The HTC Desire Eye in cherry red has popped up on the JB HiFi website for $799 outright, although the site is still “Awaiting Stock”. Delivery projection is that it will ship within 5-9 working days, which hopefully means 5-9 working days after you order and not after stock is received.
It’s probably the former – according to the site you can already pick up a Desire Eye in-store same-day, so long as you order it and it’s approved before 3pm. Check local store stock first.
$799 isn’t cheap
The 5.2 inch 1080p display isn’t exactly 2K, but at this point griping on about screen resolution is starting to lose its lustre. 1080p is still the best you’re going to get for video content and gaming, except in the very few cases where developers or uploaders have upgraded their content to 2K or more.
The CPU is a powerful 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801. Once again that sounds like a top-tier from 6 months ago or more, but it’s still going to get the job done with minimum fuss. The 2GB of RAM is a bit of a let-down, but if HTC has done its job managing multitasking effectively then you may not even notice.
Internal storage is 16GB, but there’s a microSD slot for expanding that up to a further 128GB. All in all the Desire Eye reads like a good phone. Even so, it wouldn’t be worth the same $799 that you’d pay for an LG G3, except for its two big draw cards.
An important, if small step in waterproof technology
The Desire Eye is the first smartphone to hit the global market that retains its IPX7 (just as water resistant as the IP67 Samsung Galaxy S5 or LG G Watch R) without the need for a flappy cover for the USB port. On the Eye, the port remains totally exposed.
This is a big deal. Owning a Sony Xperia Z3 or Galaxy S5 is far from a care-free experience. When it comes to liquid damage, if that cap is off, even just a little, you can say goodbye to your phone and possibly even your warranty. Even worse, if the flap breaks off then that’s a major feature of your phone that just disappeared.
Expect to see a few manufacturers backwards engineer this USB port in the near future.
The ultimate selfie phone: 13MP back, 13MP front
We’ve already waxed lyrical about whether or not there’s actually a point to a 13MP front camera. Firstly, megapixels aren’t everything. You’re going to need a lens system and imaging software good enough to back that up. Don't make the mistake of simply assuming that this selfie-cam will be as good as the rear camera on your G3 or GS5.
Probably more poignant is that a front-facing camera is usually not implemented for any photos where the focus is further away than the length of a human arm. Even if you have a selfie-stick you’re still only a metre or two away. 13MP seems like overkill for photos where the target object is this close and could even adversely affect image quality by reducing lighting effectiveness.
Still, there’s no point nay-saying until you’ve actually tried a thing. We’ll be holding our tongue of any further opinion until we can get our hands on one ourselves for review.
Alex Angove-Plumb
Digital Content Editor
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