HTC Desire 700 dual sim Review

HTC has been working overtime to cover up all the bases using the HTC Desire umbrella. This includes the mid-range devices, as well as phablets. The Desire 700, influenced by the design of the HTC One, has a larger body, with glossy plastic donning the device overall. It is a downer from the aluminum unibody design we saw on the HTC One, but has the advantage of the back panel being detached and has a replaceable battery as well.

Standing at 5 inches, the device is marginally larger than the One (4.7 inch) but the qHD display means the display of the HTC One was much better, and this display has a lower ppi. However, the stereo speakers that we also saw on the HTC One are present here too. The back camera has also been reduced to an 8MP shooter. The Sense 5 is available on the device with Jelly Bean 4.1.2, though we are expecting the device can be updated to Android 4.3 and Sense 5.5.

The device has a full-HD video capability, an increased battery, and increased screen size over its most recent predecessor, the Desire 600 – yet, this device mainly embodies the shift in focus for the company, that they are now looking to cover all the ranges of smartphone devices and take the competition head on. Also, the device has a China-made Spreadtrum Shark quad-core, with Cortex A7 cores, running at 1.2 GHz.

The overall composition in terms of the above seem to make a perfect candidate for a mid range device perfectly suited for countries where the dual-SIM option is explored in its full potential.

While unboxing the HTC Desire 700, you will get everything inside the retail box that you need to get started with this phone.

• HTC Desire 700 handset
• An A/C adapter (will use the USB cable for charging)
• Earphones (without volume control)
• MicroUSB cable connector for A/C adapter for charging

The Desire 700 has a 5" display of qHD resolution standing at 540x960 pixels, and 221 ppi – one of the average displays around. However, the viewing angles and better colors make the device look better than the pixel per inch suggests.

The contrast levels are also pretty decent on the device, and it has an impressive level of brightness – however, the black depth is not great, so the more you raise the brightness, the worse it looks. Still, the level of brightness makes good in sunlight legibility.

The device of the Desire 700 resembles that of the Desire One, specially the front. Also, the bezel on the front is pretty thin, making for an exclusive look. The grilles for speakers with the BoomSound technology and earpiece are placed at the exact locations, placed to give out the perfect sound while playing games, listening to music or watching videos. Next to the top grille lie the front facer on one side and the sensors on the other. Between the end of the screen and the bottom grille lie the Back and Home buttons. On the right side of the device lies the volume rocker, while the left side does not have any controls.

At the top of the device lies the 3.5 mm audio jack as well as the lockscreen button. At the bottom lies the microUSB port as well as the microphone.

The back of the device is slightly curved, with the slope going towards the edges of the front. The 8 MP snapper as well as the single LED flash reside at the back as well. The frame around the sides is plastic, and due to plastic, it is slippery, so it is best to be careful with the device. Near the bottom of the back is a slit using which the back cover can be opened.

Underneath the back cover lies the 2,100mAh battery, with three slots, the first two for SIM cards, (the first SIM supports 3G while the secondary has only 2G support), while the third for extendable memory, and can be used for up to 64 GB.

The size of the device makes it slightly difficult to hold it using one hand, and an easier way of handling would be using two hands. Also, the top button is out of comfortable reach, and the slippery back also has some design points deducted.

The Desire 700 is one step behind the HTC One and One Max in terms of operating power, being at Android 4.1.2 and Sense 5 instead of Android 4.3 and Sense 5.5 that the One and One Max rock with. Still the device has the proprietary software like BlinkFeed and Zoe present on it.

HTC Sense favors vertical scrolling quite a lot. This is initially visible on the BlinkFeed, which is basically an article stream from different sites, combined with account updates from social networks. Articles and updates can be shared to social networks directly. Also, the BlinkFeed is part of the home screen, being the left most pane. The App drawer is also integrated with vertical scrolling. The app switching has been tweaked a bit in the device, and can be brought up by double tapping the home screen, and displays in a 3 x 3 grid, and swiping up closes an app – the only problem in this being that only 9 most recent apps can be seen here – the others cannot.

