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The HTC Desire is a feature-rammed phone with the hardware to support it. It's got a huge screen with the 1GHz processor underneath, and the Sense UI is a system that keeps getting better with every iteration.
Coming just after the HTC Legend, it improves on all the issues we saw with that (battery life, Peep and Friendstream slow to update etc) and adds in some decent extra hardware as well.
We liked
We liked nearly every single thing on the HTC Desire - it just works as you want it to as a phone and an internet tablet at the same time.
The Sense UI, Leap View and social network integration is all seamless and useful, the Live Wallpapers are super cool and the internet browser with pinch to zoom is fantastic.
Music and video playback was rich and simple, the camera is probably the best we've seen from HTC, the overall experience was fast and intuitive - in short it's easier to find things we didn't like.
We disliked
We'll level with you - there's not a lot wrong with this phone. The Bluetooth music playback is a little patchy and the battery will drop a little easily if you leave everything updating in the background.
Although the latter is a little annoying out the box (HTC wants you to use lots of updating widgets from the start) once you take some things down (or set them to manually update) the battery use is a lot better.
Verdict
In short, this is a phenomenal phone - one of the best we've ever had on TechRadar. Usually when we like a phone on the first use, we end up horribly disappointed after a little time with it, but the HTC Desire kept on performing and achieving when we thought it wouldn't.
The screen is lovely, the design is slick and processor makes everything happen in a flash - all you'd want from a smartphone.
Sure, some people will want slightly nicer design (we'd advise you check out the Legend) or a simpler home screen and richer app store at the moment (look at the iPhone 3GS) but as a piece of hardware it's without par in the mobile world.
A stunning phone, and one that will show the world that Android isn't just for the hackers and phone geeks any more.
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