HTC Desire SV Review

Good Internet performance

Misc. apps
Besides the usual assortment of Google apps, you get plenty of HTC centric apps like the Mirror (uses the front facing camera), a Task Manager to kill apps and services, Flashlight and Notes that syncs with your Evernote account to a Data transfer app that works between compatible devices. Foxit PDF viewer and Polaris Office is also present on board for viewing PDFs, Word and other Office documents. HTC’s Car setup gives you a landscape display with oversized icons that make it easy to access features on your device while you’re driving 

Camera
The Desire SV comes with an 8MP camera and an LED flash. The camera manages decent outdoor performance with good detail and colours, but it didn’t exactly blow us away. We also had a little trouble with the focus in macro mode. During multiple instances, the SV simply refused to focus on the subject no matter how much we tried. The flash is quite powerful for indoor shots but only if the subject is within 2 ft of the camera.

Decent macro shots

Video recording maxes out at 480p, which is a crying shame since the 8MP camera would easily handle Full HD video recording. Sadly, the SoC just isn’t capable of this, which severely cripples the phone.

Battery life
The HTC Desire SV comes with a 1620mAh battery, which managed to last us 7 hours and 10 minutes in our video drain test. This is not bad, but we expected better. Given this is a dual-SIM phone, you’re going to have a tough time using this the entire day without having to run for the charger. In our loop tests, the SV lasted about 6 hours and 20 minutes, which involved an hour of calls, two hours of video, two hours of music and about an hour of audio streaming over Wi-Fi.

Stripped down

Verdict and Price in India
The HTC Desire SV is a rather odd handset and at Rs. 22,590, it comes across as very expensive. On paper, the phone looks quite formidable given the dual-core CPU and 8MP shooter, but the reality is quite different. None of these key features seem to be used to the fullest, which is why the SV comes across as a very mediocre phone. The simultaneous dual-SIM functionality is one of the only highlights of this handset, everything else seems half baked. We recommend you avoid this handset for now as it’s not worth it, even if it does get a big price drop in the near future.