HTC has been launching a lot of handsets at one time, especially in Desire series and recently they just released their flagship phone – HTC One M9+. Meanwhile, HTC released another new budget oriented phone which looks similar with HTC Desire 820 but with better looking but the HTC Desire 826 still have a pretty impressive hardware inside it. Will this HTC Desire 826 compete with other competitor phones like Xiaomi M4i or Xperia M4 Aqual Dual? This might not be the best phone you can get in the market, but still let’s take a closer look at the HTC Desire 826 Dual SIM.
The packaging on HTC Desire 826 retains the same design as the other Desire series box and this time this wouldn’t be a negative thing in my opinion. There are some highlights on what the phone has been offered, and the back is just specifications of the phone itself. Out of the box you will find the standard accessories – In-Ear earphones, charger without cable, USB cable and some manuals. These accessories will be sufficient for you to start to use this phone.
On first impressions, the HTC Desire 826 Dual SIM feels very solid compared to others budget-oriented phone in the market. Unlike the flagship HTC One M9+, it doesn’t have a capacitive home button nor fingerprint scanner at the front but it’s actually a good thing because there won’t accidently press that button. Besides that, it has a black edge at the front of the phone and blue lagoon around the phone. At the back, it has a rubberized finish back cover and same goes to the side of the phone, however although its feel like rubber, it will extremely love your fingerprint on it.
This smartphone might be a mid-range smartphone from HTC, but they included HTC Sense 6 based on Android 5.0 Lollipop and the main difference between Sense 6 and Sen 5 UIs will be like power saver feature that comes in version 6.0 and you will also receive Google’s Material Design elements. Besides that, you receive an overhauled pull down the notification panel and the characteristic stacks of Lollipop’s notification cards. Apparently HTC also included a Themes application that lets you download themes and stuff like wallpapers, icon packs, ringtones, etc. I really hope that HTC will bring Sense 7 to the Desire 826 because with Sense 7 it can allow it to run full potential.
Similar to the Desire EYE, the HTC Desire 826 Dual SIM has a 13-megapixel f/2.2 main camera and a front-facing 13-megapixel f/2.0, and at the first look the camera software performs brusquely just like its previous budget-oriented phones. However, I’ll save the best experience till the end of the full review and I took a few camera samples for your viewing pleasure.
With an early verdict, this phone might not be the best you can get in the market, however it is still a pretty solid performing smartphone. The phone’s Snapdragon 615 processor and the front facing 13-megapixel camera is what makes this product really attractive. The phone doesn’t have heating issues after gaming for a few hours and the battery life seems pretty impressive, we shall be performing a lot more test on the phone prior to our full review.
The HTC Desire 826 retails at RM1,299 and is available at authorized resellers now.
