Oh the terrible dilemma of it all! *swoon*

[Quintonir]

Okay, so I've been running with my Nokia E90 for two years now, but fancy taking a leap into the modern market. You may have noticed by my being here that the sweet ass shoes that I want to help me take that leap is (are) the HTC Desire.

So, over the past week, I've been reading every review under the Sun, watching all the videos I can find, and browsing as many forums as possible. Add to this a good old Google "HTC Desire problems", and I think I've got a pretty good picture of what I'd be getting myself into.

We all know the sexy specs for the Desire which make it... well, desirable. I don't have a problem with those. My question is concerning the reliability. I charge the E90 on a daily basis, and I understand that battery consumption on any smartphone is high. But I've been getting a worrying amount of reports of the Desire not even lasting half a day, or more than a few hours sometimes!

Most worrying of all, however, are these copious complaints of overheating and rebooting problems. By the sounds of it, this seems to be due to their motherboard (I'm assuming this because people are saying that is what HTC replace when the Desire is sent back). We have users here with this problem, we have users everywhere else with this problem. This has lead me to believe that it's a dangerously common problem.

I don't do contracts. I bought my E90 for

 

[willis]

Ooooh I had an e90. A bad boy beast of a phone. Can''t really advise on warranty concerns but i'd say you should deffo think about battery life. I was a heavy user with that phone and i didn't need to charge it every night.
never had any overheating problems with desire but as many will tell you, problems will always be reported more than praises.
Also the keyboard was so good on the e90 that i practically did most of my dissertation on it. Might take you some time to adjust

 

[Jooky85]

Battery - with the "battery trick" done and the JuiceDefender app installed, I now get about 50% battery drain with a days usage. Obviously it depends how much you use it etc, but I easily make it through the day with more to spare.

Rebooting/Overheating - never experienced it and to be honest I wasn't aware it was a problem! I'd not read about it, so perhaps its not as wide spread.

Contracts - I searched and found nothing, so bought it for just under

 

[FelixofMars]

Battery yes a common issue but depends on usage. Overheating, rebooting never heard of it unless it a dodgy modded ROM. I think one guy posted on here earlier today and he had what sounded like a genuine out the box issue. As he said its rare as he found nothing about it on a search.

 

[Quintonir]

Really? Found nothing? Blimey, I found loads of examples it simply by Googling "HTC Desire overheat". But it's certainly a comfort knowing it's not common.

 

[nerdofprey]

I'm on Orange UK and my contract is 22.50 per month with two hundred minutes, unlimited texts and 500 mb internet. I did have to pay one hundred for the handset, they have a cheaper contract for twenty which had half the minutes but everything else the same but the handset is one hundred and fifty. If you take their twenty seven fifty per month you get all the above, more minutes and phone is fifty quid.

Go to Orange.co.UK however I'm sure there must be cheaper deals around.

 

[nerdofprey]

I'm on Orange UK and my contract is 22.50 per month with two hundred minutes, unlimited texts and 500 mb internet. I did have to pay one hundred for the handset, they have a cheaper contract for twenty which had half the minutes but everything else the same but the handset is one hundred and fifty. If you take their twenty seven fifty per month you get all the above, more minutes and phone is fifty quid.

Go to Orange.co.UK however I'm sure there must be cheaper deals around.

 

[amg_1969]

Battery yes a common issue but depends on usage. Overheating, rebooting never heard of it unless it a dodgy modded ROM. I think one guy posted on here earlier today and he had what sounded like a genuine out the box issue. As he said its rare as he found nothing about it on a search.

Mine was an unmodified hardly used two month old desire, only 1 app installed Google Maps, and mine cooked itself and drove me nuts, It all started after the Froyo update, HTC told me it was a one off issue, since looking on Google there seems to be loads of people having "Exactly" the same issue. I think they have got problems with it, what concerns me the most is people are reporting the same issue all the time.

Andrew

 

[FelixofMars]

Interesting,I never heard of it before today. Heard of a few people saying it was getting hot but that seems to be it doing something complex and to be fair while it hot its no different from what happens to a CPU or Graphics card under heavy load. Even with fans a GPU easily hits 60oc why should a powerful portable CPU not create any heat?

Cooking itself is never good though, I wonder if it is that Froyo is pushing the chip more or if these are just a bad batch. There is always going to be some faulty ones at the end of the day.

 

[FelixofMars]

I am on Orange, I am using Canary 15 (100mins/free texts) but with 100 free minutes and unlimited (500mb) internet for being a long term customer. Free handset and only

 

[amg_1969]

Interesting,I never heard of it before today. Heard of a few people saying it was getting hot but that seems to be it doing something complex and to be fair while it hot its no different from what happens to a CPU or Graphics card under heavy load. Even with fans a GPU easily hits 60oc why should a powerful portable CPU not create any heat?

Cooking itself is never good though, I wonder if it is that Froyo is pushing the chip more or if these are just a bad batch. There is always going to be some faulty ones at the end of the day.

