The Desire Z in My Hands

The first thought that came to my mind when I held the HTC Desire Z: It feels absolutely plasticky. It doesn’t have the solid feel like its HTC Desire cousin. Coming from a Nexus One, the HTC Desire Z doesn’t have anything really outstanding, except perhaps for its one star feature, the slide-out QWERTY keyboard. I’m not a fan of QWERTY keyboards, unless they are full-sized like in a notebook, which of course is impractical in a mobile phone.

In Singapore, after telco subsidies, the Desire Z costs the same as the Desire HD. I would say, go for the Desire HD. The Desire HD has a higher resolution camera, dual LED flash, a faster CPU (an improved 1GHz Snapdragon version of the Nexus One’s), and larger battery capacity. Go for the Desire Z if, for some reason, you absolutely need a QWERTY keyboard.

The Desire Z’s slide-out keyboard has four rows of buttons. The buttons themselves are flat, but they do protrude out from its surrounding surface, so it’s easy for the fingers to feel the key positions. Personally, I don’t think I would be very productive with such a tiny keyboard, so I’d rather have a good software keyboard to use.

Overall… I don’t fancy the “feel” of the Desire Z. Plasticky aside, it’s also heavy and thick (due to the slide-out keyboard).