HTC phones aren’t exactly topping sales chart, but the Taiwanese manufacturer isn’t taking the heat lying down. The company is trying to reinvent and revitalize its core strengths for high-end and mid-range portfolio and recently brought a revamped Desire 626 variant to Indian market. We have spent a few days with the Desire 626 and are ready to answer some of the basic doubts regarding HTC Desire 626 Dual.
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Key Specifications And Features HTC Desire 626 Dual
| Model | HTC Desire 626 Dual |
| Display | 5.5 Inch, 720p HD |
| Processor | 1.7 GHz Octa Core MT6752 |
| RAM | 2GB |
| Internal Storage | 16GB, expandable up to 32GB |
| Software | Android 5.1 Lollipop based HTC Sesne UI |
| Primary Camera | 13MP, LED flash, F2.2 aperture lens, 1080p Videos |
| Secondary Camera | 5MP, wide-angle lens |
| Dimensions and weight | 146.9 x 70.9 x 8.19mm, 135 Grams |
| Battery | 2000mAh |
| Others | 4G LTE, Dual SIM |
| Price | 13,146 INR |
Display, Design and Build
Question: How is the HTC Desire 626 Dual design?
Answer: HTC Desire 626 Dual illustrates that an expertly crafted polycarbonate phone can stand shoulder to shoulder with supposedly ‘premium’ metallic phones.
HTC isn’t doing anything radically different with Desire 626, but the vibrant dual color tone, elegantly implemented frontal speakers (it’s a mono speaker) and well-balanced ergonomics add up as a winning combination.
All is not well though. The soft-touch plastic back cover shows visible finger stains and the volume rocker is almost out of reach at top right corner. Since it is a unibody design phone, the backdoor won’t open.
Question: How is the build quality of HTC Desire 626?
Answer: The plastic back flexes and creeks a bit, but it still feels solid.
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Question: Are the capacitive keys backlit?
Answer: The Desire 626 comes with on-screen buttons.
Question: How is the display of HTC Desire 626 Dual?
Answer: The HTC Desire 626 includes a 5 inch display with 720p HD resolution. You can get sharper full HD panels for the same price, but there is nothing inherently wrong with this one. It’s sharp, has well balanced colors, wide viewing angles and feels adequate.
Question: How is the outdoor visibility? Does Desire 626 Dual has option for automatic brightness?
Answer: At full brightness, everything is legible under direct sun. Yes, there is option for Automatic brightness.
Question: Does HTC Desire 626 display has gorilla glass protection?
Answer: No, Gorilla Glass protection is missing.
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Performance and Storage
Question: How much internal storage space is free? Can Apps be moved to SD card on Desire 626?
Answer: Out of 16GB user gets 10.75 GB as usable space. Yes, apps can be moved from internal storage to microSD cards.
Question: Does HTC Desire 626 support USB OTG?
Answer: No, USB OTG is not supported.
Question: How is day to day or general performance? How is gaming performance of HTC Desire 626?
Answer: In India, HTC Desire 626 dual relies on MediaTek’s MT6752 octa-core chipset clocked at 1.7 GHz. Sense UI transitions feel very smooth and snappy. We tried games like Asphalt 8 and Modern Combat 5 and both were quite playable, in spite of occasional frame drops. Gaming won’t be a problem with Desire 626.
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Question: What are benchmark scores of HTC Desire 626?
Answer: Here are some benchmark scores
| Benchmark Standard | Score |
| Antutu | 38,830 |
| Quadrant | 12,920 |
| Nenamarks 2 | 58.7 FPS |
| Vellamo (Browser, Metal, Multicore) | 3267, 1112, 1790 |
| PC Mark Work performance | 3319 |
Question: Does Desire 626 has heating issues?
Answer: Yes, the phone gets heated with gaming and heavy usage, but not with normal usage.
Question: How much RAM is free on first boot?
Answer: At the time of first boot, Approx 1GB RAM out of 2GB was available for our usage.
Question: Does HTC Desire 626 dual support Google cardboard and other VR gear?
Answer – No. the phone doesn’t have a gyroscope and is not compatible with Google’s Cardboard app.
Camera
Question: How is the Desire 626 camera performance?
Answer: The HTC Desire 626 camera is above average in this price range. In daylight the camera is capable of shooting detailed shots. Camera app has plenty to keep you engaged. Colors and dynamic range are fairly accurate. The camera performance is better than what most other phones are offering in this price. Selfie camera is a decent performer too.
Question: Is HDR mode present in Desire 626 camera?
Answer: Yes, HDR mode is present and works well.
Question: Can HTC Desire 626 dual shoot 4K videos?
Answer: No, you can shoot up to 1080p videos
Question: Can you record slow-motion videos on HTC Desire 626 Dual?
Answer: No. Slo-mo video recording is not supported.
HTC Desire 626 Dual Camera Samples
Software
Question: How is the software?
Answer: It’s a bummer that Desire 626 is still running outdated Android 4.4.4 Kitkat as base software. If you are willing to pardon that, Sense 7 UI skin (trimmed) is well designed, minimalist and organized skin. The UI is simple to navigate and you can often find what you are looking for easily. Excerpts from stock Android KitKat are visible throughout the UI and in system apps which would have been fine if KitKat didn’t feel so dated.
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Question: Does HTC Desire 626 support Gestures?
Answer: No, gesture support is not included in the UI.
UI Gallery
Miscellaneous
Question: What kind of SIM card does HTC Desire 626 dual accept?
Answer: The handset accepts 2 nano SIM cards.
Question: How is the call quality on Desire 626 dual?
Answer: The call quality on the phone is pretty good.
Question – Can you record calls on HTC Desire 626 dual?
Answer – No, call recording option is not present.
Question: How is the Battery backup on Desire 626?
Answer: So far we are getting about a day of moderate usage with the 2000 mAh battery, which is certainly more than what we had expected. We will update you on battery backup after a few more days of usage.
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Question: Is the battery removable on Desire 626?
Answer: Nope.
Question: How many sensors are present in Desire 626?
Answer: The handset includes Accelerometer, Proximity sensor and Ambient light sensor.
Question: How loud is the loudspeaker on Desire 626?
Answer: Only one of the two speaker grills present on the front houses a speaker. The speaker loudness is above average and so is the audio quality. Audio quality while playing in default music player isn’t up to the mark.
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Conclusion
The HTC Desire 626 Dual rectifies the primary flaw in international variant, i.e. performance, but passing on an Android KitKat running phone without modern frills like USB Type C or Fingerprint sensor is audacious to say the least. HTC Desire 626 feels antiquated at times, but still it is in no way a bad phone. Is it worth recommending? We will answer that in our full review soon.
