HTC's Desire 310 is the first budget Android phone coming from these makers and it looks like the HTC has finally decided to cater to the low end segment of consumers as well with a few more devices of budget friendly prices to be coming out soon. In fact the HTC Desire 210 is expected to be priced even lower when it shall hit the markets. For now we have to see if the 310 makes a good entry level phone or for some it may be belong to the mid-range tier.
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| HTC Desire 310 |
HTC lovers will get the opportunity to own an HTC phone at a pocket-friendly price but a detailed review makes it clear that the Desire 310 may not exactly be the best choice even for the price at which it is available.
Ergonomics
The designing of the Desire 310 is much like what its costs: cheap and low cost. There is nothing much to note about and it weighs around 140g which is pretty overweight with a cookie-cutter rounded slab appearance. It measures about 0.44" in width which makes it quite chubby for its size. The polycarbonated matte finish back is a plus point as it prevents fingerprints to quite an extent.
The volume and power button are placed at the right side which is more or less ergonomical but tactile feedback is quite poor in performance. The volume button is too soft and must be handled with care because it looks prone to damage very easily.
The overall size makes it easy for single handed use. It is available in hues of white and dark blue. The removable rear cover reveals a 2000mAh battery with slots for two SIM cards and a regular slot for the microSD card. The micro-USB port and the 3.5mm headset jack are located at the top edge of the phone.
It has a front facing VGA camera and front-firing speaker, plus points for the phone. There are no physical buttons and one has to use the onscreen buttons for navigation which poses to be a bit of hindrance when using the onscreen keyboard considering the small display size.
Display
The HTC Desire 310 has a display glass size of 4.5 inches with a resolution of 480 x 854 pixels which is not much and you can't expect any higher. The IPS panel offers a pixel density of 218 ppiwhich is very average and not that impressive at all but considering its class, one can't complain much.
Colour temperature of the screen is very cold resulting in images of bluish white and greyish colours and the colour reproduction is completely off. Even the primary and secondary colours show major discrepancies which can be particularly distinguished in colours of green, magenta and cyan.
Display is absolutely poor for outdoor use even in overcast weathers. Its brightness peaks at 288 nits and even though we understand it’s a budget friendly phone, one expects certain minimal standards.
Tech Specs
The HTC Desire 310 features a Mediatekquad-core processor MT6582 that clocked at 1.3GHz and a very meagre RAM of 512MB. It also features Mali graphics of 200MP2. The European edition of the Desire 310 features a 1GB worth of RAM. Internal storage provided is of 4GB but users have access to only 1GB which is pretty useless. One is compelled for storage expansion via microSD which is limited to 32GB. The micro SIM cards work in active stand-by mode. The battery is of 2000mAh that claims to offer up to 852 hours of standby time and 11 hours of talk time.
Use of the older Android version for the Desire 310 takes up further screen space apart from the navigation buttons occupying sufficient space as already mentioned earlier. Similar to its other version phones, the app launcher has app icons arranged vertically and offers Sense integration. There is no customisation feature available for users.
Camera
The front facing camera of the HTC Desire shoots on VGA mode while the 5MP rear camera performs below standards with no flash or autofocus feature. The rear camera however is capable of capturing 1080p videos.
Overall camera performance is very bad, producing a lot of noise even in photos captured in daylight. Since the camera is of such poor quality, even footage captured in videos turn out to be very bad and pointless. The front camera is also a let-down with a maximum resolution of 640 x 480.
The camera app offers panorama and HD modes but one can't really expect much out of them either considering the poor camera performance.
Overall performance
With Google's launch of Android's Ice Cream Sandwich version 4.0, gadgets could be optimised to its full potential. However, this also depends to some extent on the capabilities of the phone and how it is able to perform in use. The 512 RAM which is obviously insufficient for the phone causes the phone to stutter and lag even in the smallest of daily application use. Casual gaming will perform just about average on the HTC Desire 310.
The battery lasts for an average of 6hours 23 minutes when used for continuous video loop; moreover the 720p video quality is average while the 1080p video has a problem thereby skipping frames while recording and playing.
The only good and standard feature that one can find in the HTC Desire 310 is the clarity of sound and its speakers and how well it performs even in areas of low signal.
Verdict
Priced at Rs. 11,358, it is not really advisable to go for such an averagely performing phone because considering the market availability of Android phones these days, there is no dearth of better quality phones assuring quality performance and features even at slightly lower or similar prices.
The HTC Desire 310 is pretty much comparable to the Moto G but considering the mid-budget market, HTC has to offer better features if it has to survive the tough market competition. Pricing is not that friendly either if one tallies it with what he gets in return.
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