HTC Desire 200 Review

The company has officially launched the HTC Desire 200 in June 2013. The phone comes with a smaller 3.5-inch screen and 1GHz processor. The original HTC Desire is among the most exclusive clique of phones and therefore it has achieved the highest honor a phone can enjoy.

Though, many of us think that the HTC Desire 200 can hardly manage to reach the same heady heights as its forefather but keeping the price range in mind, its specs are not that shameful.

When you unbox the HTC Desire 200, you will find the following things in the package.

• HTC Desire 200
• In-ear stereo headphones
• Wall charger
• MicroUSB cable
• Warranty and information leaflets

At the first glance, the HTC Desire 200 is not a bad looking phone at all. Although, it comes with a soapy shape, thick black or white body with rounded corners and patterned back cover that look quite good. Since the handset is quite small it is very comfortable in hand to hold as well as to operate even with just one hand.

Another worth mentioning thing is its signature speaker grill that is present at the top that automatically associate it with the high-end HTC One, but in actual it seems to be only a design feat since the main and functioning speaker is present on the back of the handset.

At the top of the handset, you will find the power or lock key whereas the volume rocker is present on the right side and are quite wide as well. This makes it easy to feel and press without looking at it. Furthermore, three capacitive navigational keys are also present underneath the smallish display that are sensitive just enough and responsive to the touch.

The display of the HTC Desire 200 offers 320x480 pixels resolution on a basic 3.5” screen. The pixels resolution at that small size only returns 165 ppi density making the display to be used only for the basic tasks. This means you cannot use it for anything like staring at the screen for hours browsing or for watching videos.

On the other hand, the display offers sufficient brightness and good color representation along with decent viewing angles. The only downside here is the low resolution that makes everything look quite ugly and pixilated.

The phone is an entry level device and packs a range of low-end specs that are more than sufficient for a budget device. The HTC Desire 200 runs on the older Sense 4.0 UI. Many people would find that the interface is one of the most complex and deep reaching manufacturer overlays out there. Moreover, the UI is coated with Android 4.0.3.

At the downside, the phone is lacking in transparencies or transitional animations that we can speak of, plus the resolution of the HTC Desire 200 also does not look that pretty as well. But, yet on the whole, it is quite satisfactory for a budget phone like this.

A huge variety of different widgets, themes and wallpapers are available here for the users to personalize their HTC Desire 200 the way they want. With these available widgets, wallpapers and themes, users can personalize their handsets to their heart's desire.

Now, let us talk about the processor and memory of the HTC Desire 200. The phone comes with an entry level 1 GHz Snapdragon S1 processor and 512 MB of RAM. Thus, the phone is rather slow and therefore, it takes its time whenever you stroll around the interface or when you load applications. On the other hand, there is 4 GB of internal storage, however only a gigabyte of it is available for users. On the other hand, the phone comes with a microSD slot that can expand storage up to 32 GB.

There is complete web connectivity and browsing facilities for the users. HTC boasts its Sense web browser as a perfect mobile browser for on the go internet browsing with its little touches. For example, the ability to dial a phone number with just a single tap. Alternatively, Reading Mode strips content of pictures and ads to display only the text so that you can read easily.

Practically speaking the small phone display and its paltry resolution make the browsing session uninspiring. In a nutshell, the HTC Desire 200 supports 7.2 Mbps 3G downloads, and has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, and A-GPS radios.

The HTC Desire 200 offers a 5 megapixel camera with f/2.8 aperture on the back of the handset which is a fixed focus unit. This suggests that one should not expect anything nearer than 10 inches or so to come out well. On the other hand, taking photos and recording videos on HTC Desire 200 is pretty fast since we all are accustomed to with HTC’s Sense UI recently.

Shooting modes such as panorama, HDR and others are not offered here but few color effects are there to spice up your photography. When taking photos in auto shooting modes, photos often come out underexposed and noisy even when there's plenty of light around. Thus, you will miss the level the detail whereas the white balance is something that is gotten mostly right in HTC Desire 200.

Videos can be shot in 640x480 VGA resolution with adequate audio coming with it.

Since it is a budget phone everything you can expect from this phone is also entry level. This is true for the multimedia as well. The Sense User Interface gallery offers only basic cropping and some very basic color effects that you can apply to your photos, and that’s all. Auto-enhance abilities are also there that you can take advantage of.

The music player comes with no equalizer presets to speak of. However, the company claims that the HTC Desire 200 comes with the highest quality in-ear headphone, the same that comes with the HTC One. Though, they might not be the Beats branded one but they will surely make you stand out in the crowd with the red ear plugs and red buttons on the microphone or volume knob contraption.

On the whole, it looks quite nice but practically speaking it is not as good as the one that comes with the Galaxy S4 or iPhone 5 especially in the bass department.

Loudspeaker is quite strong with comparatively full sound. Furthermore, videos can be played up to 800x480 resolutions. Videos can be played in MPEG-4, DivX or Xvid formats.

The call quality of the HTC Desire 200 is pretty fine. The earpieces sound about average on the handset. They are not quite but also not extraordinarily loud either. The other end can also hear us fine means there is no much distortion or noise.

The HTC Desire 200 comes with the 1230 mAh unit battery that is rated for about seven and a half hours of talk time in 3G mode. Though. It is quite below the average but the standby battery life is more than a month suggesting that the phone draws quite a little power when it is not active.

Looking to build on the success of the HTC Desire launched in 2011, the HTC Desire 200 packs a range of low-end specs that are more than sufficient for a budget device. It is another entry level phone in the Android market that with low specs and decent design clearly targets the younger audience rather than the moneyed crowd.

There are some perks that go for the handset like the decent audio and call quality, battery life, the same set of headphones that come with the HTC One and of course the strong and loud speaker and clean earpiece just to name a few.

The HTC Desire 200 also shows off a very fast camera though it is less than impressive but keeping the price in mind, it is quite satisfactory. The phone can be a preferred choice for those who have a very tight budget especially due to its pretty decent build quality and styling. Both of which helped towards the original Desire’s success. But, if you see for alternatives in that niche, you can find some better choices for the money.