The HTC Desire 820 is a mid-range, 4G LTE model that promises ultra-fast data connection. It disappoints a little on the NFC part, since it doesn’t have a selection of sensors, and hence lacks all the fun features – step tracking, motion gestures, and double-tap to wake – that are decked in the HTC One model.

Handling everyday tasks with Desire 820 is easy. The model gives an overall good performance, with no glitches in cracking through emails, browsing and savoring the incredible screen space. Not a very powerful device, graphically speaking, yet it surprises by giving a better performance when streaming movies and videos.

HTC Desire 820

Desire 820 offers a phablet style display, with 5.5 inches – a perfect size for excessive media consumption. There’s copious brightness, although a big display with that much brightness equals more battery consumption. It has a screen resolution of 1280×720 pixels, which equals to 276ppi. It uses an LCD 2 panel display.

With the 2600mAh battery, one will need to charge by evening on busy days when handling a lot of communication. It has an extreme power saving mode that provides basic functionality to get through the rest of the day without a dead smartphone. It carries the better performing, HTC’s BoomSound speakers above as well as below the display. High volumes are handled perfectly well, with very little vibration. It also provides an excellent sound quality.

As reported earlier, the operating system is paired with HTC’s Sense 6 user interface. The Sense 6 is an excellent user interface. HTC’s content curation services, BlinkFeed is used, which is right below the home screen along with a bunch of other HTC digital goodies. One can simply switch to Google Now Launch for a different and vibrant home screen experience. Sense and KitKat pairing gives it a lovely and wonderful operation experience. It lags very little while moving around the user interface, the folders snap open at a fast pace, same way the transition between apps switching is fast, nice and easy. It can be a productive pocket smartphone when paired with latest Google apps.

Desire 820 has a 13-megapixel camera on the rear and a front-facing 8-megapixel camera. Both are capable of capturing 1080p video. It offers HTC’s latest Camera app, which is simple to use with plenty of features available. The Camera app is also decked with fun features, which includes an easy transition between front and rear cameras, a Split Capture mode to capture shots at the same time. The rear facing camera offers some great results when shots are taken in good light conditions. Desire 820 also has an effective high dynamic range mode, which is not automatic, yet helps balance out scenes with perfect highlights and shadows.

HTC Desire 820 is listed at a modest $499.

HTC Desire offers a bountiful to offer. With the Sense 6 interface, it sets apart from the competition, refining user’s day-to-day experience. It might soon get updated to Android Lollipop, which will hopefully add a plenty of benefits, including a 64-bit hardware.
The handset sits in the mid-range zone, with its hardware experience confirming its position. The HTC Desire 820 is ought to suffer due to competition, especially from flagship models such as LG G3 which is now available at a similar price.