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Htc Desire 510 Review

Review               Specification                                                   
Design

As it's a budget device, it's no surprise to see a plastic back on the HTC Desire 510. While not unattractive, it does look quite obviously cheaper than its HTC Desire 610 sibling, which costs £239. It still has those large bezels at the top and bottom, though, making the overall size of the device unnecessarily big, which we've always found frustrating.
The Desire 510 is quite thick at 10mm, though thinner than the Moto G's 11mm.



It weighs 158g so is a bit on the heavy side too, especially considering that its 4.7in display is smaller than many thinner and lighter flagship smartphones.


The Desire 510 is only available in black or white, with a glossy finish for the white model or a matt finish for the black.

Display

The 4.7-inch display has a resolution of 840x480 pixels, which is the absolute minimum I'd expect to see on any smartphone, even at the budget end of the market. Less than HD, it results in a pixel density of 208 pixels per inch -- way below what you'll find on the One M8, the One Mini 2 or the Desire Eye.


Of course, those phones cost way more than the 510, so I can't in all good conscience expect the same quality display on such a cheap phone. The UK-only EE Kestrel is £10 more expensive, but has a slightly higher 960x540-pixel resolution. The 510's screen is adequate for the absolute basics. Text is sharp enough to read easily enough, but it has a definite fuzziness to it that you won't see on higher definition panels.

It's fairly bright at least, managing to counter much of the reflections from our office overhead lights. Colours are a little cold, but I've certainly seen worse. If you only really want a smartphone for texting, Twitter and a spot of light gaming every now and then, the screen will be fine.

Hardware

The HTC Desire 510 has a 4.7in screen, so it's a nice size that seems to be popular among manufacturers right now. Samsung's new Galaxy Alpha has a 4.7in screen, and it's widely rumoured that the iPhone 6 will have a 4.7in screen too.

However, that screen is a bit disappointing when it comes to resolution. It's just 854 x 480, which means a low pixel density of 208ppi, which is noticeable as soon as you start using the phone. The second-generation Moto G offers 294ppi, so boasts a much nicer display for the money.

Inside the HTC Desire 510 is the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 1.2GHz quad-core processor with 1GB RAM, which could mean it's slightly faster than many of its rivals with the older Snapdragon 400 processor. It should offer good speed and power for the price. We'll bring you full speed tests and benchmark results when we get the HTC Desire 510 to our labs, but during our brief period of time spent with the device we found it to be smooth and responsive.

There's just 8GB of built-in storage, but that's expandable by up to 128GB thanks to a microSD slot, which is slightly annoyingly hidden beneath the back cover of the device so is a bit fiddly to access.

Aside from the 4G LTE, which is a big selling point for this cheap smartphone, the HTC Desire 510 offers Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi (though not the faster 11ac standard), GPS and DLNA when it comes to connectivity. There's no NFC or IR Blaster, but that's not surprising for a budget device.

Camera

The rear-facing camera on the HTC Desire 510 isn't great, at 5Mp, though it does support 1080p video recording. The front-facing camera is just 0.3Mp and only offers VGA video recording, so might not be ideal for the selfie-lovers out there.

Software

The HTC Desire 510 runs the same Android 4.4 KitKat with HTC's Sense user interface, which comes with several HTC built apps and features including BlinkFeed. We rather like HTC Sense, with its clean, minimalist design and easy to understand navigation.


There's no word yet on whether HTC will bring the upcoming Android L update to the HTC Desire 510, but we'll update you when we find out.

Battery

A 2,100mAh battery provides the juice, which is a decent sized unit, considering the low power demands of the display and the processor. On our battery drain test -- looping a video at half brightness until the power runs out -- the 510 lasted a little over 12 hours, which isn't too bad at all.

With careful use, you won't struggle to get a day out of the phone. As always, it depends on exactly how demanding you are. To get the best battery life, keep the screen brightness down (this is always the biggest power drain), avoid anything demanding like video streaming until you're home and turn off Wi-Fi and GPS when they're not in use.

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