the htc desire z phone is the worst phone ever designed.
ins4n17y
Cabanatuan City, Philippines Icrontian
first of all i hate htc. before i go on my rant, i must say htc cranks out phones faster than bunnies make babies, but yet as with all chinese and taiwanese companies, their tech support is virtually non existent. yes that is literally true. google it yourself, if you don't believe. there are people returning their phones for defects, and getting back different units, sometimes with parts missing, AFTER months to YEARS of waiting. doesn't surprise me that the chinese still haven't gotten human rights figured out. i mean after all, since when have the chinese ever cared or thought about that people were actually human beings? beats me.
ok back to the main issue.
the first issue i have is with the camera. it's 5 megapixel. and quite possibly the worst camera i have ever experienced. the first is the noise, and boy is it horrendous. the only time the camera works decently and produces a printable picture is outdoors, when there is visible light hitting the tiny 5mp sensor. use it indoors and you are in a world of hell. but wait a minute isn't there a flash? yes as a matter of fact there is, a led flash. however, if the flash is set on what happens is the flash ALWAYS bounces off the eyes of people making them look like vampires. i have uploaded several sample shots and believe me, every portrait picture i have taken of someone or multiple people with the desire z looks like this. it is time consuming to edit and even if you are a photoshop expert, does it really have to be this bad? i cannot use this camera to take pictures of anyone, unless the flash is off, which makes the picture look like a 1990's low end digital camera printout unless the picture is taken outside with adequate lighting.
the second issue i have is battery life. this phone has none. it will make it from 4-8 hours with minimal use and with light gaming will barely last 3. this is far worse than the nokia n900, whose battery life is measured in hummingbird wingflaps. i guess htc is about half that.
the third issue is call volume. it is simply too low. in fact it is so low that even in a quiet room i have to use the speakerphone...oh and when i do it sounds so tinny as if they have just "popped" or something. the music volume, with headphones of any kind that i have tried, with the loudspeaker or not, the earpiece or not, all of which are so low, i can't even believe this phone got past the design phase. the other thing is, you can get headphones that have decent impedance and will make the volume louder but thats just it, it's pure treble and the lower frequencies are far too attenuated and that results in my ears hurting. unbelievable.
the fourth issue is the "z hinge design" you cannot put this phone in your pocket with coins, credit cards as it will slice through the flex like a hot knife through butter. the hinge design is very durable, however minus it getting cut with an array of any pocket items like a business card, creditcard, coins, or other miscellaneous items you might be carrying in your pocket.
the last issue is stability. the one thing i hate about this phone is that it can't seem to load all my contacts properly. i will save my girlfriends number for instance, on the phone AND on the sim, and yet after multiple reboots it fails to recognize or save my girlfriends contact information. i don't know why it does that. i will save her contact info onto the sim and the phones memory, sometimes loading from facebook or twitter if necessary. and then all of a sudden when the phone feels like it, it forgets her and all i see is her number and the prompt "do you want to save this number" well excuse me i think i've saved her number 100 times before writing this review. i certainly hope not all htc phones are this bad. i don't understand how they are called business phones when it seems they haven't been beta tested yet....oh yeah random restarts ESPECIALLY and ALWAYS while using bluetooth....what a joy ^.^ while people say it is a fast device, yes i will agree, but is it equally stable? apart from bluetooth, which always causes a random restart during the file transfer(s) i would say no, definately not. this smartphone restarts more often than microsoft's first attempt at usb support on windows 95 and 98. absolutely the worst way to spend $700 in my opinion.
just my 2 cents, feel free to post my rant as an article but i think it's a rant worth hearing. in case you were wondering, i ran all updates, and upgraded to gingerbread 2.2.3 and all latest software releases.
