HTC Desire 500 specs rating review: 56.0

HTC Desire 500 is the first quad core device at the 4.3 inches category. This category has great competition with a lot of devices with multiple specs. Can the mid range quad core HTC smartphone beat the rest of the phones? Just because it has a quad core processor and some clever apps, is it the best phone you can buy with a 4.3 inches screen? We are going to analyse the phone and compare it to different devices with 4.3 inches screens, smaller or bigger.

SCREEN

HTC Desire 500 has a 4.3 inches screen with 217 pixels per inch. It’s not the best screen you can find on a 4.3 inches phone, not even on a HTC phone with the same size. HTC decided to put a moderate screen letting HTC One S and HTC One mini have better screens. So the 217PPI put this device on the lower end of the 4.3 inches devices. Sony Xperia S and HTC One mini have the best screens of the category and HTC Desire 500 is just better than the older Desire C and has the same screen as HTC One Sv. So this is not the best screen you can get.

CAMERA

This category has a lot of 8MP camera phones like HTC Desire 500. HTC has added some software advantages to the latest phones so you can find on this phone Multishot burst mode to take multiple shots and a 30 second mini movie feature to let you create highlight videos with music add ons. That means nothing you can’t do with an app. The camera is good but not the best of the category (like the 12MP of Sony Xperia S) and you can find a lot of camera apps on the net or in other phones like Samsung Galaxy S4 mini and HTC One S (that also have 8MP cameras).

PROCESSOR

HTC proves that it has a fast reaction and is one of the first companies to launch a quad core phone on a cheap (compared to premium phones) smartphone. HTC Desire 500 has a quad core processor at 1.2GHz, better than almost all other smartphones of the category. Of course this phone is the slowest quad core phone of the market right now but it costs less than all the other phones too. So you get what you pay for. The only disadvantage is the RAM of 1GB, half of the 2GB of RAM of the dual core Samsung Galaxy S4 mini. Of course Samsung Galaxy S4 mini has a higher price so let’s say that HTC Desire 500 is one of the fastest smartphones your money can buy on that price range. More quad core cheap smartphones are to come in the next month from ZTE, Samsung or LG. But HTC Desire 500 is the first one.

BATTERY

HTC Desire 500 has a strong 1800mAh battery. It’s not the best on the category, that position belongs to LG L7ii (2460mAh) but it can give power to the quad processor. In fact the battery is good for the price range HTC Desire 500 belongs too (at 4.3 inches) and is by far the best battery on that category. The battery is the same as HTC One Sv (1800mAh) but better than HTC One S (1650mAh). It’s not a game changing battery but it will give you the power you need for a couple of days.

SOFTWARE

HTC Desire 500 has some software add ons that make it different from older devices with pretty the same specs (except from the processor). Blinkfeed is the default app on the homescreen of all new HTC devices. You may love it or find it completely useless if you are not a social guy and you are not interested in the news HTC provides from specific media. I don’t really like Newsfeed, I want my default screen with a calendar and some shortcuts so it annoys me. HTC Desire 500 has the Android 4.2 version of Android and not the newer 4.3 but for now there is not 4.3 inches smartphone with Android 4.3 (from scratch) so let’s say that Desire 500 has the latest Android version of the category.

SIZE & DESIGN

HTc Desire 500 is beautiful like all other HTC phones. HTC knows how to make beautiful smartphones and you can understand that if you hold the phone on your hands. Beyond the design, Desire 500 is not the lighter phone (Samsung Galaxy S4 mini is with 107g) and not the heaviest (Sony Xperia S is with 144g). Desire 500 is not the slimmest device either. With 9.9mm it is on the fat side with Huawei Ascend P1 (7.7m) being the slimmest and Sony Xperia S the fattest (10.6mm). So it’s beautiful but “heavy” compared to other 4.3 inches phones. HTC One S is much slimmer (7.8mm) and lighter (119g).

VERDICT

HTC launched the first mid range quad core smartphone making the quad core technology right for the masses. The final ranking of HTC Desire 500 is 56.0, not on the top of the category and after two other 4.3 inches devices (HTC One mini with 56.9 and HTC One Sv with 59.6). HTC Desire 500 is one of the fastest phones your money can buy on that price range. It’s a pity it doesn’t have bigger RAM, better screen or a better camera but if it had, the price would also be different. So HTC decided to boost the processor speed and let behind the camera and the screen. It’s a smart choice because this phone can support apps other mid range apps can’t. So we would also sacrifice other specs to boost the power of our phone.

Should I buy this phone?

1. If you want a quad core phone and you cannot afford premium phones buy HTC Desire 500

2. If you want the best device your money can buy on 4.3 inches, buy Samsung Galaxy S4 mini

3. If you want the best HTC smartphone at 4.3 inches, buy HTC One Sv.

Compare HTC Desire 500 to the best 4.3 inches smartphones.

COMPARISON CHART

SpecHTC Desire 500Compared to:with spec:ScoreBuy now:
Width9.9Sony Xperia Z Ultra6.548%
Weight123HTC Desire C10077%
Screen PPI217HTC One46946%
Camera MP8Nokia Pureview4120%
2nd Camera1.6Sony Xperia Z2.273%
Processor4 * 1.2Samsung Galaxy Note 38 * 1.932%
RAM MB1000Samsung Galaxy Note 3300033%
Battery mAh1800Huawei Ascend Mate405044%
Android4.2Google Nexus 44.383%
Release Date2013-09-Today100%
Our view60%-100%60%
AVC rating methodDate Rated:2013-09-18Total Rating56.0%Cheap cases for this device