HTC Desire 820: A closer look at the specifications

HTC recently expanded its portfolio in the Indian market with new devices in its Desire range . Keeping the Desire 816 in mind, the company churned out a cheaper variant of the model dubbed Desire 816G and also a successor called Desire 820. The successor in further divided into variants - Desire 820 and Desire 820q - and the only distinguishing factor is its processor.   The Desire 820 appears to be HTC’s attempt to enter the lucrative mid-range Indian mobile market. It will be available in November around the festive season, but the company hasn’t disclosed its price yet. While we expect the pricing details to emerge closer to its launch, let’s take a quick, closer look at its specs.   Display – 5.5-inch HD Keeping up with the fad of gigantic screen sizes, the Desire 820 sports a 5.5-inch IPS display with 720×1280 pixel resolution. The larger display limits the pixel density to 267ppi. The display also gets a layer of Gorilla Glass 3 protection.   OS – Android 4.4 KitKat, Sense UI The Desire 820 runs the latest flavour of Android - 4.4.4 KitKat. Whether it is upgradable to the upcoming Android L is still unclear. One can also expect a layer of HTC’s proprietary Sense UI on the top, allowing users to take advantage of BlinkFeed that presents social feeds and news in a tile format. [caption id=“attachment_235348” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] Runs Android Kitkat with Sense UI[/caption]   Cellular Network – Dual SIM, LTE The smartphone comes with the ability to accommodate two SIMs.  The Desire 820 comes with support for LTE networks; downlink up to 150Mbps. But if your region has no 4G infrastructure, it will play nicely with 850/900/1800/1900 with HSPA up to 42 Mbps.   Form factor – Light and sleek For a 5.5-inch device, the Desire 820 is quite lightweight at 155 grams. It measures 157.7 x 78.7 x 7.7 mm, which ensures the device won’t be too bulky either with 7.7mm thickness. Going by HTC’s track record, the Desire 820 looks quite plush with dual frontal stereo speakers. HTC has gone all out with several colour options like Marble white, Tuxedo grey, Santorini white, Milky-way grey, Tangerine white, Saffron grey, Flamingo grey, Blue misty and Monarch orange. However, it isn’t clear if all the colour options are available for Indian users.   SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon quad-core and octa-core variants When it comes to device speed, the company has launched two variants of this device.  The Desire 820 is powered by Qualcomm’s 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 615 SoC coupled with 2GB RAM. On the other hand, the Desire 820q comes powered by a 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 SoC with a quad-core processor, along with 1GB of RAM. Needless to say, the Desire 820 offers a slight edge over the quad-core based 820q with a better processor. While other specs remain same and the processor being the only differentiating factor, we wonder what price tags both Desire 820 models will carry. The price difference could be the deciding factor to choose between both phones.   Storage – 16GB, microSD card up to 128GB In terms of on board storage, the Desire 820 will be available only in 16GB variant. While 16GB may sound too less for all those HD movies, music, selfies and so on, the company offers microSD card support up to voluminous 1288GB. It should be noted that companies like Xiaomi and Oppo recently launched their respective phones with the 16GB model in the Indian market, to first gauge the response, before bringing the higher capacity model.   Camera – 13MP rear and 8MP front Following the current trend, the Desire 820 comes with a 13-megapixel rear snapper. Selfie lovers will be glad to know that it comes an 8MP front shooter. Besides, it features LED flash, touch focus, face detection, HDR and geo-tagging. The front camera is capable of shooting 1080p videos. [caption id=“attachment_232363” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] 13MP rear snapper and 8MP front-facing camera[/caption]   Sensors – The usual There is nothing exceptional about its support for sensors, rather it misses on quite a few found on other devices. One will find the device support for accelerometer, proximity sensor and compass.   Wi-Fi – 802.11 a/b/g/n The Desire 820 is Wi-Fi-enabled and comes with support for 802.11 a/b/g/n. There is no support for the “ac” draft or NFC. It also supports Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA and Wi-Fi hotspot, and is also built for LTE connectivity. The device supports GPS with Assisted GPS and GLONASS. It features the latest Bluetooth 4.0.   Battery The device is fuelled by a 2600mAh Lithium-ion battery. There is no word on any power management technology integrated into the OS, like we saw in the Mi 3 .   The bottom line The Desire 820 is sleek, light and packs in decent specs. However, eventually, the pricing will be the biggest deciding factor for the device. Considering the ‘cheaper’ Desire 816G is priced at Rs 18,990, the Desire 820 is definitely crossing the Rs 20,000 price tag and could go well beyond. With sub-Rs 20k devices from Chinese brands bringing in superior specs, HTC may have to fight it out to sustain in the fierce mobile market in India. On the other hand, HTC is a more seasoned OEM and the 820 echoes HTC’s superior design principle and one can expect a good Android experience. The HTC One M8 was brilliant, but HTC hasn’t yet made its mark in the low to mid range market, which is getting highly competitive with each passing day. The HTC 820 and 820q could play a major role in setting it right for the company, if priced well.