The concept introduced by Nokia recently in the shape of Kids Corner, which was introduced recently by Nokia, has been introduced here also by the label of Kid’s mode. This is basically an app that allows profile creation, so that profiles can be created for access. The app allows for more than one profile, so users can create profiles for each of their kids, and tag apps that are to be available against each user.

Desire 700 also has a separate mode to be used while in a car, with its own separate layout – the view has five panes, the music, music info, dialer, navigation, and voice command sections. The layout is ideal for users who want to use the device in cars, and has every possible requirement while driving, right on fingertips.

The Setup app is the perfect way to start using the device if you are upgrading from any other Android phone, as it lets you pull everything possible from your previous phone via Bluetooth, including the settings and similar things, which are not synced by Google. This app also works for phones that are not Android phones but have Bluetooth present on them.

Google Now is integrated into the device like other Android dependent devices, and can be launched in the same manner, by pressing and holding the Home button. Google Now also recognizes audio commands and can learn the usage of the internet.

The device has the average accelerometer tricks present, like turning the device during call enables speaker, pocket mode increases ringtone volume if phone is in the pocket or purse, and others.

Additionally, the BoomSound speakers focus on the overall sound quality and not just trying to make it loud. This means premium quality sound, with a good rating, something that was with HTC One also, so we can see HTC hasn’t compromised on this – very nice.

The HTC Zoe, mentioned above, is an app that is more powerful than other galleries, taking in the best of the HTC ImageChip. When the camera is used in Zoe mode, every time a picture is taken, up to 20 shots of full resolution as well as a 3 second video are captured, of which 1 second is before the button and the 2 seconds after the image is taken – all of these are used by Zoe for the multiple features present in the application.

One of the features mentioned above in Zoe is the Event, which is the grouping of images together in a group, as well as creation of a small 30 second video created by combining all the 3 second videos together, as well as a slideshow. The device also provides the ability to modify the video component clips to be arranged and different clips can be selected as well. Video effects and background music can also be added. The multiple shots and videos help in the image editing also, helping point out the moving objects to be deleted, allows finding the best pose for each person in the image so that the image is improved (swipe each face to find the best shot of the person from the images taken), the Sequence shot mode, which the complete motion of a person captured into one image, as well as other bodily improvements. These include the Face Contour, so that anyone’s face can be slimmed, the Skin smoother, an automated lighting fix, Eye Enhancer, Red Eye Removal, Eye Brightening, and the Anti-shine all these are adjustable via a slider so that minor improvements can be made without putting the image out of proportion. And this is just the one area of the app, which is for retouching. There are more, like the transformations, effects, and frames – some people would think of this as a pocket version of the Photoshop.

The Desire 700 has the latest Sensed-out browser pre-installed, and has minimal screen coverage to provide the maximum display. An interesting change is that tabs can be closed using the X button in the top right corner instead of swiping out. Also, there is an incognito mode present. Actual sites can also be viewed instead of mobile versions, which is cool. Flash is also supported, though disabled by default. Google Chrome is also pre-installed, though the absence of flash support means there may be more interest in the Sensed-out than in Chrome.

The Desire 700 has the Polaris Office app pre-loaded – the app supports Word, PowerPoint and Excel and more, and allows file viewing and editing as well. This was encouraging to see, even when we fail to find a full Office suite on flagship devices. There is even a PDF viewer available. The file editing and handling is fairly ok with the device.

An interesting addition from HTC is the VPN app, KeyVPN, which is an interesting addition, since more and more users will be using this option. Additionally, this app is free, which makes it all the more attractive. The basic support features, like the calendar, calculator, and clock are all standard HTC issues.