-crazy gadget guy (1ns4n17y)
ok back to the main issue.
the first issue i have is with the camera. it's 5 megapixel. and quite possibly the worst camera i have ever experienced. the first is the noise, and boy is it horrendous. the only time the camera works decently and produces a printable picture is outdoors, when there is visible light hitting the tiny 5mp sensor. use it indoors and you are in a world of hell. but wait a minute isn't there a flash? yes as a matter of fact there is, a led flash. however, if the flash is set on what happens is the flash ALWAYS bounces off the eyes of people making them look like vampires. i have uploaded several sample shots and believe me, every portrait picture i have taken of someone or multiple people with the desire z looks like this. it is time consuming to edit and even if you are a photoshop expert, does it really have to be this bad? i cannot use this camera to take pictures of anyone, unless the flash is off, which makes the picture look like a 1990's low end digital camera printout unless the picture is taken outside with adequate lighting.
the second issue i have is battery life. this phone has none. it will make it from 4-8 hours with minimal use and with light gaming will barely last 3. this is far worse than the nokia n900, whose battery life is measured in hummingbird wingflaps. i guess htc is about half that.
the third issue is call volume. it is simply too low. in fact it is so low that even in a quiet room i have to use the speakerphone...oh and when i do it sounds so tinny as if they have just "popped" or something. the music volume, with headphones of any kind that i have tried, with the loudspeaker or not, the earpiece or not, all of which are so low, i can't even believe this phone got past the design phase. the other thing is, you can get headphones that have decent impedance and will make the volume louder but thats just it, it's pure treble and the lower frequencies are far too attenuated and that results in my ears hurting. unbelievable.
the fourth issue is the "z hinge design" you cannot put this phone in your pocket with coins, credit cards as it will slice through the flex like a hot knife through butter. the hinge design is very durable, however minus it getting cut with an array of any pocket items like a business card, creditcard, coins, or other miscellaneous items you might be carrying in your pocket.
the last issue is stability. the one thing i hate about this phone is that it can't seem to load all my contacts properly. i will save my girlfriends number for instance, on the phone AND on the sim, and yet after multiple reboots it fails to recognize or save my girlfriends contact information. i don't know why it does that. i will save her contact info onto the sim and the phones memory, sometimes loading from facebook or twitter if necessary. and then all of a sudden when the phone feels like it, it forgets her and all i see is her number and the prompt "do you want to save this number" well excuse me i think i've saved her number 100 times before writing this review. i certainly hope not all htc phones are this bad. i don't understand how they are called business phones when it seems they haven't been beta tested yet....oh yeah random restarts ESPECIALLY and ALWAYS while using bluetooth....what a joy ^.^ while people say it is a fast device, yes i will agree, but is it equally stable? apart from bluetooth, which always causes a random restart during the file transfer(s) i would say no, definately not. this smartphone restarts more often than microsoft's first attempt at usb support on windows 95 and 98. absolutely the worst way to spend $700 in my opinion.
just my 2 cents, feel free to post my rant as an article but i think it's a rant worth hearing. in case you were wondering, i ran all updates, and upgraded to gingerbread 2.2.3 and all latest software releases.
-crazy gadget guy (1ns4n17y)
0
Comments
Support - I'll admit never had to Deal with HTC Support, but T-Mobile has excellent support in my opinion
Camera - I have taken some of the best photos of my kids and house with this camera, inside and out
Battery Life - You must have a bad battery, I can make it 8 hours while watching 30-60 minutes of video and not even get to the power warning (15%)
Sound - No problem, It's actually clearer then any other phone I've heard
Hinge Design - I have no idea what you are talking about here, I've had my phone in my pocket with a bunch of crap and never an issue
Stability - By your examples I have also had the opposite experience here. I've entered contacts from Gmail and they are on my phone in minutes (also vice versa). I don't use the blue tooth very often but can't remember ever having a problem with it.
To each their own but it sounds like you got a Lemon to me.
I could be way off but I think people are supposed to go through their carrier for support.
