts that I didn’t get into.

I just love picking up the Desire HD. The feel of the metal unibody and weight feel just right in my hand and I long for an 8MP camera that is has compared to my iPhone and the HD7’s 5MP shooter.

Both phones have battery issues and HTC seem to have put the smallest batteries into the biggest most powerful phones they can find… Both will run out if you use them all day and there is definitely a market for a battery company to produce a more powerful battery for the phones.

The Desire HD has the newer second-generation QUALCOMM processor which should power it along smoother than the HD7 but it doesn’t feel that way. Android doesn’t freeze or stutter by any means but it feels like there is always something going on behind the scenes than can cause a problem… and occasional bugs do pop up. The Desire HD also supports flash 10.1 and it is a delight to see videos on pages pop up.

The Android market is packed with pretty much every app you could want despite a dearth of games there are hits like Angry Birds present but so are apps like Spotify which WP7 currently lacks. Due to the huge number of android phones on the market lots of banks and online sites now have android apps and it no longer feels like you are missing out not having an iPhone… yes the quality and quantity isn’t quite there but it is so close now that you won’t notice it.

The WP Marketplace on the other hand is missing lots of niche apps and company apps and right now is sparse. Yes the big companies are there – Facebook and Twitter and Spotify is coming soon but right now you do notice the lack of options in the marketplace compared to the Desire HD.

Windows Phone 7 feels so smooth compared to Android that you feel like you should be using an Apple phone. What WP7 lacks in user definable settings (such as VPN) it gains in slickness and good looks and ease of use and the keyboard is fantastic as surprisingly is Bing search. It works very well and brings up more useful search results than Google on the Desire HD. That is not to say Bing is a better search engine than Google as it is most definitely not! But the way it has been implemented on WP7makes its more relevant and useful to use than Google search on the Desire HD.

If HTC could take the build of the Desire HD and put WP7 on there it would be the perfect phone right now… better than my iPhone 4 that I love. Yes WP7 lacks some important features but they will be coming in the short term and very quickly you may see people choosing WP7 over an iPhone if they use it before purchasing.

Of course if Apple update their UI and improve the camera on the next iPhone as they definitely are expected to then they will be back out front with the best combination but right now I am definitely considering not carrying my iPhone 4 about as the HD7 does everything it does… the only reason to keep it right now is the better app support.

Taking us back to the HD7 vs. Desire HD – both phones are great phone and neither would be a bad choice but being lucky enough to have both and have an iPhone 4 as well I can afford to sacrifice some features that WP7 does not have and chose that as my choice of phone out of the two prize fighters.

[Guest Spinstorm]

It is really frustrating because I prefer to hold the Desire HD and use its camera but I prefer to use the HD7 as its a better experience.

I guess I am lucky that I own them both so I have the choice!

[Guest Daz555]

"Fantastic WP7 that feels more Apple than an iPhone"

That goes down as a negative for me then. The "Apple" experice has always just made me go.....meh.

[Guest Spinstorm]

If you love the ability to customise EVERYTHING in android (even with an unrooted phone pretty much) then the Desire HD is awesome for that.

Like I said I love the build quality and camera on the Desire HD but Android just lacks some of the finesse and verve that it could do. Maybe the next version will be better

in that respect.

As far as android phones go I have had a Magic (sold) a Nexus One (which I still have) and a Streak (sold) in addition to the Desire HD.

I think that it is a fantastic phone and maybe future updates will make me like it more than WP7 but right now my preference is to WP7. But I do not have to make that choice as

I have both phones.

[Guest iserlohn]

Would you be more specific on why you think the WP7 experience is slicker? From my own experience of the DHD, the responsiveness has improved drastically. Also from watching WinMo 7 the minimalist, "visual arts" style of the interface really bothered my as it did not relate and looks like a moving magazine, rather than a user interface.