The Desire 700 has the consistent HTC Tasks app here also, which can access Google Tasks, as well unfortunately, the absence of location based reminders will make other alternatives seem more attractive to users. The HTC Note app is also an addition, which is similar to the S Memo app introduced by Samsung, allowing note taking, with the added functionality of adding drawings, pictures and dictations into notes, as well as the ability to share and print notes. Also present is the ever appealing HTC Weather app. And, Google Play has tons more apps that interest a wide variety of users. However, HTC Hub is absent on the device.

The Desire 700 has a built-in GPS receiver, which locks in locations in under a minute, which is pretty quick. Also, for a rough idea, something within a range of 150 meters, Cell-ID and Wi-Fi network locking, which is pretty fast also. Google Maps has updated its UI and now offers voice guided navigation in some locations. Maps can get cached as well, so that they can work offline also.

The device has the same generic phonebook, phone dialer and messaging. The ability for messaging to include social media updates as well is present here. One difference though, in phonebook is that instead of tabs at the bottom, there are scrolls towards sides. Also, since this is a dual SIM device, HTC enables management of contacts. When the phonebook is opened for the first time, it asks which contacts are to be displayed. Also, a menu on the top right side helps out with all possible required features, like which contacts to see, contacts management and others.

For every contact, the communication can be viewed as clubbed, which makes life much easier. Also, the added benefit of Block, which allows to blocks out all communication from certain contacts is very useful. The keyboard has also been touched up a bit, with the 5 inch display enabling more space for keys. Trace is also present here, meaning that the swipe-like process works with this device too. Also prediction is present to help speed up the process. There are two mail related apps the Gmail one and the HTC Mail app, and both work in very similar ways. We used both, and for us, the Gmail app worked better.

The Desire 700 has a very basic and easy interface, and supports DLNA as well – though the device has an appalling video codec support by default, with the large display provided, we thought the effort of adding in codecs or a different player was still worthwhile. The music player is custom and sans the Beats enhancement, which was a downer. The basic arrangement features are still present, as is the DLNA. The app can download album art and artist photos, as well as lyrics. SoundHound identifies tracks, and helps in the album information as well as photos and lyrics. The BoomSound though, makes the audio seem loud enough.

An FM radio is also present on the device, with a simple interface, and basic functions like scanning and marking stations as favorite – it also allows loudspeaker support and has RDS support. The Beats audio is sorely missed here too, though BoomSound somewhat makes up for it. The SoundHound is integrated here to help with the audio information.

And speaking of the audio, the performance of the device is somewhat – while the device did impress us with the reduced noise, the dynamic range and minimal crosstalk readings, the distortion level was higher than expected, and the frequency response is not too great either. And the situation is similar even when donning the headphones.

The Desire 700 has a quad-core CPU with 1 GB RAM, and though the manufacturers are new, named Spreadtrum, the processing power provided uses the Cortex A-7 cores, an average performer by the most recent standards. The ageing Mali 400 GPU also tells the tale of the device planned for the mid-range. However, the device performed below our expectations, and even its predecessor, the Desire 600 performs better in terms of normal processing. Even the Snapdragon 400 competitive devices worked better in terms of memory speed and CPU performance testing.

The performance is not too dismal though, and the device has decent processing power and is acceptable for many – though it could perform better if manager properly.

The Desire 700 has come out with an 8 MP shooter, which can cater for stills of a max 3264 x 2448 resolution snaps while in 4:3, and 3264 x 1840 res in 16:9. The device can capture 1080p videos @ 30fps, and the LED flash supports video recording also. The lens of the camera has a wider aperture, meaning more covering area than usual. Also, the HTC ImageSense is present here, and is used for both video and stills.

The interface is pretty simple, with two shutter keys on the screen (one for video and one for stills, no switching is required), above these lies the gallery shortcut while below lies the effects option. On the left side is the settings shortcut and flash mode selection option.