Did you see the YouTube - HTC Desire hardware defect shows the problem in action

 

[Tommex]

Really? Found nothing? Blimey, I found loads of examples it simply by Googling "HTC Desire overheat". But it's certainly a comfort knowing it's not common.

Don't take all the complaint threads to heart, as no one is going to make a thread saying, "Everything is running perfectly", whereas if there's a problem, they'll want the whole world to know.

 

[Quintonir]

It's not a matter of taking it to heart, but I always look at everything when buying a new phone. This thread is to discover how common it is and, should anything happen, my rights with HTC if I haven't bought the phone through a company.

 

[tirc83]

I'm on Orange

 

[grainysand]

Most worrying of all, however, are these copious complaints of overheating and rebooting problems. By the sounds of it, this seems to be due to their motherboard (I'm assuming this because people are saying that is what HTC replace when the Desire is sent back). We have users here with this problem, we have users everywhere else with this problem. This has lead me to believe that it's a dangerously common problem.

I don't own a Desire, but I do own its older sister with identical hardware. Take it from me: from frequenting this forum and XDA (where people tinker the everliving daylight out of their phones including overclocking 'em), overheating isn't a common problem at all for the N1 and, by extrapolation, for the Desire. It does get very hot if you're using it as a navigator in the car under strong summer heat, but all Snapdragon devices get very warm (including but not limited to the Xperia X10, the Acer Liquid series, the EVO, the Incredible). In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if all devices with a 1GHz processor get very warm.

QUESTION TWO:

The two most worrying HTC problems: poor battery life and the infamous overheating/rebooting. Regarding the battery life, I will be taking my own steps to get rid of auto download bollocks and will take a manual hold on a lot of the basic stuff. But I'm still worried about reports of the Desire conking out after only a few hours standard use. Any info on this?

Again, not a Desire owner so take this with a grain of salt: I get 13 hours of battery life under fairly heavy use, and a lot more than that--18 hours at least--under moderate use.

EDIT: Oh, third question actually! 360 screen: yes or no? All the videos have the Desire standing normally or in landscape on a counter-clockwise rotation (with the sound buttons facing the ground). Does it work in landscape the other way too? Does it go upside-down?

I think Froyo lets you landscape both ways, but not upside down. A rooted Desire can, of course, orient every which way.

 

[Arctic-Winds]

Three have recently launched a new tariff called The One Plan. SIM Only, 12 month plan, 2,000 any network minutes, 5,000 Three-to-Three minutes, 5,000 texts, 1GB internet,

 

[Nodders]

Question 1: I went a similar route, buying a SIM free Desire and then using my SIM only contract. It works out to be the same cost (in fact a little cheaper in some cases) than the more expensive contracts but the costs are all up front rather than spread through your contract - on the other hand I am totally free. The SIM free I went for was Virgin Mobile -

 

[scarlet_pimp]

I had a problem after I upgraded to 2.2, my battery only lasted 4 hours and my phone got very warm. The problem was I had kept all my apps from 2.1 and at least one of them was constantly working. I removed all the apps and installed them 1 by 1 and kept checking the battery using the spare parts app.
My battery now lasts the whole day easily and I use my phone quite a lot.

As for contract I'm on Orange paying 24.95 a month for unlimited data but that includes a loyalty discount. Tarrif is panther 30. Phone was free.

When I was looking the carphone warehouse website had the best deal, they did a deal for free phone for 25 a month on either dolphin or panther, don't know if that deal is still available. Carphone warehouse are good though cos the phone is unbranded.

 

[aardys]

When I was looking the carphone warehouse website had the best deal, they did a deal for free phone for 25 a month on either dolphin or panther, don't know if that deal is still available. Carphone warehouse are good though cos the phone is unbranded.

yep this is the one i went for , just couldnt find a cheaper deal , and it seems now like prices are going up on this phone all the time
but at least you get an unbranded phone , and i have had no probs with mine at all ,

 

[matttye]

On the average working day I take my Desire off charge at about 7:15am and don't put it back on charge until about 11pm, when I still have about 30% battery left. However, that's with auto sync off (after all - I don't need constant email/twitter/weather updates while I'm at work)

 

[Crafty]

Q1) Look at vodafone, they allow that sort of texts/data.

Q2) With wireless off (no network at work anyway), GPS, auto sync email and whatever other feeds turned off my phone lasts for 2 days on a charge. Phone is in regular use through the day.

Q3) only works in the counter clockwise position.

 

[SUroot]

My phone will last from leaving the house to getting home without charge and about 50-60% battery left over (depending on my usage).

My desire is pretty reliable. It has rebooted randomly once or twice but i've never had a smart phone that hasn't. I dont even feel it a problem. Sometimes stuff just happens.

My desire is overclocked to 1305Mhz, and even then when it should be getting really hot, its not doing. yeah it gets warmer than when its off. Charging warms the phone up more, IMO.

 

[Hippotech]

For a cheap and cheerful PAYG SIM, try GiffGaff. Just changed the Mrs over and with special offer at the mo' it is

 

[SUroot]

I considered the giffgaff route myself

 

[Quintonir]

I pay