Maybe you abuse your phone, or maybe you got a mistake, but HTC phones are no slouch. (Leading off with "first off I hate HTC" doesn't help your case.)
well it seems something must be going on here. i included some samples of the camera shots. would those be considered a manufacturing defect?
second how do you tell if it's genuine or a knock off? i believe i have an original model. but how do you be sure?
i bought the unit brand new from an authorized seller.
lastly is there a diagnostic program that i can run an app or whatever that does a check on all the components like ram and so on maybe even the motherboard to make sure they function correctly?
ok if htc is as good as all of you claim it to be why does my phone clearly suck? is there anything that i can do?
ok i followed your advice, it was set at 3mp. so considering this is the latest firmware htc offered (gingerbread) i figured maybe i should try and reset the camera to default. i did just that, and took some sample shots. i wouldn't say they are good pictures, but they are definitely nowhere near as bad as the pictures i uploaded as samples during the start of this thread. i would say that it passes the mark and would consider it an ok camera.
a good camera i would say would be my samsung omnia pro b7610 louvre, which is also 5mp, and for a phone camera i cannot tell the pictures i take using that cellphone were from a digital camera or not. i think my omnia pro beats the htc in terms of stability, volume and camera....but whats not so good is find the samsung slow in comparison to the htc. on top of that the omnia uses wm 6.5pro, the last of a dying breed.
as for the camera, its not as good as people say it is in my opinion here, however, thanks to the advice, isn't good or bad. it's just ok.
i find that typically, the cameras on nokias and samsungs far better than the ones on htc. i wonder why? i am going to upload some sample pictures from my samsung b7610 omnia pro louvre phone. i wonder why htc can't make cameras this good on their cell phones?
do you think i should cyanogen my phone? maybe thats why everyone here disagrees with me. perhaps this phone is really good ONLY if i cyanogen it. i mean my experiences are nowhere near what others here would say, i wonder why?
i don't think i will brick my phone if i cyanogen it. i've modded lots of stuff before.
The phone is several months old now. I run stock Gingerbread 2.3 from T-Mobile OTA update.
I took the phone off the charger (full charge) at noon yesterday. I spent 11.5 hours at Cedar Point (an amusement park), and used my phone the whole day. I took pictures, surfed Wikipedia during line waits, checked in to every ride on Foursquare, used Gowalla, sent and received text messages, checked email, etc. I'd call it a heavy use day.
At 11:30 at night, my battery meter was in the red (10% remaining). It would have made it 12 hours, I'm convinced.
The only things I did to conserve battery were to turn off Wi-fi and Bluetooth (things I don't need at a roller coaster park).
12 hours. Older phone. What on earth are you talking about? This is the best phone I've ever had.
This is what your pictures should look like:
http://mobile.engadget.com/photos/htc-desire-z-sample-camera-shots/
There is obviously something wrong, and you ought to try and return the thing.
How long ago did you buy this phone? You might qualify for buyers protection if you got it on ebay (which is full of knock offs).
If you got it from your carrier, just contact them / take it in to one of their shops and they will take care of you.
Do you have pictures of the packaging your phone came in? How about the phone itself?
Knock offs are really easy for shady resellers to get, or misinformed resellers for that matter.
http://www.diytrade.com/china/4/products-list/0-k-c-1/HTC_Desire_Z.html
That's one reason why I always go straight to my carrier (AT&T) shops when I buy phones. It's not fool proof, but at least I could take something like this back.
yeah my photos look nothing like that. they look more like pictures from my samsung phone i mentioned earlier. i have the original purchase bill, the box and accessories.
Here is the first utility I found on a google search that could help:
http://doandroidsdreamofelectricsheep.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/android-system-info/
my box and unit look like the original you guys showed me. i mean i was pretty sure that i got an original in the first place, i've been around hardware long enough to find out. my unit looks nothing like the china knock offs as i had expected. i wonder why my experience with htc isn't anywhere close to what people usually experience. i mean the g2 is pretty much the desire-z minus the keyboard. hmm i wonder whats up?
This may be a moot point but it bugged me. They are the same phone, Keyboard and all. Just the T-Mobile branding it the G2 that is different.