Pressure to excel
I've had a bit of a pause on the handset reviewing front, with the launch of the new site, etc. But on the flip side I've spent a lot of quality time with this one and hopefully bring a different perspective.
The big hit among Android phones in the first half of last year was the HTC Desire. This solid, polished take on Google's OS benefitted greatly from both the direct exposure and behind-the-scenes head start that came from HTC being the manufacturing partner for Google's own-branded phone, the Nexus One.
But by the second half of the year, we had not only had the launch of Apple's iPhone 4, but Samsung's equivalent high-end Android smartphone - the Galaxy S - was starting to gain momentum. Rather than try to reinvent the wheel, HTC attempted to keep what was best from the original desire and improve the rest for its second big launch of 2010: the HTC Desire HD.
And the Desire HD needed to be good. Not only had Samsung stopped allowing itself to be distracted by Bada and other smartphone side-projects, but the likes of LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson were all getting their act together.
On top of that, it became clear that Google's Nexus strategy was not to make an ‘iPhone killer' itself, but to produce platforms optimized to demonstrate the latest versions of its Android OS. So the Nexus One was the first to get Android 2.1 and 2.2, and presumably as a consequence, HTC was among the first OEMs to deliver the upgrade to its users.
In the fragmented Android market, speed of upgrade to new versions is becoming a key differentiator between OEMs and, indeed, handsets. While HTC has performed well in that department Sony Ericsson, for example, has annoyed many users for being much slower.
It's now apparent that a close relationship with Google offers a clear advantage when it comes to Android upgrades, but HTC couldn't keep its privileged position indefinitely. By the end of the year Google has announced the Nexus S, which was clearly based on the Samsung Galaxy S, as the new exemplar for its OS - in this case version 2.3.
Then, in the new year, Google started to release details of its long-awaited version of Android that was optimised for tablets. Codenamed Honeycomb, Android 3.0 was first demonstrated by Motorola when it launched its Xoom tablet at CES 2011. While there's no sign of Google launching a Nexus X (or whatever) yet, Google seems to have decided it's Moto's turn for some Android loving.
The other problem faced by all Android phone-makers is differentiation. As we've said many times before: the user experience is defined by Android and most OEMs will tick all the right hardware boxes. So what can a phone-maker do to persuade users to pick its Android phone over all the others? Read on to find out what HTC did.
