HTC Desire 620G Review – Good Value for Money with Few Minor Bugs

Last month I switched my mobile phone from Samsung to HTC. This was after using two different Samsung devices and a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 as my tablet (still using it) for three consecutive years since I switched from HTC WildFire to Samsung S-Duos 1 in 2012. This time I bought the HTC Desire 620G, which was officially launched in December last year. Here is my small review about what I experienced and what to expect.

First of all, it’s an Android 4.4.4 (KitKat) device with dual SIM capability. When selecting a smartphone, dual SIM capability has become a mandatory requirement for me as I have to carry around my official phone number (paid by my employer) and the personal one I use for last 10 years. It’s a headache to carry around two phones and it’s too expensive to maintain two different smartphones as well. I am not going to talk about the technical specs of the phone as everything can be easily accessed on GSMArena.com. Let me focus more on the usability and other key features.

HTC Desire 620G is a decently designed phone with an appealing look. One reason I wanted to switch from Samsung was their monotonous designs which virtually never changed after they introduced the S3. I wanted a change in the look and phone of the phone I use, and HTC offered that change. In fact, HTC devices looks much decent and exclusive compared to the Samsung range of phones, so if you are after the ‘looks’ of the phone you are using, HTC can solve your problem with a wide range of distinctive designs including the Desire range.

Phone weights 160g which is slightly overweight than Samsung’sS Duos 3 which you can compare directly with. However, the screen resolution of HTC Desire 620G is much better than the S Duos 3. Video viewing experience can be easily compared to any of the high end Samsung device.
HTC Desire 620G comes with a Li-Po 2100 mAh battery. After fully charging it in the morning, it stays above 30% batter level up until about 8.00pm with 3G enabled, on dual SIM mode which is quite satisfactory. However this needs to be monitored for at least another 4 months to see if this stay consistent. S Duos 2 I used earlier was a battery killer, had to turn off 3G after 3.00pm every day to stretch it until I go back home.

Back camera comes with an 8 Mega Pixels camera which is a bonus for a phone priced at less than Rs.30, 000/-. Add to that, the front Camera quality is 5 Mega Pixels, which is clearly far better than Samsung’s S Duos 3 (which comes with a VGA secondary camera). Front camera comes with a hand gesture feature for selfies.  If you are selfie freak, all you have to do is face the front camera at yourself with one hand and gesture the ‘victory sign’ to the camera with your other hand and camera will trigger after a 2 seconds countdown (enough time for you to put your hand back in place for the photo).

Even though the camera comes with 8 Mega Pixels in back and 5 Mega Pixels in the front, I am not quite happy about the picture quality. Most of the pictures I took, even in broad daylight looked gloomy. Sometimes I had to manually adjust the camera exposure levels to get some liveliness to the photo. (Talking about mobile phone cameras, I am still in love with the 3.2 Mega Pixel cameras I had in my Sony Erickson K810i which I used from 2007 to 20010).

Not the best picture quality even with a 8MP Camera. I know, the person who pose for the photo matters too :-P

Our gadget guru @UdaraUMD said, installing a different camera app for android would solve the problem of picture quality. His suggestion was, the HTC camera app for Desire range might not be advanced enough to give the best performance output of the hardware. In next few weeks I am going to try this out. If you know any third party camera apps which I can try out, please do let me know.

Now for some negative features…

HTC doesn’t come with built in Sinhala fonts for Android. This is a good advantage of using Samsung, as all KitKat+ devices from Samsung comes with Sinhala as a default language. However for HTC Desire 620G, you may have to root your device and install Sinhala fonts to view any Sinhala content. If you need any help in how to do this, @Malinthe is the expert to talk to.

I faced two major usability problems. One issue was, when an incoming call comes the screen doesn’t get illuminated automatically. If you keep the phone on the table and start working on something else, and suddenly when the phone rings you look at the phone only to see a black screen. Only after you press the power button once the screen gets illuminated and the details of the incoming call can be viewed. I first thought this was a built in feature which I can change from some setting, but later found out it’s just a lag in the phone. (If you keep the phone ringing for few seconds the screen will automatically get illuminated).

Second major issue I faced was a sensor lag in the ear piece. Any smartphone will automatically go to screen-lock mode when you move the phone towards your ear. This is managed by a certain censor in the earpiece. However, in my HTC Desire 620G, this censor seems to be having a lag too. Once I move the phone to my ear, the screen will remain awake. Touching the screen on my ear activated several settings unknowingly and once it went on Airplane Mode while I was on a call with someone!!!

Apart from above two usability bugs (which is only occasional), the phone all in all is a good value for money deal. Price of HTC Desire 620G is around Rs.27,000/- which is a good deal for a dual SIM android phone with 8MP/5MP cameras, 720 x 1280 pixels screen resolution, and 2,100mAh battery.
If you want a better performing phone with none of the above short-comings and bugs, I would suggest to invest another Rs.15, 000/- to 20,000/- additional and go for a mid-range HTC or Samsung Device.

Since most of my Android apps are being used on my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 tab, I only need a simple smartphone to handle my two mobile connections. HTC Desire 620G serves me just that purpose at the right price.