HTC Desire 620
HTC’s new Desire 620 follows on from its 2014 Desire 610, with a bigger and better screen, a better processor, a new design and improved camera offerings. Readily available for £170, it’s a mid-range smartphone that competes with the likes of the higher priced Nexus 5 but also the just-about-budget Motorola Moto G 2014.
When we first saw the HTC Desire 620 we were impressed. Our review sample was the Tuxedo Gray model and looked stylish and sleek, but there are also white models available too, some with coloured accents around in blue or red.
The back is removable, so you can access the battery, SIM and microSD card slot. It also has a matt coating, which unfortunately picks up greasy fingerprints in an instant, so you’ll find yourself regularly cleaning it to keep it looking nice.
Another downfall to the design is the large bezels. The screen is 5in, but the overall size of the smartphone is much bigger. This does allow room for the front-facing speakers that we love on HTC phones, though.
Its dimensions are 72.7x150.1mm, which is significantly bigger than the 69.2x137.8mm of the Nexus 5, for example. It’s also 9.6mm thick, which is a bit on the chunky side, and weighs in at 160g.
The 5in display has a resolution of 720x1280 pixels, which equates to 294ppi. That’s not the best screen we’ve seen, but it’s not the worst either. We found the colours to be bright and crisp enough to satisfy the eye, but the viewing angles are poor.
Inside the HTC Desire 620 is a Snapdragon 410 Qualcomm processor clocked at 1.2GHz and paired with 1GB RAM. This combination doesn’t make for a particularly speedy or powerful device, but we didn’t find the smartphone to be too sluggish.
Playing graphics-heavy games and running lots of power-hungry apps could get frustrating, but for general use including casual gaming, browsing the web, messaging, emails and social media, it’s fine.
To give you a better idea of how the HTC Desire 620 compares with rivals, we ran a series of benchmark tests to determine the processor and graphics performance, as well as a browser speed test.
In Geekbench 3.0, the HTC scored an average of 1456 in the multi-core test. That’s better than the 1144 scored by the 2014 Motorola Moto G, but significantly less than the 2800 scored by the Google Nexus 5.
The Desire 620 scored poorly in the GFXBench graphics test, managing just 3.9fps (frames per second) in the Manhattan test and 9.3fps in the T-Rex test. The Nexus 5 recorded 24fps in the T-Rex test so is much faster, while the Moto G scored 11fps which was still slightly better than HTC’s new offering.
Finally, in the SunSpider test, the HTC managed 1381ms, so is better than the 1526ms scored by the Moto G (lower is better in this case), though the Nexus 5 scored a much better 801ms.
There’s a microSD card slot that allows you to add up to 128GB more storage space to the 8GB that’s built-in to the device.
Connectivity includes 4G LTE, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi, but not the faster 11ac standard. There are also dual-SIM models available.
HTC has given the Desire 620 an 8Mp rear-facing camera, which we found allows you to capture good but sometimes slightly grainy photographs if the conditions are right. It doesn’t have great speed, so taking photos of small children could be a challenge. There is an antishake mode that can help, though.
The camera app itself is good, with settings that allow you to alter the ISO for better low-light photos, the white balance, the photo mode (including Macro, HDR, Night Time Portrait, Landscape, and a Panorama mode), and there are filters and effects, too. There’s also an LED flash.
For selfie-lovers, the front-facing camera is good too. It’s 5Mp, and there’s a handy timer mode.
Both cameras are capable of capturing 1080p video, which we also found to be satisfactory though not outstanding.
When it comes to software, the HTC Desire 620 runs Android 4.4.4 KitKat, with no sign of a 5.0 Lollipop update just yet but one could arrive in the future. That’s overlaid with HTC’s Sense 6 UI, which we’ve grown to really enjoy using.
Features such as BlinkFeed give the phone a modern, youthful vibe, offering an overview of what people are talking about on social media, in the news and more. There’s a Kid Mode, and Zoe, which is a photo- and video-based social app. It’s easy on the eyes and simple to navigate, too.
Verdict
The HTC Desire 620 is a good midrange smartphone that is well-priced if you find it for £170. That’s around £20 more than the Moto G, but you’ll get front-facing speakers, a better front-facing camera, a slightly speedier processor and 4G LTE for that extra cash.