HTC DESIRE S review

Oh, we liked the HTC Desire. It still sits at the top of our 20 best mobile phones list, proudly casting a belittling eye over HTC's own Desire HD, the Samsung Galaxy S, Google Nexus S and even Apple's iPhone 4 juggernaut.
Though the HTC Desire's technology is now being surpassed, it's aged beautifully thanks to some timely price drops. However, all things must come to an end (or at least be supplanted by something new). The HTC Desire S has arrived to take over from its predecessor in the Android race.
In many ways, it's quite similar. We'll still be looking at a 3.7-inch 480 x 800 screen, Android overlaid with HTC's Sense UI and a 1GHz processor. However, HTC hasn't totally rested on its laurels.
Our colleagues at T3.com grabbed some HTC Desire S video footage which you can watch below.
The RAM is increased for the upgraded Android 2.3, there's now 1GB of built-in memory and it's made with a premium aluminium unibody shell.

The only real disappointment from a spec point of view is that 1GHz processor – it's single-core, while its competitors slowly move to dual-core for the higher-end phones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S2.
While it lacks the processing grunt of the LG Optimus 2X, we commented in our review of that phone that the Android experience wasn't actually made any faster or smoother than the original Desire by the addition of Nvidia's dual-core Tegra 2, so it'll be interesting to see if it can be as slick as ever on one core.

The Desire S also brings improvements in video recording, with 720p HD capture now supported, though the sensor stays at five megapixels.
The wireless technology has also had a welcome boost, with 14.4Mbps HSDPA 3G broadband and Wi-Fi 802.11n support both added.
The battery is also slightly larger (up to 1450mAh, which is still smaller than a lot of the competition), though HTC is claiming as much as a 20 per cent increase in standby and talk time.

It's available SIM-free for a little over £400, but looks set to be free on contract from around £35.
We're told the retail version will ship with a microSD card, but the size will vary between retailers – 4GB looks set to be the average.