Gadgetory

hey what is going on guys long hair from Android authority and even though flagship phones are always in OMS main focus nobody takes more pride in their mid-range phones than HTC and some of their mid-range phones don't even really feel all that mid-range so today we're taking a look at their latest and probably the most powerful mid-range phone they have ever made this is the HTC Desire 820 if the design of the Desire 820 looks familiar to you well that's because this is the spiritual successor to the desire 816 that came out earlier this year but it's been improved pretty much all around it's still made of glossy polycarbonate with rounded corners and sides but this time around is completely unibody and it's also a lot thinner whether it's plastic or metal HTC just knows how to make a quality phone and they've done it again what they desire 820 it's a little bit on the slippery side but overall it feels very solid and lightweight it is a big phone with some pretty hefty bezels but it's not any bigger than a lot of other flagships out there so if you're used to big phones you'll adjust to the Desire 820 fairly quickly my favorite part about the design of the 820 is the accent colors because it really makes the phone stand out and gives it a little bit of extra flair to what would otherwise be a very plain looking phone taking a tour around the device you've got your power button and volume rocker on the right side and while the volume rocker is choked up a little higher than I would like the placement of the power button on the right side was a much needed improvement over the 816 from earlier this year which had it awkwardly placed on the left everything else is in its usual place with the 3.5 mini heads a jack up top micro USB port along the bottom and a single plastic flap on the left side that houses the SD card slot and two SIM slots because this is a dual SIM device now this would not be an HTC device if it didn't have front-facing boomsound speakers and there's absolutely no surprises here they sound extremely good they're very loud very clear and deliver a very clean and rich sound part of it now I don't have friends family also on the front between those two speakers is the 5.5 inch display coming in at 720p resolution it's not the sharpest thing in the world with the resolution being spread over a 5.5 inch screen but HTC always knows how to make a good looking panel regardless of resolution and the 820 s display is about as good as it can be with a nice amount of brightness natural and accurate colors solid viewing angles and outdoor visibility it might not be the highest end panel out there but it's still very enjoyable to use especially for games and videos so there's not much to complain about with the display inside the Desire 820 is where it starts to get a little bit interesting the 820 is being powered by a Snapdragon 615 octa-core chip this makes the Desire 820 one of the first Android phones to be powered by a 64-bit processor and while it's still running 32-bit software you at least have the comfort of knowing that if and when the Android lollipop update comes your phone will have the hardware to fully take advantage of the update the performance as it stands right now however is actually very snappy and responsive and even though this is technically a mid-range phone the experience feels very high-end so whether it's doing something basic like opening up apps to more demanding things like web browsing multitasking and playing high-end games the Desire 820 handles everything just fine without causing much of a problem with the camera on the Desire 820 you're looking at a 13 megapixel sensor with LED flash and the camera interface hasn't changed all that much from previous HTC devices it's still a very simple and clean interface with some manual controls like ISO white balance exposure all the usual stuff you might expect there are a couple of new shooting modes now though like split capture which lets you take a photo with the rear camera and the front camera and it stitches them together then there's photo booth and it's exactly what you might think it is it takes several photos in succession and stitches them together just you would get from a photo booth Zoe's is also still available but if you want to compile them you'll have to do it through HTC zone Zoe application with the 13 megapixel sensor you can take some pretty high-res photos with a good amount of color if lighting conditions are right but more often than not exposure and white balance are usually way off causing a lot of detail to be lost photos are either completely overexposed or underexposed causing lights to be way too bright and darks to be way too dark HDR however does help alleviate the issue by creating a much more balanced shot and bringing out more detail it certainly doesn't get much better in low light resulting in a lot of noise making it virtually impossible to take a usable photo in dim lighting conditions the front-facing camera is worth mentioning simply because it's an 8 megapixel camera which is a lot higher resolution than most smartphones out there so if you're into selfies you can take some pretty good ones and really take advantage of the front-facing camera features like photo booth that I mentioned earlier as far as the battery life is concerned you're looking at a 2600 milliamp hour battery and I would say the battery life is just average it's nothing spectacular I was getting anywhere between 13 to 16 hours off the charger with about three-and-a-half to four hours of screen on time so I would say it's definitely more than enough to get you through a full day but I wouldn't expect to get anything more than that taking a look at the software you're looking at Android 4.4 KitKat with sense 6 and if you're familiar with HTC devices then you'll find your way around fairly quickly as the experience hasn't changed all that much on the Desire 820 since is still a fan favorite when it comes to skins on Android and for good reason it's a very simple and clean interface with a lot of nice features like blinkfeed which still lives one swipe to the left of your main home screen and the customizable quick toggles in the notification shade the best part about sense is that it brings all of these enhancements and features to Android while still maintaining a very smooth and snappy experience which is something you can't say about many Android skins as with many desire phones there's no plans on it coming to the United States at least not yet but if you want to pick one up I've seen the price range between four to five hundred dollars unlocked it does come in a variety of different colors and it is 3G and 4G LTE capable but there are a couple of different models floating around out there so I'd recommend doing your research and making sure that it is compatible with your network and there you have it for the HTC Desire 820 if you're a fan of the desire lineup and you're looking for an HTC phablet device this is probably the closest you are going to get even though this is a supposedly mid-range phone it is definitely on the higher end of the mid-range spectrum if that makes any sense because it delivers a very high-end experience without the high end price tag of a flagship phone anyways guys thank you so much for watching this review hopefully you enjoyed it if you did please give it a thumbs up down below and also subscribe to the channel which is also down below and make sure to check out our website for more in-depth coverage you already know what it is and Jory calm because we are your source for all things Android