HTC Desire 500 Pro Reviews

The Desire 500 has a similar front-end to the HTC One (M8) and a good camera, but battery life and performance are both poor

A good-looking phone which can’t stand up to some extremely strong competition

The HTC Desire 500 is a great-looking device, with tons of unique software and solid mid-range smartphone specs on board. It's hard to find any real weaknesses with the phone, including its reasonable £199 price tag. To sum up, it's simply a very good mid-range Android smartphone.

HTC Desire 500 will likely be the obvious choice for everyone who wants their smartphone to stand out from the crowd. And it's not the typical looks vs. brains dilemma either. The Desire 500 isn't likely to impress with speed and performance, but it won't disappoint either. For anyone coming from an entry-level droid, or even a feature phone, this one's definitely worth a look.

We used our Desire 500 review unit over the last couple of days. The smartphone is equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 quad-core SoC and supports the common wireless standards WLAN, Bluetooth, GPS and even NFC. Contrary to many HTC devices you can expand the internal storage (4 GB) and also replace the battery. A display resolution of 800x480 pixels is not up to date anymore and cannot compete with the HTC One Mini, for instance. The picture quality of the main camera is surprisingly decent and the maximum display brightness is sufficient outdoors. However, multimedia capabilities are limited because the SoC cannot handle Full HD videos. The mainstream device is currently available for a street price of around 280 Euros in two different colors. The similarly sized HTC One Mini is almost 150 Euros more expensive and you can get the S4 Mini for 350 Euros. Both alternatives are definitely worth considering, but you will be satisfied with the Desire 500 if you can live with the drawbacks. Another interesting alternative is the Google Nexus 4 that just got a price cut of 100 Euros; the 8 GB version is currently available for 200 Euros.

The Desire 500 is a pretty good shot at the booming lower midrange market for HTC, fusing together an entry-level screen and processor, which, however, do their jobs fine, with some more upscale features like a good 8 MP camera and an eye-catching, youthful design lines. There are some hiccups here and there, like the lousy power key, but overall the handset's performance is solid in most aspects that matter. HTC has priced it adequately in the $300 segment, too, so it has every chance to become a popular choice. This niche is crowded with pretty strong competitors, but fortunately for HTC you can't get anything much better for this price. Shopping around for alternatives, the well-rounded LG Optimus L7 II pops up, with a tad weaker specs, but lower price tag and larger battery. Sony's Xperia L also deserves your attention here, with a cool design and more internal memory, but weaker processor and camera worse than the Desire 500. The Sony Xperia SP gets you a larger 4.6” HD screen, but you have to shell out a bit more for it. Things get a bit more hairy for the Desire 500 when you consider last year's LG Optimus L9, which can be had for less now, and records 1080p video, though at 4.7” it is not a direct replacement for your pocket.