Gadgetory

as smartphone production costs plummet OMS have a brand new affordable category to consider and corner with HTC's future on the line let's see how its latest entry fairs with strong value driven offerings on the rise I'm our first IRA TechnoBuffalo and this is the HTC Desire 6 to 6 just as a quick disclaimer I reviewed the device for five days the HTC Desire 66 is a budget device through and through everything from the build quality to the screen to the internals they all just scream budget so let's start with that body the 66 has an entirely plastic exterior it's got this kind of soft smooth finish feels kind of nice in the hand to hold it's got kind of like nice soft round corners the form factors really really slim but it does actually feel sturdy there's like not even a little bit of flex there's even this kind of like somewhat pearlescent finish on the white areas on the outside obviously not all that all the devices are white but this one does have it and I hesitate to say that it makes it look a little more premium but it definitely does give the impression that the device is a little bit better than it actually is on the left side here you're going to find a flap to get at that SIM slot and the micro SD card which is capable of cards up to 200 gigs in size and on the right you're going to find that kind of gushy power key that you're never quite sure if you've actually pressed Andy of course the way too high for my thumb volume rocker up here on the top underneath the hood we'll talk about some specs really quick this is running the snapdragon 210 it's a quad core processor clocked at one point one gigahertz and Qualcomm says that that this is the like 4G processor for everyone so any device that needs forth to 4G connectivity it's like they're modern low-end processor it's got 16 gigs of on-board storage a gig of ram and a 2,000 milliamp hour battery and it is going to be available for $200 off contract the camera on the back is an 8 megapixel shooter and the Front's got a 5 megapixel camera they're both about as good as you can really expect them to be the HTC camera app is easy enough to use it's quicker than I really expected it to be but the results are pretty predictably rough we forgot really noisy kind of washed out photos and low-light photos that are just about grainy enough to sand that table you've been meaning to refinish this isn't going to replace your DSLR or even your pocket point-and-shoot if you for some reason still have one of those but it is perfectly serviceable for all the snapchats that kids are doing these days I did have a really positive experience with the battery on this thing it's a 2000 milliamp hour battery and it's going to keep you cranking for quite a few days with just a little bit of light usage overnight in standby it only dropped by about 5% and it's been making it full days with me with about 40% left in the tank and that's just with normal moderate day-to-day usage between the stock GPU it's got a really low resolution display and the low-power Snapdragon 210 it's really not terribly surprising how long the 66 can stretch 2000 milliamp hours plus like I said that 210 even supports fast charging so it is definitely the modern low-end processor so even if you do run out of juice you've got fast charging on this thing to charger right back up the screen though is really what betrays the 626 as a hundred percent budget device this is a 5-inch display running a 720 resolution and it's an LCD that only gives it a PPI of 293 and believe you me it shows in just about every pixel I haven't been this immediately put off by display in quite some time the colors are really really washed out the resolution is incredibly low and the text is rendered in honestly it's borderline offensive in in most areas the text looks like it's had like a grey stroke applied to the outside of it it's actually kind of confusing honestly because it doesn't even seem to happen everywhere but when it happens text is really really difficult to look at almost as if it's in the uncanny valley of fonts it feels like someone just took the screen and turned sharpening up all the way to 11 and for me it's easily the worst aspect of the entire device but let's talk about the software really quick the 66 is sporting Sense 7.0 which is the latest and least egregious HTC spin on Android and while it's certainly more toned down than older offerings it not quite as far backed off as I would like from Android as even for example TouchWiz has backed off from Android or even better motorola has backed off from Android it's definitely an HTC device and everything from the app drawer to blinkfeed to the incessant notifications asking for your usage info for blinkfeed and things like that they're gonna make sure that you don't forget it it does run smoothly enough though and despite unholy amounts of 80 bloatware it never really harshed my experience so badly that it couldn't be mostly alleviated by an icon pack and nova launcher despite its less than ideal screen the 66 is ultimately a totally serviceable device for the price this is exactly the kind of device I could totally see buying a teenager it's kind of crazy in fact how far we've come and how inexpensive smartphones can be these days you know this thing is just 200 bucks and this would have been a flagship a few years ago if I had a 16 year old who were getting his or her first smartphone this is exactly the kind of device that I would be looking for it's nothing special but it's a starter device you know and it is inexpensive enough that if it were to get lost or destroyed or stolen that it wouldn't really break the bank to have it replaced unless you're shopping for your kids or looking for a cheap burner device I really can't think of a reason to seriously consider or recommend the 6 to 6 especially as strong contenders like the oneplus 2 and zenfone 2 start creeping dangerously close to the budget range of prices if you really need to save somewhere in the vicinity of 150 bucks I'm not sure you're not better off picking up like a flagship from last year or even a Moto G which is actually the same price as the 66 off-contract what do you guys think I still don't know that a budget device really ought to be making this many compromises like I said the Moto G is a very good device for the price and as I mentioned the zenfone 2 and the oneplus 2 are both getting dangerously close to those budget territories so let me know what you think is this budget category just getting smaller and smaller and smaller until eventually we're just using devices that are all about the value let me know in the comments and of course you can tweet me at mark B and if you enjoyed this video give us a like there's a subscribe button there for you to if you want to use it and I will catch you guys in the next video Oh