HTC Desire 601 hands-on review

An affordable Android smartphone targeting the same space as the Nokia Lumia 625

Since unveiling its flagship One smartphone HTC's been oddly quiet about its plans for the lower end Desire range, leaving Samsung, BlackBerry and Lumia to fight over the low cost small to medium-sized business space.

However, a few months on, following the arrival of Nokia's affordable 4G-enabled big screen Lumia 625 HTC's chosen to retarget the market, unveiling its new Desire 601 smartphone. The Desire 601 attempts to pull the exact same trick as the Lumia 625, offering users on a budget 4G connectivity and a big screen smartphone experience.

However, with the imminent arrival of Apple's rumoured "affordable" iPhone and the sea of affordable Samsung Galaxy handsets currently spamming the market, one has to question if 4G connectivity will be enough to win over hard-nosed business buyers.

Design and build
Visually the HTC Desire 601 is very different to the firm's recent One series of devices. The Desire 601 features a slightly rubberised polycarbonate chassis and detachable backplate that when removed grants access to its 2100mAh removable battery and microSD card slot.

This means the Desire 601 feels a little like a cross between a traditional HTC handset and Samsung Galaxy phones - in fact were it not for the HTC logo and dual speakers lining its bottom and top it would be all but impossible to tell who made the phone.

During our hands on we noticed the use of polycarbonate, not metal made the Desire 601 feel lower end than HTC's stellar One handsets. However, being fair to HTC the Desire 601 does feel significantly more robust than most other affordable smartphones. The Desire 601 also remained very comfortable in hand thanks to its chassis' slightly rubberised and reasonable 135x67x 9.88mm size and 130g weight.

Display
The Desire 601 features a 4.5in 960x540 qHD display. This means the Desire 601 is on paper nowhere near as crisp as a full HD 1920x1080 screen but better than a bottom-barrel VGA or WVGA display.

Testing the display we were reasonably impressed with the phone's display. Using it in the fairly complementary conditions of the demo showroom, text on the display proved legible. While icons weren't as crisp as mid-tier Android smartphones, colour and brightness levels were impressive. Running it head to head with the Nokia Lumia 625 we had in our pocket, we found the Desire's display was much crisper than the Nokia phone's 4.7in 480x800 IPS LCD screen.

We didn't get a chance to test the Desire 601 outside of the event room, meaning we couldn't check how it performed in more adverse lighting conditions, like bright sunlight.

Operating system and software
The Desire 601 we tried was running Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean overlaid with HTC's custom Sense 5.0 user interface.

The lack of the latest 4.3 Jelly Bean Android version is slightly disappointing as the update adds a couple of nifty business-focused features to the OS. Chief among these is Restricted Access. Restricted Access is a feature debuted on 4.3 that builds on the multiple account support added on Android 4.2.2. The feature lets the owner of any Android device control what rights each account on the phone has, so they can quickly set up the device for work purposes, blocking the user from doing silly things like downloading dodgy apps from third-party marketplaces.

The addition of Sense 5.0 is also likely a controversial point for some business buyers. While we're fans of many of the features of HTC's latest Sense version, the addition of a custom skin will delay how quickly buyers will be able to get software updates from Google. This is because HTC has to test and adapt its Sense code to work with the latest Android software. In the past, the cost and difficulty of doing this has meant smartphone makers have seriously dragged their feet rolling out Android updates for cheaper smartphones.

That said, Sense does have some benefits, chief of which is Blinkfeed. Blinkfeed is a custom screen that replaces Android's native homescreen. The feed collates information from over 1,500 approved news outlets, including the BBC, Sky News and ITV as well as the user's Facebook, Twitter and email into one push update tile display. While some users have complained about the feed, HTC's made it so you can reset the native Android homescreen and in general we've found Blinkfeed to be a positive addition. In our experience the custom home screen makes it easy to quickly check the latest headlines from your favourite news outlets without having to enter the Chrome web browser.

Performance
The Desire 601 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400, dual-core 1.4GHz processor and boasts 1GB of RAM. During our hands-on we didn't get a chance to properly benchmark the Desire 601 or see how it performed when tasked to play demanding applications like 3D games. However, during our time we didn't notice any serious performance issues, with the 601 opening applications in less than 10 seconds and running them hassle free. Come our full review, we'll make sure to more thoroughly test the Desire 601's performance.

Camera
HTC's custom Ultrapixel technology is sadly not included on the Desire 601, with it instead featuring a basic 5MP rear and VGA front-facing camera. We only got to test the 601's camera in the event showroom, but found in these optimal conditions the phone was able to take passable photos. However, given the lack of Ultrapixel tech, we're certain image quality will deteriorate quickly when shooting in more difficult conditions, like low or bright light.

Chances
While the HTC Desire 601 doesn't feature all the cutting-edge technologies seen on HTC's premier One portfolio, it does retain enough of them to remain interesting. This combined with its LTE connectivity could help it become a surprise hit with small businesses. Though a key factor deciding whether this will happen is the Desire 601's price, an area HTC's being woefully quiet about.

The HTC Desire 601 is due to launch in the UK in September.

Written by V3's Alastair Stevenson