Clicking the effects button pulls out a tab on the left side with the usual color effects like sepia, solarize and others. Shot mode offers different shooting modes like the standard Panorama, portrait, low light, group portrait among others. In general, the camera produced pretty decent images, with nice colors and the photos appearing more natural than over-processed. However, as a side effect of this, the images come out quite soft, which, on a detail level, is not up to the mark in terms of standard cameras. Also, the purple effects appear on more than a few images, which is irritating, and is not removed via the post processing too. For the HDR mode also, the images are not processed perfectly and the result is not too appealing.

On a macro level though, the camera produced excellent results, with pretty good zoom and nice detail with very little blur. The snapper also has the features of touch focus, smile shutter and face detection, and the geo-tagging option is also present, which is always useful.

The Desire 700 video recorder can capture 1080p videos at the rate of 30fps, and 22 fps. The video capture can be done in HDR mode too, though that reduces the field of vision. The continuous autofocus is present here, and there is an option to lock focus during recording. The video is stored as an MP4 at 15 Mbps, with mono audio at 48kHz and 96Kbps bitrate. This doesn’t make for the smoothest of videos that we have seen.

The video is pretty good on the detail, with spot on focus, though the colors we thought were a bit cold. Even the mono audio is passable, but the reduced frame rate gives the videos a choppy effect, which negatively impacts experience. There were instances where frames were dropped too. HDR is below par in video recording too, with almost no difference between the normal and HDR videos.

The HTC Desire 700 has complete 2G and 3G connectivity for the primary (HSPA speeds of up to 14.4 Mbps for downloads and 5.76 Mbps for uploads), while only 2G on the secondary SIM also, the device has GSM support.

Local connectivity is present via Wi-Fi, DLNA and Wi-Fi Direct, so that content sharing is easy. Additionally we have Bluetooth 4.0 with the A2DP.

MicroUSB is used for charging and PC connectivity purposes, and there is an additional option to turn the device into a hotspot and Bluetooth tethering is available. The hotspot can support up to 8 devices at a time.

For the dual-SIM management, HTC has provided a SIM card management application, labeled Dual network manager, which allows easy switch between SIM cards, as well as enable / disable Airplane mode.

The absence of MHL, NFC and the IR was a bit disappointing, though somewhat understandable considering the range the device is targeting. However, the availability of USB-on-the-go is encouraging to see.

The HTC Desire 700 has come out with a decent 2,100mAh battery. The device can go on uncharged for up to 52 hours if one hour each of calls, videos and browsing is done per day.

However, while the talk time is pretty good at almost 17 hours, and a decent score is also present in the browsing, with above 12 hours posted there as well, the device performs below our expectations in video playback, racking up close to 6 hours.

As is visible from the above review, the Desire 700 live up to some expectations, while fails some as well. Below are some of the very shortcomings that the device does possess:

• Chipset performance is way behind competition
• Pricing of the device has not been done properly
• The device is large, even for a phone of its size
• Camera and video recording performance was disappointing
• Resolution is poor for a screen of this size
• Video playback decoders have to be installed separately
• Lack of video-call support
• 3G support is absent on secondary SIM
• Sense 5 does not have any quick settings toggles

HTC Desire series has been in the overdrive and has been trying to cover all the bases with different devices catering to different market segments. The Desire 700 was planned as a dual-SIM low priced replacement for the HTC One. The device came out with a 5 inch display, dual-SIM capability, an 8MP snapper, and the stereo speakers and Sense 5 skin along with the style of Desire One to pitch as well.

However, the device has been released with a sub-par chipset capability, which although decent, will fail to make an impression, just moving past the performance of the Snapdragon 200 devices. An additional dismay was brought on by the camera, both in snaps and videos. It makes us wonder why HTC would ask as much as the price tag suggests for a device like this, which does not even compete with the flagship devices of the last year in terms of performance, yet has a higher price tag on it.

The times have been tough for HTC recently, and they have been trying to avoid the low range market, which they still are trying to. However, they have to improve the pitch since, the Desire 700, with so few of those, certainly swings the decision the other way with such a large price tag. With a price tag of, say, three quarters the current price, this device could have been a strong player.