HTC DESIRE 300

HTC's Desire range aims for the
lower end of the market and the
Desire 300 is at the bottom of its
UK list, with specs scaled back
just about as far as it dares. It
has a less-than-HD screen, an
unremarkable processor and low-
end camera, but the price mean
it's a bargain?
Design
There's none of the metallic
casing elements of HTC's higher-
end One series here, but the
Desire 300 is made of sturdy
rubberised plastic and it feels
very solidly put together with
virtually no flex on the back
panel. There's no 4G capability,
which understandable at this
price, but you do get reasonably
nippy downloads with full 3G.
HTC Desire 300 HTC
The 4.3-inch screen is a goodly
size if you're not overly sold on
the recent trend for palm-
stetching phablets. However, it
offers a sub-HD resolution of
800x480 pixels (217ppi) which
isn't particularly impressive. Not
that it's terrible -- you can view
movies and zoom in on pics with
a good degree of clarity and
colours look fine if not especially
vibrant -- but it lacks the eye-
popping pizzazz of the better
screens and is put to shame by
the 326ppi display of the
considerably cheaper Moto G.
Android and processor
It's running the slightly long in
the tooth Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
OS, which is to be expected at
this price, though it's difficult to
recognise since it's running the
latest Sense 5 version of HTC's
own good-looking but rather
busy interface. That means it
also has Blinkfeed, the combined
news and social networking
aggregator that pulls together all
your updates in a magazine-style
interface.
The dual-core 1GHz processor is
backed by 512MB Ram and it
feels just a tad underpowered.
There's a hint of lag when
switching between apps and we
couldn't get it to run heavier
duty HD games like Real Racing 3.
Our AnTuTu benchmark test gave
it 7,837, which puts it well below
midrange rivals like the Google
Nexus 4 , Motorola's Moto G or
even ZTE's Grand S Flex .
HTC Desire 300 test photo Dave Oliver
HTC Desire 300 test photo Dave Oliver
Photography
The 5-megapixel camera is a
pared back version of the
snapper on other Desire
handsets. There's no flash and
no BSI low-light sensor, but there
is autofocus and a few settings to
play around with including face
detection and smile capture.
There's only 4GB of memory on
board for storing your pics and
vids though you can add a
microSD card up to 64GB. There's
also a bog standard VGA camera
on the front for video calls.
The 1,650mAh battery didn't set
any new records either -- it lasted
a day fairly comfortably, but
didn't promise much more.
Conclusion
The HTC Desire 300 is a perfectly
reasonable budget smartphone,
with okay screen and processor,
plus a better than expected
camera. Expandable storage is
nice too, but although it's touted
as HTC's 'most affordable' phone,
and it's certainly cheaper than a
Nexus 5, for around the same
price on PAYG you could get
yourself a genuine bargain like
the Moto G.