When the Nexus One was released, many believed that no device can go near it for a while. We didn’t have to wait for a long time for another great device to come out, though. Modaco was fast enough to tell that the HTC Desire was going to be announced at the Mobile World Congress at Barcelona.
This is good news for Filipinos. This might be the counterpart of the Nexus One that Mark Sergio, HTC’s country manager, was talking about. The software is the big difference between Desire and Nexus One. Desire has Flash 10.1, HTC’s Sense UI, and FM radio support. To be clear, Engadget reports that the Nexus One has the hardware to support FM radio so this is a software issue.
Like many others, I predicted that the software differences won’t matter very much. A while ago, Paul from Modaco successfully loaded the HTC Desire ROM on the Nexus One. It won’t take long before the ROM becomes publicly available, and Nexus One owners could be enjoying the goodness of HTC Desire even before it hits the stores.
Hardware wise, the differences of the devices that I am aware of so far are the following (HTC Desire vs. Android)
* Physical buttons vs. Capacitive buttons
* Optical Trackpad vs. Trackball
* 576 MB RAM vs. 512 MB RAM
* No noise-canceling mic vs. W/ noise-canceling mic
* Chin vs. No Chin
* 135 grams w/ battery vs. 130 g w/ battery
* (H x W x D) 119 x 60 x 11.9 mm vs. 119 mm x 59.8 mm x 11.5 mm
* non-engrave-able back vs. engrave-able back
* no docking pins vs. w/ docking pins
* Wireless Band Differences
* Aesthetic differences
Beyond hardware differences, the Philippine market has to consider price and availability. If the Desire is the counterpart of Nexus One that’s going to hit the local stores, it is a great choice for Filipinos because of the local support from HTC and availability of peripherals. We don’t have a clue on the price yet, though. According to HTC’s press release, it is going to be available in Asia in early Q2.
Link:
HTC Desire vs. Nexus One
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