Well after the debacle that was actually getting the phone charging (that you can see in the previous post), I pretty much played with the Desire all day until 1am. I blame being in quarantine. So this post is pretty much a recap of my first impressions throughout the day. I probably should have been keeping notes somewhere, because I’m pretty sure I will have forgotten some points I wanted to make.

Part of the setup was really easy.

  • It prompted me to add my Google account straight away, then synced my email, contacts and calendar automatically. Win.
  • I was able to find a prettier wallpaper and set it without too much trouble.
  • It was easy to find how to access the pre-loaded apps on the phone.
  • I found it very easy to find the Twitter for Android app and install it. In fact, installing apps in general was painless.
  • Accessing my email is a breeze. I can also very easily archive emails, reply to emails, follow links and return to the message.
  • Making a voice call was very simple and not complicated by the complexity of the other features of the phone. (I didn’t actually make a voice call until Day Two, but it fits under this category anyway.)
  • Hello back button! You make navigation of this phone much easier.

Some things were not so obvious.

  • The Menu button was confusing at first, but I got the hang of it after a while. To me, it didn’t seem intuitive to not have the menu options visible on the screen unless you press the button. I can see why it’s useful though, as it does free up screen space. This probably wouldn’t be an issue to those who have previously used a smart phone. (My husband’s iPhone doesn’t really count as I have only really used it to play The Creeps or check IMDb.)
  • It took me until the evening to figure out how to send an SMS. For some reason, “Messages” didn’t jump out at me to say, “Hey Helen, this is where you can send texts.” Perhaps that’s because I’m so used to the Nokia envelope icon. I had even checked the messages (there were some already on there from Telstra when I started the phone up) but didn’t see any way to compose and send a message. I am still to work out if it’s possible to send a text straight from the contacts list, which is a feature I used on my Nokia.
  • It was not clear that I could add extra Gmail accounts and only found this after being told by another HTC Desire user that multiple accounts could be added. Part of the reason for this was the way it automatically set up my email with my Google account: once it was synced, there was no option to add another account at this point. I therefore thought that that was the end of that function.
  • The notifications bar should have a little arrow or something on it. I only discovered it by accident, pulling it down when I was actually trying to do something else. I could see the little icons telling me I had new email, but was accessing the email via the Gmail app, instead of pulling the notifications menu down to go straight to the new message.
  • I still haven’t figured out how to get my music onto the Desire and use it for ringtones etc.
  • Why is it that the only way to uninstall apps is through the Market? It took me until almost midnight to work this out after installing a stopwatch app and then realising that the Desire already has an inbuilt stopwatch function.

And some things were downright painful.

  • Navigating the Market for apps. A bit of organisation wouldn’t go astray. I don’t think there’s enough categories and too many apps in each, especially in the games section. Subcategories and a system of order (either alphabetised or by rating) could work to alleviate the overwhelming amount of choice and general disarray. Plus, there’s no indication of how long the list is. I may have missed some very cool apps because I simply got tired of scrolling… and scrolling… and scrolling…
  • Horrible ring tones. Seriously, this is 2010. Why do these tones sound like what I had in my old Siemens phone at the end of the 90s?
  • Even more horrible music pre-loaded. I’m sure there must be somebody out there who likes that music, but it’s not me. How do I delete it? I don’t want my Desire to be defiled in such a way.
  • Battery sucks so far. Phone currently charging for the fourth time in about 36hrs.

All up though, so far it has been quite a positive experience and I am sure that once I get more used to the navigation and functions of the phone, I will never be able to go back to my Nokia.