HTC Desire 530 Wallet Conscious Smartphone review
We’re taking a look at the wallet conscious HTC Desire 530 for T-Mobile today. Previously only available in the UK the Desire 530 comes in at only $179.
Indentured servitude is not something anyone would enjoy and paying a monthly fee on top of your already sky rocketed cellular bill just seems the same. The HTC Desire 530, initially released abroad is now available in the USA. The budget smartphone works well for a secondary or back up phone you can take on vacation or as a primary if your funds are less than available and you need a new device.
Opinions of the looks will vary relative to the person but aesthetically the white sprinkle design isn’t thrilling me. Additionally the lack of cohesive design colors isn’t the best in my opinion either with the bright orange cone power button that looks like it was a leftover part that got used. Not sure why the White version came to the US instead of the sprinkle black but to each his own. You can either deal with it or you can’t.
What I did like about the design is that the plastic housing is very pleasant to hold, fits well in your hand and doesn’t seem to show off scuffs and dents in a pronounced way.
HTC Desire 530 Specs
Equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 quad-core 1.1GHz CPU with 1.5GB of RAM and 16GB of flash drive storage and the Adreno 304 GPU, the Desire 530 isn’t exactly scorching the road as it drives up the street but it’s enough for any basic daily activity you might need it for. After the Android OS there’s about 9.8GB of usable onboard storage. You can extend that storage memory up to 2GB with the microSD port. Performance can be slightly sluggish depending on what apps you are using and what’s going on in the background but for normal daily surfing and interaction it’s does just fine.
It’s 4GLTE and backwards 2G/3G compatible, but check with your carrier as the 4GLTE connectivity is only available in select countries. Weighs 140g and measures 146.9 x 70.9 x 8.3 mm.
I’m going to make the leap (since HTC support seemed unsure) that the HTC only made one hardware version of this to support dual sim only available on the international version. There are 3 ports under the cover, a nano sim port, a micro sd port (spring loaded) and one more port at the top which seems to be plugged with a plastic place holder. It’s unclear whether or not you can flash the ROM of the US variant to support the dual sim and you can manage to pry the plastic stopper out of there. But at this price point seems to be a lot of hassle to go through.
Display
The Desire 530 features a 5 inch HD 720p 1280×720 pixel resolution screen at 294 PPI which seems small by today’s phablet craze but gives enough real estate to navigate whatever task you need. No there’s no huge screen and quad hd display but that also means this device isn’t much of a power hog and comes with an adequate 2200 mAh battery for up to 10 hours of video, 84 hours of audio, 9 hours of WiFi internet usage.
The display is a Super LCD so the color gamut isn’t going to be richly saturated like a SRGB color profile. Personally I still love the LCD vs LED displays as they tend to show colors to be a bit more true to life.
The display is clear, crisp and does pretty well next to some of the better phones out there like the iPhone 6s and Samsung Galaxy S7 or HTC 10 considering it only pumps out 720 HD.
Camera
On the front the Desire 530 includes a 5MP camera and an 8MP rear camera with f 2.4 aperture and a maximum 34mm focal length. You are able to capture HDR images as well as a built in panorama mode which works awesome. For a basic phone that isn’t feature rich like the flagships, the panorama mode works very well and snappy. The focus speed under low lighting conditions could be better but pictures come out good with good lighting and video isn’t laggy like on the LG V10 which has a tiny delay that is noticeable.
Notable Features
Additional functionality includes a voice activated selfie and automatic selfie which can be useful if you’re a look at me type of person. Another notable feature is the built-in FM radio which can come in handy, sound and reception were excellent plugging into earphones or aux cable to speakers.
Speaker wise the Desire 530 doesn’t offer the Stereo sound that HTC is known for but rather a single mono speaker which does ok. It does feature the HTC BoomSound profile when you plug in with a headset so output to speaker system via 3.5mm aux jack delivers good sound. While the external sound seems ok, you cannot activate the FM radio without earphones plugged in or an aux cable to speaker. If you do plug in, the HTC BoomSound profile and built in amplifier pump out some good quality sound and some decent volume to boot.
Conclusion
The HTC Desire 530 mid-range smartphone offers all the basic features you might need on a daily basis. It seems to work best for me as a secondary phone that I might take while traveling. But if you’re looking for an inexpensive smartphone that runs decent and won’t cost you additional monthly payments with a few nice little features, the HTC Desire 530 is worth consideration. Ships with Android 6.0 Marshmallow
HTC Desire 530 $179.00
www.htc.com
