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Vodafone - HTC Desire HD (Final Stock) $29/Month 2 Year Contract

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Last year this time, it was the flagship phone from HTC. It is the phone I'm using at the moment.

Compare to Samsung Nexus S ($29/m, $10 off first 12 months) from Vodafone:

  1. 4.3" screen, bigger than 4" on Nexus S
  2. Aluminium Build
  3. Better speakers
  4. More RAM 768MB, Nexus S 512MB
  5. Micro SD
  6. 8M pixel camera, 5M on Nexus S
  7. FM Radio
  8. Gorilla Glass

Drawbacks:

  1. Battery life, 1230mAh (You can get a $10 1500mAh replacement from DinoDirect)
  2. No front cam (if you intend to do video call)
  3. Back aluminium very easy to get scratched
  4. Probably won't get ICS official update very soon (or even not at all)

If you are interested in rooting your phone (Read instructions CAREFULLY)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1259821
This is the Rom I'm using (Gingerbread 2.3.5 + Sense 3.0)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=840040

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closed Comments

  • High five for both this phone and for the ROM you're using! :D

    Have you got one of the 1500mAH batteries? Worth it?

    P.S. Is this the battery you are talking about? http://www.dinodirect.com/htc-a9191-battery-rechargeable-lit…

    • +1

      I bought it 2 months ago. I don't think they sell the exact same one any more.
      It seems to last longer than the stock battery.

      • +1

        Hi iconia
        Are the batteries from Dino Direct trust worthy?
        I bought replacement batteries from a seller in HK and it blew up the next minute I put it for charging.

  • +7

    Why would you get this when the HTC Sensation can be had at the same price?

    • Agreed.

    • +1

      Does the HTC Sensation have "death grip"?
      I haven't used it, but I have seen some review sites report it and some YouTube clips.

      • There are reports of "Death Grip" & dust under the screen for the Sensation, otherwise I would have bought one myself. I've posted about it under the recent listing for the Vodafone Sensation.

  • No better than this Vodafone deal more than a year ago. And yeah, at $29/month Sensation would be better.

  • I use miui rom with iOS theme, its fast all the short cuts are easily available, and after ai put the miui roam battery last for 2 days..

  • I too have this phone :)
    Have to agree it isn't the best deal though.

    I want to root it too, but I am worried about warranty :(
    Might root if it doesn't get the ICS update.

    • +2

      that sounds so wrong… ('_')''''

  • anyone know if vodafone will let you move over to a new phone even if you have 6 months left on your current contract?

    • You can give a call to their upgrades team to ask if they can give you a deal on your remaining contract to upgrade, although I know they give better deals if you move to a more expensive plan, like the infinite 45 with a phone that has repayments.

      Alternatively, you may be able to add just another phone repayment to your current plan for a new phone, although this is probably not what you want.

      TLDR; call up and ask. It's a bit different for every customer.

  • +1

    I would not recommend this deal at all. With plenty of dual core phones out these days, this is a horrible deal. Sorry iconia it's true. I have one of these from last year. It's been a good phone but there's much better out there for the same price.

    Oh and the video recording of this phone is horrible, especially compared to the Samsung Galaxy S I9000 which was it's competitor.

    Though yes, playing music through the phone is probably one of the best.

    • +1

      Still undeniably a great phone though :)
      Hasn't really slowed down for me for what I use it for :O

      • +1

        Yes I won't deny that. Just saying as far as deals go.

        I'm hoping that some dev's at XDA complete the USB HOST kernel some day (soon…not likley) as I will probably use the phone as a in-car media/GPS unit then with a USB drive hooked up for the music, using Mortplayer and iGo. :D

        EDIT: Well I plan on doing that next year after moving to Telstra when they bring out their LTE range.

        • +1

          In-car media? USB? If you plug your phone via a USB cable, and choose mass storage, can't the car play the music off it? :S

          Care to elaborate more? ;D

        • +1

          @kirynflare:

          Although you are right in thinking that you could use the phone as an in-car media player as-is (via direct USB or AUX input), USB host functionality would allow the phone to read data from a USB drive (flash/SSD/HDD) that is directly connected to the phone itself.

          This has the advantage of greatly increasing the potential size of your media library that you could carry around with you. Without USB host functionality, you would be limited to whatever you could fit on a 32GB microSDHC card, minus whatever space is occupied by your apps, games etc.

        • @GreenGuava:

          How would you connect a USB storage drive to a phone like the HTC Desire HD?
          Sorry for all these questions ^^"

        • @kirynflare:

          You would need a USB micro B male to a USB A female cable/adapter, plus a suitable USB hub to power your USB device. Obviously this won't work without the USB host kernel mentioned by Spectator

        • Here's the link to the dev page on XDA for the Desire HD USB Host. Even though the first post sounds like it works, I think that's only on an old Android build. But even then I don't know if it always worked.
          http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=993152

          It's been rather static for a while. May never be complete, but I like to think that one day my half full glass will be completely full….one day.

  • +2

    Good write-up, iconia.

    • Thanks

  • +3

    they really should be pumping these out free on a $29 12 month contract if they were serious about clearing old stock.

  • The Incredible S is basically the same phone at 300 dollars from optus.
    - besides the smaller screen
    - IS has a front facing camera

  • -1

    TERRIBLE deal. Paid less for buying at launch!

  • +4

    all i can say is i paid $1000 to get our of a contract with vodafone and it was the best money i ever spent

  • "Battery life, 1230mAh (You can get a $10 1500mAh replacement from DinoDirect)"

    I read that the 1500mAh are less efficient than the 1230mAh stock batteries. So it is pointless to buy a replacement battery when the stock one is better.

    Phone drains battery life very quickly, I was able to make it last a day though with android revolution hd and undervolting, 100-200mhz sleep.

  • Recently got rid of my galaxy s,what do you guys think about the HTC desire Z? Its pretty dam cheap, free on $29 12 month contract.I am looking for at least equivalent type of performance.

  • As others have already said, the Sensation would be a much better unit than this.

  • Its a beautiful phone. I got one from Vodafone when they were new on a 12 month contract. The later HTC 4.3 inchers have a longer, narrower screen (Sensation & Evo3d). I much prefer the fatter screen on this one.

    I'm glad to be out of Vodafone now my contract has expired. This performs much better on Optus. You can get one outright for $400 on one of the online grey-import sites based in Australia (eg Crazysales or Becextech). 2nd hand they're only going for about $250 :(

    The main problem is you can't access an 850MHz 3G network. So you can't get onto Telstra NextG or Vodafone's upgraded towers. I'm thinking of getting an Inspire 4G which is the US version of this & has 850MHz 3G.

    Also you need to recharge everynight but that's easy. I keep a charger at work.

    The speed is fine despite the single-core. I've encountered no slow downs in 12 months. However I don't play 3D games on anything without a mouse.

  • No deal at this price. Perhaps 6 months ago it would have been one >.<

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