Build & design
HTC Desire 820 looks very similar to the company's mid-range phablet Desire 816, complete with the unibody plastic shell, rounded corners and front dual stereo speakers.
Since the phone sports a big, 5.5-inch display, the overall footprint is also large. That said, it doesn't look unwieldy.
Unlike the Desire 816, the 820 sports dual-tone colours with the second colour making its presence felt in form of accents surrounding the front panel, volume rocker and power keys, micro-USB jack, camera lens and LED flash and the HTC logo.
The phone doesn't sport physical keys at the front and uses onscreen keys for navigation. Unlike the Desire 816, the Power/Screen lock and the volume rocker keys are located at the right edge of the phone and offer good tactile feedback. The left side sports a plastic flap that hides the two nano-sim card slots and a microSD card slot. Other than that, there's no major difference between the two phones in terms of design. Even the dimensions are almost identical.
The display is flanked by dual stereo BoomSound speakers on both sides. The speaker grill fits in a single line, with bigger holes unlike the HTC One's grill that is spread over four lines.
The 8MP front-facing camera lens sits above the display and is prominently visible. The 3.5mm headset jack sits at the top while the micro-USB port is placed at the bottom edge.
The back of the phone features the 13MP rear camera and an LED flash. It sports a glossy finish and gets easily smudged.

Although made of plastic with a glossy finish, the build quality of the Desire 820 is pretty good and exudes a premium feel.
Display
HTC Desire 820 sports a 5.5-inch Super LCD 2 display with a resolution of 720x1280pixels. Although, the number of pixels packed are less due to the large size of the display, we did not notice any pixilation and images and text appeared sharp and crisp.
The screen is optimum for watching videos and playing games thanks to its large size. Having said that, single hand usage becomes a little difficult due to this attribute.
Viewing angles were also good and colours appeared vivid, though not as vibrant as that on HTC One (M8). Under-sun legibility was also good.
Desire 820's display comes with Gorilla Glass 3 protection, improving upon the Desire 816, which was more susceptible to scratches.

Software
HTC Desire 820 comes with Android 4.4.4 KitKat with Sense 6, the latest version of HTC's custom UI, running on top.
Unlike HTC One (M8), Desire 820 does not offer support for gestures like 'double tap to unlock' and 'swipe to unlock' to a home screen/Blinkfeed. The gestures would have made more sense on 820 given its bigger form factor and the awkward placement of the Power/Unlock key.
While the UI looks very different from stock Android, we quite like the Sense 6 interface. It doesn't look very different from that of the previous version of Sense.
It sports the on-screen navigation keys which hide while playing games and using apps that make use of Android's new immersive mode. For more on the user interface, you can check out our HTC One (M8) review.
Camera
Just like the Desire 816, Desire 820 doesn't feature an UltraPixel camera. Instead, it includes a 13MP BSI sensor with f/2.2 aperture and a 28mm lens.
Desire 820 also doesn't come with HTC ImageChip. This means that features like the Zoe mode are not included and the camera takes extra time to process the image after capturing it.
Performance
HTC Desire 820 is powered by a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 octa-core processor and 2GB RAM. Even though it is a mid-range device, the 820 never felt underpowered with the hardware being capable of supporting multitasking and gaming without hiccups.
It's worth pointing out that the 64-bit architecture is not supported by Android 4.4. Also, phones still need more memory to fully leverage 64-bit capabilities (better memory management) and 2GB would not really suffice.
Gaming
We were able to play games like Looney Tunes Dash, Leo's Fortune, Riptide GP2 and Asphalt 8 (with Visual Quality set to High and Engine at 100%) without encountering frame drops or freezes. The phone tends to get a little warm after long gaming sessions.
Verdict
At Rs 24,990, HTC Desire 820 is a not a bad smartphone to buy but the mid-range landscape has changed quite a bit and there are other good options available in the market.
HTC Desire 820 looks very similar to the company's mid-range phablet Desire 816, complete with the unibody plastic shell, rounded corners and front dual stereo speakers.
Since the phone sports a big, 5.5-inch display, the overall footprint is also large. That said, it doesn't look unwieldy.
Unlike the Desire 816, the 820 sports dual-tone colours with the second colour making its presence felt in form of accents surrounding the front panel, volume rocker and power keys, micro-USB jack, camera lens and LED flash and the HTC logo.
The phone doesn't sport physical keys at the front and uses onscreen keys for navigation. Unlike the Desire 816, the Power/Screen lock and the volume rocker keys are located at the right edge of the phone and offer good tactile feedback. The left side sports a plastic flap that hides the two nano-sim card slots and a microSD card slot. Other than that, there's no major difference between the two phones in terms of design. Even the dimensions are almost identical.
The display is flanked by dual stereo BoomSound speakers on both sides. The speaker grill fits in a single line, with bigger holes unlike the HTC One's grill that is spread over four lines.
The 8MP front-facing camera lens sits above the display and is prominently visible. The 3.5mm headset jack sits at the top while the micro-USB port is placed at the bottom edge.
The back of the phone features the 13MP rear camera and an LED flash. It sports a glossy finish and gets easily smudged.
Although made of plastic with a glossy finish, the build quality of the Desire 820 is pretty good and exudes a premium feel.
Display
HTC Desire 820 sports a 5.5-inch Super LCD 2 display with a resolution of 720x1280pixels. Although, the number of pixels packed are less due to the large size of the display, we did not notice any pixilation and images and text appeared sharp and crisp.
The screen is optimum for watching videos and playing games thanks to its large size. Having said that, single hand usage becomes a little difficult due to this attribute.
Viewing angles were also good and colours appeared vivid, though not as vibrant as that on HTC One (M8). Under-sun legibility was also good.
Desire 820's display comes with Gorilla Glass 3 protection, improving upon the Desire 816, which was more susceptible to scratches.
Software
HTC Desire 820 comes with Android 4.4.4 KitKat with Sense 6, the latest version of HTC's custom UI, running on top.
Unlike HTC One (M8), Desire 820 does not offer support for gestures like 'double tap to unlock' and 'swipe to unlock' to a home screen/Blinkfeed. The gestures would have made more sense on 820 given its bigger form factor and the awkward placement of the Power/Unlock key.
While the UI looks very different from stock Android, we quite like the Sense 6 interface. It doesn't look very different from that of the previous version of Sense.
It sports the on-screen navigation keys which hide while playing games and using apps that make use of Android's new immersive mode. For more on the user interface, you can check out our HTC One (M8) review.
Camera
Just like the Desire 816, Desire 820 doesn't feature an UltraPixel camera. Instead, it includes a 13MP BSI sensor with f/2.2 aperture and a 28mm lens.
Desire 820 also doesn't come with HTC ImageChip. This means that features like the Zoe mode are not included and the camera takes extra time to process the image after capturing it.
Performance
HTC Desire 820 is powered by a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 octa-core processor and 2GB RAM. Even though it is a mid-range device, the 820 never felt underpowered with the hardware being capable of supporting multitasking and gaming without hiccups.
It's worth pointing out that the 64-bit architecture is not supported by Android 4.4. Also, phones still need more memory to fully leverage 64-bit capabilities (better memory management) and 2GB would not really suffice.
Gaming
We were able to play games like Looney Tunes Dash, Leo's Fortune, Riptide GP2 and Asphalt 8 (with Visual Quality set to High and Engine at 100%) without encountering frame drops or freezes. The phone tends to get a little warm after long gaming sessions.
Verdict
At Rs 24,990, HTC Desire 820 is a not a bad smartphone to buy but the mid-range landscape has changed quite a bit and there are other good options available in the market.
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