This article is more than 1 year old

HTC Desire Eye: The Android superior selfie shooter

Narcissism goes hi-res

Splash and grab

If I had to pick a hole in the design it would be the plugs that fill the nano SIM and microSD card slots. They are just a little too obvious for my taste. At 154g and 151.7x73.8x8.5mm the Eye is reasonably light and compact for a 5.2-incher. I found it easier to hold and use than either the Sony Xperia Z3 or Galaxy S5 both of which felt decidedly cold and slippery by comparison.

HTC Desire Eye Android smartphone

The obvious nano SIM and memory card slots let the aesthetics down a bit

From the outside it doesn’t look as though the Eye incorporates HTC’s BoomSound front-facing stereo speaker and amplification system but it does. The speakers are mounted inside the body above and below the display, just as they are in the One M8.

Despite the absence of speaker grilles of any description the Eye is only a wee bit less acoustically accomplished than the One M8. In comparison my Galaxy S5 sounded like it was using a baked bean tin and a bit of string for a loudspeaker.

Personally I’d tolerate a small drop in maximum volume - the only real difference between the Eye and One M8’s speakers systems - as the price of owning a device that doesn’t look like it was designed by Bang & Olufsen on an off day.

HTC Desire Eye Android smartphone

Bright and easy does it outdoors with a 13MP web cam with flash up front

Unusually for a HTC phone, the Eye is IPX7 rated against being dunked in water. So it will survive for 30 minutes at a depth of up to 1 metre. You see Sony, you can waterproof a phone and not screw up the loudspeaker performance.

The visually alert of you will by now have looked at one of the pictures of the Eye and thought “what the hell is all that gubbins above the screen?”. Well since you ask, it’s a 13MP autofocus camera with a f/2.2, 22mm lens, HDR capability, 1080p video recording and a dual LED Flash. The camera on the back meanwhile is a 13MP f/2.0, 28mm component with the same basic abilities. Now you see why the Eye has the Sauron-esque moniker.

The rear camera is pretty competent. Colour registration, white balance, noise levels, and visible detail were all more than acceptable. In HDR mode there was none of the artificiality that can sometimes occur with less competent implementations.

HTC Desire Eye Android smartphone

Camera interface is easy to navigate

The Eye’s snapper doesn’t work as well in low light as the One M8’s large (2µm) pixel camera but that difference aside I suspect your average punter will get on better with the Eye’s more conventional equipment. I know I did, despite the curious absence of 4K video recording.

Next page: Double vision

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like