HTC Desire S vs HTC Desire: What’s the difference?

The HTC
Desire
was one of our favourite phones of last year,
but the new Desire
S
could cause you to be a bit stumped. It’s got the same name, same
screen size and same processor speed, but is it just the same phone in
a new, aluminium suit? It’s time to
sort the stats from the specs.

Size and weight

The Desire S is slightly lighter and smaller, than its predecessor.

Desire: 135g, 119 by 60 by 11.9mm.
Desire S: 130g, 115 by 59.8 by 11.6mm.

Processor and memory

The Desire and the Desire S both have processors running at 1GHz,
but there are differences. The Desire S has a faster GPU, more RAM
and more storage than the first
Desire.

The Desire S’s Adreno GPU
claims to give significant improvements
in shader performance over
the Desire’s Adreno 200.

Desire: 1GHz Qualcomm 8250 Snapdragon CPU,
with an Adreno 200 GPU. 576MB RAM. 512MB of on-board storage.Desire S: 1GHz Qualcomm 8255 Snapdragon CPU, with
an Adreno 205 GPU. 768MB
RAM. 1.1GB of
on-board storage.

Camera

The Desire S doesn’t pump up the megapixels, but it does add a
front-facing camera for video calls and self-portraits.

Desire: 5-megapixel camera, LED photo light, 720p
video
recording.
Desire S: Same, plus a 0.3-megapixel front-facing
camera.

Software

The Desire S will arrive with Android
2.4 Gingerbread
, the latest version of Android meant for phones (Android
3.0 Honeycomb
was designed for tablets).

The original Desire came with Android 2.1 Eclair, got an update to 2.2
Froyo
, and will
get another one to Gingerbread
— someday. 

The Desire S also includes an online phone-management service
called htcsense.com.

Desire: Android 2.2 Froyo.
Desire S: Android 2.4 Gingerbread.

Screen

The screen on the Desire S is the same size as the Desire, and we
thought we’d prove it with this fancy comparison photo.

Desire: 3.7-inch, 480×800-pixel resolution.
Desire S: Ditto.

Battery

You’ll get an extra 190 minutes of talk time out of the additional 50mAh
stuffed into the Desire S’s battery.

Desire: 1,400mAh battery gives 400 minutes talk
time and 340 hours standby.Desire S: 1,450mAh battery gives 590
minutes talk time and 430 hours standby.

Connection speed

The Desire S has faster top speeds over 3G, and adds support for the
latest 802.11n Wi-Fi standard. It also has DLNA, for connecting
wirelessly to home
cinema equipment.

Desire: Up to 7.2Mbps download speed, up to 2Mbps
upload speed over 3G. 802.11b/g Wi-Fi.
Desire S: Up to 14.4Mbps download speed, up to
5.76Mbps upload speed over 3G. 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi.

Update: We misjudged the Desire S’s weight — well, they do say the Internet adds ten pounds. It’s 130 grams, which makes it 5 grams lighter than the Desire, not 5 grams heavier.

Check Also

8 New Google Products We Expect to See This Year

Google’s device line could end up having a particularly important moment in 2023. The company …

Leave a Reply