HTC Desire 825, 630 first impressions: All about the looks

HTC announced a number of devices at a launch event in India including their latest flagship the HTC 10 which has been credited as one of the best looking Android smartphones for 2016. The company also announced a number of updated Desire handsets out of which the 825 and the 630 looked quite handsome with a new ‘Micro Splash’ colour design. Here is a first look of the two handsets. Design

In terms of finish and design, both are pretty much identical with the Desire 825 being the larger out of the two with a 5.5-inch display while the Desire 630 has a 5-inch display. Both are fully made of plastic but they don’t feel cheap at all. The back has a new colour pattern similar to tiny paint drops on a surface which HTC calls Micro Splash. It looks great and is a nice change from the usual plain finish. The back also houses the 13MP camera on the top left corner.

Both the handsets come with dual-SIM card slots located on the left edge protected with a flap. The volume rocker buttons on the right feel solid and the power button is textured which is always great to have considering the volume buttons are placed right above it. Now the Desire 825 offers a dual-speaker system similar to the HTC 10, with one speaker above the display and one on the bottom edge, the Desire 630 on the other hand has two speakers on either sides of the display. The 825 also offers capacitive Android navigation keys under the display while the 630 has onscreen ones. Both the smartphones also has provisions to attach a lanyard, something which has gone out of fashion these days. Display

HTC has put a 5.5-inch 720p Super LCD display on the Desire 825 and a 5-inch 720p Super LCD display on the Desire 630. They look good and offer a good response. Colours look natural although viewing angles could’ve been better as there is a bit of colour shift. Hardware Most of the hardware on the inside is also similar on both the handsets including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor clocked at 1.6GHz with an Adreno 305 GPU, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage with microSD card expansion of up to 200GB. Since the Desire 825 is larger, you get a bigger battery capacity of 2700mAH while the Desire 630 has a 2200mAH battery unit. Both of them offer dual nano SIM card slots, 4G LTE and Dolby Audio output.

HTC has used an older chipset for the handsets and says that they are focusing more on the software experience and providing a pleasing design with its handsets. Camera

The Desire 825 comes with a 13 MP, f/2.2 rear camera and the 630 has a 13 MP, f/2.4 rear camera both offering autofocus and LED flash. The front camera module is the same on both of the handsets which is a 5MP f/2.8 module. The performance of the cameras on both the smartphones is just average and doesn’t offer anything great. The quality seems fine for well lit situations and low light conditions lead to images with shakes and noise. They can also shoot 1080p videos which look decent.

OS Both smartphones run on Android 6.0 Marshmallow with the 630 having Sense 7 and the 825 running on the new Sense that was featured on the HTC 10. The experience is smooth and everything runs without any lags. But of course day to day performance would be different as we only used the device for a few minutes. HTC said that it is working closely with Google and has kept the UI quite clean and removed a bunch of bloat-ware. Verdict Both the smartphones offer a sturdy and attractive design as well as a clean and smooth interface. HTC, as usual, has focused on the looks, however their are a couple of issues. The smartphones use an older chip which could upset some customers. Also, the pricing doesn’t feel justified, well at least for the 825 which is priced at Rs 18,990. At this price, one can get a far more powerful device with better features and still save a bit of dough. As for the Desire 630, HTC hasn’t confirmed the pricing, but anything around Rs 10,000-Rs. 12,000 would make sense, else HTC will yet again fail to create a spot in the budget segment.