What proportion of smartphones do you think have TV outs exactly? It’s hardly something to warn people of. Maybe 3 or 4 currently have it, out of about 70-90. Why would you be astonished?
Storage, maybe you have a point, but my N1 with 8gig 8gig costs about £11) is still more or equal to any other phone I’ve ever had. Again, you seem rather surprised to me at a fairly normal thing?
Because I find it odd that a phone that plays films only allows you to watch them on a tiny screen (albeit one that’s large by mobile phone standards). My last 2 phones had it so I assumed it was standard these days. Also my 3 year old N95 has 8gb so would expect high end phones these days to have a least 16gb, with all the raving thats going on about the Desire I assumed it had these bases covered.
TV out is far from standard… It’s a nice addition, I’m hoping the next phone I have has it, but at the same time there’s not yet once been an occasion that I’ve wished I had it. If you don’t carry round the necessary cable, doesn’t it make it pointless?
As for storage, I’ve always found 8gig to be plenty. I guess it’s about what you use your phone for. I have about 1gig of music (have never listened to more than that, I think it’s iPhone users are used to having their entire collections with them that is the problem) and 3 movies (2gig?) and the rest is filled with… well, Nandroid backups, other backups, photos and such, but I always still have 1gig spare…
Don’t get me wrong, both of these points would make it a better phone, I guess I was just surprised at your ‘surprise’ as they are not generally commented on by others and are not generally expected by most. 
Thanks Andy, I appreciate your advice and I like your website as well.Just been informed by Vodafone that my new Desire is due to arrive on Wednesday next week.
On family holidays etc I’ve always found it convenient to put a load of films on the phone and bring the lead and that’s worked out really well and I’ve got accustomed to it. N97 has let me down in other areas eg dropped calls, crashing etc so I complained to VF and they agreed to replace it with the HTC. I chose that due to good reviews here and the fact it has a 1Ghz processor and plenty of RAM, so hopefully it won’t freeze up/crash.
The solution that should bring it up to the N97 functionality (and then some) is this box which should be able to read the media files from the phone (using it as a USB stick) and relay them on to the TV. The great thing about that is not having to convert them into a phone-friendly format.
In retrospect what I should have done is get a Divx-certified phone, ideally I should have held out for the Samsung GT-i8330. But hey, it’s a learning experience, and it will be interesting to try out something different having only ever owned Nokias, and I’m keen to see what Android is like.
id be interested to know what you think of it.
Ive had htc phones for years and have swore by them (all windows.)
last month i made a big change, went to android on a sony erricson xperia x10, and personally, i hate it.
Im thinking of going back to my htc touch hd
I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say anything nice about the X10 though… to be honest, I think that’s a bad handset choice. If you know anyone with a Desire, try and take a look for just a couple of minutes, you’ll probably see the difference in that time.
Well I got it today and first impression is, I like it! Feels great to hold and seems a lot lighter than the N97, internet seems very fast, the whole thing runs very slick and the display is excellent. Early days yet but I em enjoying my new toy 
Thanks for the recommendation, guys.
Not sure now what to do with the N97. Once I know I am definitely happy with the Desire and satisfied the satnav works ok when I’m on the bike (I listen to the voice instructions through headphones), then the Nokia is heading Ebay-wards.
Can someone report the video performance of the phone especially Divx performance.
DivX playback is not good. Yxplayer will play DivX movies, but I think the frame rate didn’t look too good.
DoubleTwist will apparently do a good job of syncing and converting video for Android, although I haven’t check this yet.
Well I’ve had my HTC Desire for a week or two now and I am delighted with it, so thanks for the recommendations. Lovely feel to the phone, lovely, easy to use, intuitive interface that takes a little getting used to after using the Nokia but once you’re there, you know there’s no turning back 
And the touchscreen is somuchbetter 
Funny thing is the supposedly cutting-edge N97 struggled with even the most basic applications. The HTC, on the other hand, is lightning-fast and seems to handle, with ease, pretty well anything you throw at it. This of course makes the games run very smoothly, and therefore very playable and addictive. I made the mistake of downloading “Robo Defence” the other day and played it for hours. Amazing thing about it is there’s a lot going on all at once which would cause a “normal” phone to stutter and slow down. Not so the Desire. It doesn’t miss a beat, even when you press the “fast forward” button :w00t:
Satnav works very well, nice that it “reads” out the street names and road numbers, it irritated me at first but then I realised what a great advantage it is over just “left” or “right” instructions.
Looking forward to getting a new 32Gb MicroSD card so I can start putting some serious apps on it :DDoes anyone know why this is in the “Classified Ads” section? :hehe:
Lou’s is amazing too, I’m real jealous of it and it’s top of my list when my contract’s up (aside from 4G progress).
Proper sweet phone.
You realise this will only help if you have some form of Apps2SD running? (Which means you need to root your phone)
I think a mod moved it while drunk one time. No-one will move it back for us 
I thought 2.2 allowed that. 2.2 for the Desire is due for release before the month is out if the rumour mill is correct.
:hehe: Beat me to it. Yep you’re right, rumour is it will be out on 23 June.
Well, I guess I’ll believe that when I see it… How can it take a year for the Hero but two months on the Desire?
Also, Apps2SD isn’t very good on FroYo, it needs the app itself to allow it for starters, not many do. 
For playing video, you are best to transcode it. Use Handbrake, and it will reduce the resolution to something more appropriate and the same with the bitrate and quality.
You can do the same with the audio side of things as well.
The results is a video that is a lot smaller and more suitable to a phone. Do it with my BB Curve 8900.
Will be getting a desire on upgrade in next two weeks, anyone want to set it up for me as I do not have a danny what you lot are on about? Will pay for time.
Lol, how do you mean ‘Set it up’? It will pretty much work right out of the box. The only thing for you to do is decide what bits and peices you want on your homescreen. Hold one down for a second and drag it to the bin at the bottom if you don’t want it. (And remember, less means battery lasts longer generally)
Press the + in the bottom right corner to add things to the screen. Hold and then move them to put them where you want
Where abouts in London are you? Do you have a gmail account already?
Had one of these for a week now, what a mental bit of kit !
Takes a bit of getting used to (including vastly reduced battery life compared with ‘non smart’ phones I’ve owned previously).
Just been for a blast and tested a new app - GPS Tracker Lite - it tracked my progress on a map, speed etc. by using the GPS signals.
‘Quick Settings’ is another app I put on my homescreen today, quick and easy access to switches for Wifi, aeroplane mode etc.
A friend at work swears by my battery guide
Remember, widgets you add to the homescreen run pretty much constantly, so take battery power. Anyway, read the tips
