HTC Desire 510 Review

Introduction

The HTC Desire 510 has the legitimate honor to be the first Android smartphone to ship with a 64-bit processor. Surprisingly, though, this isn't a hot-shot HTC flagship, but quite the opposite - a basic entry-level smartphone. It's the successor to 2013's HTC Desire 500, which was a fine, but not exceptional low-end phone back in the day. Targeting budget-conscious customers across the globe, the LTE-enabled Desire 510 is rivaled chiefly by the Moto E, Moto G, and the Lumia 635. Is this a smartphone worthy of considering against those two?

Design

A plain smartphone made of glossy plastic.

The HTC Desire 510 is made to be cheap and functional, not to blow your mind. It is built from the kind of glossy and smooth plastic they use to make toys with. It collects more fingerprints than a forensic specialist, and it's easy to scratch and get dirty. This doesn't mean the HTC Desire 510 is filmsy, or devoid of charm. In fact, it's the best-looking low-end Desire phone to date, and it is well-built, too. The plastic might be cheap, but it doesn't creak or give out in hollow points.

At 5.51 x 2.75 x 0.39 inches (139.9 x 69.8 x 10 mm), the HTC Desire 510 might be on the chubby side, but it's still an ergonomic smartphone. The smooth edges make it easy to hold and operate. The power and volume buttons are positioned on the left top side and right side, respectively. They don't have much travel to them, but are easy to find and press - and this rings true for both right and left-handed users.

The front side is home to a microphone, earpiece, camera, light & proximity sensors, and a 4.7-inch display Unfortunately, a LED notification light is not present. Up top, there are the Power button and 3.5mm audio jack, and on the bottom you'll find the microUSB port. The back panel is home to a speaker grille and a main camera that lays flush with the panel. Your index finger will often touch the lens, but you will eventually lose the habit.

Display

Poor quality.

We'll make it clear from the beginning - the HTC Desire 510's 4.7-inch display is very poor. It has a resolution of 480 x 854 pixels, making for a low pixel density of 208 pixels per inch. It's color temperature is way off at 9058 Kelvins (the reference value is 6500K), giving it a cold, blueish look, and the colors appear very dim and washed out. At 321 nits, it's not particularly bright, and using it on a beautiful sunny day is practically impossible. The vertical viewing angles are terrible, with the display exhibiting extreme distortion in brightness, contrast and color temperature when skewed.

Interface and Functionality

HTC Sense 6 brought to a low-end smartphone.

The HTC Desire 510 runs HTC Sense 6, the latest version of the company's interface, on top of Android 4.4.3. It is kept mostly intact, the way it debuted in the HTC One (M8). BlinkFeed - HTC's news reader, and Zoe, the video-making and sharing app, are here as well. Even the DotView app is here, letting you use HTC's stylish retro-chic cover with the phone. Familiar apps such as Stocks, HTC Backup, Weather, and the browser are here as well. As a whole, HTC deserves a compliment for bringing a complete version of its user experience to the low-end market with the Desire 510.

Processor and memory

The Desire 510 is wicked fast for such a basic smartphone!

There's nothing worse than a laggy smartphone, and alas, low-end smartphones are prone to choppiness even with the lightest of Android interfaces. Not the HTC Desire 510. Here's the best thing about it - when you aren't trying to play demanding games or browse heavy websites, it's fast. Wicked fast for such a basic smartphone! Somehow, the new 64-bit Snapdragon 410 processor and 1GB of RAM are crushing it in this humble handset, which is running 32-bit Android, by the way. Browsing menus, opening apps, and taking photos is very speedy. This is, again, very good of HTC - not only it brought a beautiful interface to the most budget-conscious of customers, it made it fly!

But what about raw performance? It is as expected – middling. In almost all tests we ran, the phone ison-par with HTC's current mid-range offering, the HTC Desire 816, and it's a little faster than last year's Moto G. This doesn't make it a games machine, but be sure, the smartphone will play casual titles and 2D emulators quite comfortably.

