HTC Desire 501 Hands On

HTC showed off its new range of mid range handsets at an event in Delhi and we got a chance to spend some time with the new phones. The cheapest of the bunch, we found the Desire 501 to be quite an interesting product. Read on for our hands on report of this affordable new handset.

Video Hands on:

The front of the phone has a 4.3 inch display with a resolution of 800×480. While it might seem low on paper, it is perfectly adequate given the size and positioning of the phone. The display is of the TFT variety which means that viewing angles aren’t the best. From the front, the Desire 501 looks like a cross between the HTC One and One X. At the top you get a HTC One-esque speaker grille but the phone does not have BoomSound speakers. You also get a front facing camera.

At the bottom are the three buttons that correspond to back, menu and to bring up multitasking. The buttons are of the capacitive variety and we found them to be sensitive enough.Over on the right side you get access to the volume toggle. We felt that it was placed a bit too flush to the handset but this might be a concern with just the prototype. The left side is bereft of buttons. The microUSB charging port is at the bottom while the top of the phone houses the 3.5mm audio jack as well as the power key.

Powered by a 1.15Ghz NovaThor processor paired with 1GB of RAM, the Desire 501 is running Android 4.1.2 with Sense UI 4.0. General performance seemed quite good with the interface being particularly fluid. We’ll reserve judgement on this till we put the handset through our review process. You get two microSIM card slots at the back and the handset is of the dual active standby variety. There’s also a 2100 mAh removable battery that should prove to be potent enough for over a day of usage. You get 8GB of inbuilt storage and this can be expanded using the microSD card slot.

The back of the phone is perhaps the highlight here with it adopting a combination of interesting colors and design patterns. The covers are interchangeable and HTC has plans to offer alternate covers in retail. Made of high quality plastics, the material is very good at hiding fingerprints and feels great in the hand. Slotted up above is the 8MP camera module with LED flash right next to it. You also get HTC Zoe support here.

In our brief time with the phone we quite liked what we saw. HTC is going for experience, build quality over just throwing raw specs at the sub 20,000 rupee market. We definitely appreciate what they are attempting here but it will be an uphill struggle against the likes of Micromax that fullfill specification checklists but often fail to offer great customer experience. The phone is priced at Rs. 16,890.