HTC has launched HTC Desire C to appeal to the more budget conscious market. Now the question is: is this just a cheap smartphone or is the Desire C something that gives customers what their money’s worth?

Let’s find out:

The design

The phone itself looks like a smaller version of HTC One X at 60x107x12.5mm, thus making it look like an elite phone despite its lower price. One thing that stands out is its cutesy red internals; it does not improve anything but it really looks good.

The screen on this phone is sized 3.5in 480×320 with a pixel density of 165 PPI. Nothing mind blowing, and might even be a little fuzzy in the edges but for the price of the phone it is something you can’t really complain about.

Camera

The camera is not the strong point of this phone. It has a 5MP camera installed at the back and has similar settings that you will find with One X. The quality of the photos is not something to rave about and we will leave it at that.

Media player

What’s nice about this phone is that it has Beats Audio Technology installed. However, you would have to buy your own Beats headphones to enjoy sound quality as the phone only comes with regular earphones.

Software and performance

The HTC Desire C runs the latest Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. For interface, it uses HTC Sense 4.0 and it has 600 MHz single-core processor.

The positives: Loading videos is a breeze mainly due to its 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity. Placing calls through WiFi through VoIP applications like Skype or RingCentral is satisfactory. Software handling is also not an issue as application access is never a problem.

Now to the negatives: While software handling is not a problem, the phone performance feels that it is always a second slower than it should. It struggles with some basic functions like just switching on – it can take up to 10 minutes to get the phone ready for use. Web browsing can also be a struggle because the processor may be too slow in rendering pages.

Battery

Battery can last at about a day and a half with moderate use. Heavy use, of course, can shorten battery life but it is pretty satisfactory for what is paid for the phone.

Conclusion

It has a nice look and will pretty much be able to satisfactory do what you need it to do. However, because of its slower processor, it might not be long before you yearn for something more powerful.