HTC Desire 626 Dual SIM Review
Today we will review HTC Desire 626 Dual SIM smartphone and know whether this HTC smartphone is worth buying? We will also know what are the advantages and disadvantages of this smartphone.
Look and Design
The design of Desire 626 Dual SIM is similar to other smartphones in HTC’s Desire range. The phone is made of plastic body and comes with a dual tone color scheme. This phone is very similar to HTC’s popular smartphone HTC Desire 820. But its screen is small. The phone is convenient to hold and use. The phone looks good and gives a pleasant feel.
There is a front camera on the front of the phone and an earpiece grill on the top. There is a speaker and microphone at the bottom. Although the plastic rear panel is removable, the battery cannot be removed from the phone. The phone has power and volume buttons on the right side, and a 3.5 mm audio socket on the top. There’s a micro-USB port at the bottom and a flap on the left that houses two nano-SIM slots and a separate microSD slot.
On the rear panel there is a camera, single-tone LED flash and a small hole for a microphone. Our review unit was white in color which required frequent cleaning. Overall, the Desire 626 Dual SIM has a new layout and a good design for the price.
HTC Desire 626 Dual SIM has a 5 inch screen with 720×1280 pixels resolution. The density of the screen is 294 ppi. The screen is sharp and readable but the colors and brightness are a bit low. Colors look a bit garish and artificial while brightness looks different in different parts of the same image.
Specifications and Software
If we look at the specifications, the Desire 626 smartphone will be called the smartphone of 2015 only. This phone has an octa-core MediaTek MT6752 running at 1.8 GHz. This processor was released in 2014 and is an older processor compared to other devices available in this price range today. The phone has 16 GB internal storage which can be expanded (up to 32 GB) via microSD card. The phone has 2 GB RAM. The battery is 2000 mAh. The phone supports 4G (FDD Band 3 and TDD Band 40) in both SIM slots. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 410 processor is provided in some global variants of the phone but this variant is not available in India.
Apart from this, the phone seems old in terms of software also. The HTC Desire 626 Dual SIM runs on Android 4.4.4 and is a full two generations behind the latest version. This is really strange when today there are other phones running on Android 6.0 available in the market at a lower price than the Desire 626.
Apart from this, the same thing applies to HTC Sense also. The skin is old and equipped with less features than the new version. From the notification shade to the app switcher, it seems outdated.
Obviously, HTC Desire 626 Dual SIM is lagging behind in hardware and software compared to the smartphones available in the sub-Rs 15,000 category in the market today. The phone also does not have a fingerprint sensor. Many options are not available due to old software. These also include app permissions. Additionally, the Lenovo Vibe K4 Note and Redmi Note 3 come with higher resolution screens, RAM, better speakers, audio enhancements, and a more powerful processor.
camera
The HTC Desire 626 Dual SIM sports a 13-megapixel rear camera with a single-tone LED flash. The phone has a 5 megapixel front camera. Recording up to 1080 pixels can be done with both cameras. Multi-angle, panorama, motion tracking, HDR and slow-motion videos can be shot with the rear camera.
The camera app on the Desire 626 is not like HTC’s typical camera app but is similar to many recent budget smartphones. What’s disappointing is that HTC Sense is a great user interface skin because its camera app is great. However, the app given in this phone is also not bad. All tasks can be done easily in the app and pictures can also be taken instantly.
However, the camera of this phone itself disappoints. Photos look blurry and this means that the photos lack a lot of sharpness. It is difficult to capture images in motion even if the object appears clear. Bright scenes become oversaturated while dull photos come out dark and washed out.
The same problem is seen in low light and close-up shots also. Close-up shots also come out blurry, scattered and washed out. To put it bluntly, the photos from the HTC Desire 626 are of below average quality. The camera cannot be compared with any phone in this price range.
performance
By today’s standards, the performance of the HTC Desire 626 Dual SIM is not too bad. But it cannot be called very good either. The phone hangs sometimes but the phone is easy to operate. Due to old software, there was difficulty in running heavy apps. Apps close suddenly but the phone is comfortable for general use. However, there is nothing in the phone that other phones in this price range are offering.
In our benchmarking test we had to compare the HTC Desire 626 with the Lenovo Vibe S1 with the same processor. The graphics benchmark figures were excellent but elsewhere this phone could not even compete with the Lenovo Vibe S1 (Review). It is worth noting that the price of Vibe S1 has now come down to Rs 12,999 which is less than Desire 626.
The HTC Desire 626 Dual SIM has a 2000 mAh battery which lasted 6 hours 5 minutes in our video loop test. Battery life is much less than the battery life of other devices these days. Even with normal use, the phone’s battery gets exhausted very quickly. We could not use the phone even for a day with a fully charged battery. The mono speaker of the phone is also bad and gives very slow sound. However, the Wi-Fi and cellular network antennas on the phone work very well and we were able to work well on our network.
our decision
This is the period when a premium smartphone takes a few months to become obsolete. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for HTC to launch a year old smartphone at this price. Customers also know that today there are other options available in the market with more latest specifications at this price or at a lower price. The great design of the phone is like other devices (according to the price range), we do not see any reason to buy this smartphone.
The HTC Desire 626 Dual SIM is not made for 2016 at all. This is a futile effort by the company in trying to maintain its hold in the Indian market. The phone runs on outdated hardware and software. Battery life is poor and features are less than expected. We would advise you not to buy HTC Desire 626 Dual SIM and instead choose an option like Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 or Lenovo Vibe K4 Note.
