The HTC Desire 500 was announced in July for Taiwan at the fairly affordable price of US$399 (R3 999) but today HTC tells us that it’s headed for the UK and select European markets. It’s a 1.2 Ghz quad-core phone with 4.3″ screen and looks mighty fine. Merrily, there’ll even be a dual-SIM model for a few lucky sectors of the world.
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It’s outfitted with a Snapdragon 200 CPU, so expect fair to great interface speeds. The 8-megapixie camera is going to need it as well, as HTC has a long history of delivering some of the best camera-phones this side of Sony. And more often than not, a great shot is linked to a speedy CPU. Not if you’re a Lumia 1020, but that’s an exception to the rule.
On the front there’s a 1.6-megapixie selfie-snapper which should provide some decent shots. Will the 4.3″ screen, which is LCD, sharply display the pictures? There’s no mention of PPI, so we can’t bank on the screen being a haven of displays.
Outside of this there’s the now usual Beats Audio and this really makes a difference to the sound. You have to hear it to believe it. There’s also an 1800mAh battery, which will barely make it through the day. We’re not a fan of this battery size and unless it’s 2500mAh or above, you’ll have to charge the Desire 500 mid-way through the day.
Okay, so all of this is standard stuff — what sets it apart? Well, there’s Video Highlights, an app that makes a 30-second video reel of selected images. Sounds very unspectacular, and many phones have a similar app.
Does the fact that it has HTC BlinkFeed, the homescreen that automatically updates, make a difference to your life? Maybe it will, but only if the phone was going for US$100 cheaper. US$399 seems pricey.
Will the European one sell for the same price as the Taiwan model? Most likely, so don’t expect to get it at a bargain price. It’s still more affordable than most of the smartphones out there, is an HTC and does have a quad-core CPU.