The HTC Desire 510 has 8GB of on-board storage, with about half of it available to the user. You will be quick to fill it, but fear not - the memory is expandable with a microSD card.

Internet and connectivity

Being an HSDPA+ 4G-enabled smartphone, the Desire 510 manages a theoretical download speed of 42.2Mbps, which is not bad at all. It doesn't seem to struggle with fast download speeds over Wi-Fi, 3G, and 4G, which is a very welcome plus. The stock browser is simple and functional. It doesn't seem to struggle with opening web-pages with lots of content like PhoneArena, and zooming, panning, and navigating is smooth for a low-end device. Connectivity-wise, the Desire 510 is perfectly fine.

Camera

Amazing camera app, poor camera.

The best thing about the HTC Desire 510's fixed focus 5MP main camera is the HTC camera app. With its speediness, stylishness, comprehensive palette of features, and ease of use, it remains one of the best out there. The camera itself is poor, and being a fixed-focus unit, we'd say it's worse than the average 5MP cam you will find in low-end smartphones. As you can see, the samples we took don't paint a pretty picture. They are poorly exposed, washed out, and detail is smeared – really low-end quality. The selfie mode makes use of the 0.3MP front cam to capture portraits. Unfortunately, these 0.3MP cameras are particularly good at making faces look their worst.



The video recording feature has Slow motion video and Fast HD (60 fps recording) options. These features aren't very impressive, as one simply slows down the video, making it twice as long as the original, and the other basically speeds it up. Videos can be shot at a maximum resolution of 1080p , with all the colorful filters applied to them as well.

Multimedia

The Desire 510'sThe video player is extremely basic - its only standout option is the ability to easily capture a still frame from the video through a dedicated shortcut in portrait mode. In our tests, it failed to play DivX and QuickTime-encoded video files, but it played H.264, MKV, MPEG-4, XviD fine. The audio app is better - it has a nice way of arranging and presenting your music in a clearly laid-out gallery. However, it doesn't even have an equalizer, let alone visualizations or other extras. Of course, replacing the stock video and audio players with better solutions is very easy to do. As for the speaker quality, the mono speaker in the Desire 510 is not impressive in any way. The sound gets slightly distorted at full volume, and the music is ringing. However, it's loud enough to let you hear the ringtones in an environment that isn't too busy.

Call quality

The HTC Desire 510's earpiece is a bit quiet, but voices are heard mostly clear, without overwhelming distortion or modulation. The microphone quality makes the user's noice sound a tad hollow, but this might be due to the phone's active noise cancellation feature, which filters background noise at the expense of thinning out the voice This is a very welcome bonus for a budget smartphone, and one you'll certainly appreciate in noisy situations. Otherwise, there's nothing decidedly good or bad about the HTC Desire 510's call quality. You will be just fine making calls with this smartphone.

Battery life

The HTC Desire 510 manages 7 hours in our benchmark.

In standby mode, the HTC Desire 510 feels like it could last for eternity. But in our battery test, it managed good 6 hours and 59 minutes of on-screen time before it expended its 2100mAh battery. The phone is pretty slow to charge, as it gets to a full load in 3 hours and 27 minutes when using a charger with 5V (1.5A) output.

Conclusion

There are two things we outright don't like about the HTC Desire 510, and these happen to be its camera and display. The display is borderline unusable under direct sunlight, and the image looks washed out. A fixed-focus 5MP camera is very unimpressive in 2014, but its quality is absolutely disappointing.

These things aside, the phone is a joy to use, because its comfortable and reliable. The Desire is nicely put together, and exceptionally speedy for an entry-level smartphone. HTC's Android interface remains one of the best out there in terms of look and feel, and the battery life is good. As a whole, the 510 is a decent entry-level smartphone to have, but we cannot recommend it. We'd rather have the Moto G or Lumia 635, because they offer better value for the money. And in the lowest spectrum of smartphones, our favorite remains the Moto E, because it has similar qualities, but is priced even lower.