HTC Desire 816G : Specifications, Release Date and Price in India

HTC launched the Desire 816 earlier with a mid-range hardware and large screen size earlier this year. This device went against other similarly specced devices like Samsung Galaxy Grand 2. Now HTC has done something that they did recently with the HTC One M8. We saw them launch a relatively watered down version of the HTC One M8 and they called it the HTC One E8. While in that case the differences were more in terms of design and material, in case of Desire 816G, they have gone deeper than the skin and changed the hardware.

HTC has announced the Desire 816G along with two other devices for the Indian market. The Desire 816G is priced at Rs. 18,990 and will be made available very soon. It is expected to hit the stores near the beginning of October. The other devices that were announced with the Desire 816G were the Desire 820 and the Desire 820q. The Desire 820 runs on Snapdragon 615 64 bit octa core SoC. We take a look at the Desire 816G and see what it has to offer.

HTC Desire 816G : Technical Specifications

Below are the features and specifications of HTC Desire 816G. 

Design

The HTC Desire 816G looks very much like the actual Desire 816 that was introduced earlier. The dimensions are very much similar but the weight of Desire 816G is considerably lower as compared to Desire 816. It is still made out of good quality plastic like the 816 and has got a glossy back. The device looks attractive though it is quite big to be easy to handle. You get the stereo speakers like on many other HTC devices. They offer excellent sound quality and provide stereo sound effect when the device is held in landscape. Sadly the power key is placed at top left edge of the device which makes it hard to access.

HTC Desire 816G | White Variant

Display

The HTC Desire 816G has got a display same as the Desire 816. It measures 5.5 inches and has a 720p resolution. It is a SLCD2 display and the quality is decent. However the resolution isn’t impressive for that display size. You get a relatively low pixel density of 267 ppi which robs the display of the size advantage. Small texts don’t look very crisp and you have to zoom into web pages at times to read properly.

Hardware

This is where the manufacturer has cut corners as compared to the HTC Desire 816. The HTC Desire 816 came in with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chipset with a 1.6 GHz quad core processor and 1.5 GB of RAM. The Desire 816G runs a Mediatek chipset with a 1.3 GHz quad core processor. The amount of RAM has also gone down from 1.5 GB to 1 GB. This hardware is actually seen on really affordable device that are priced below 10K. While they have trimmed down the hardware, it doesn’t mean that the performance will suffer. It is still pretty good to handle your everyday jobs with ease. You get same amount of internal storage as the 816. It sits at 8 GB of which you get almost 5 GB of usable storage. It has got a micro SD card slot though the support for storage has gone down from 128 GB to 32 GB. The connectivity options remain the same on both Desire 816 and Desire 816G. You get Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, GPS, Bluetooth 4.0 and micro USB 2.0.It is powered by the same 2600 mAh battery as the Desire 816. While the battery capacity is fairly decent, expect slightly different battery backup as the Mediatek hardware isn’t as power efficient as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 400. Though the difference won’t be very significant and the battery is big enough to keep your battery woes away.

HTC Desire 816G | Black Variant

Camera

Thankfully they have retained the camera from the Desire 816 on the Desire 816G. The primary camera has a 13 megapixel sensor. The BSI sensor comes with a F2.2 aperture and a 28 mm lens. It can record full HD videos. The camera performance is fairly decent and you can shoot some nice images using this camera. It manages to get some decent clicks even in low light conditions which is good considering this is just amid-range device. It gets a fairly impressive 5 megapixel front camera. While it is a fixed focus camera, it manages to get impressive shots. People who love to click selfies would really like the high resolution front camera. The front camera can record full HD videos as well.

Software

The HTC Desire 816 G runs Android 4.4 KitKat with their home brewed HTC Sense UI on top of it. It runs the version 6 of sense UI. HTC heavily customises the interface and this one is no exception. Fans of stock android experience might not like it much but the Sense UI has seasoned a lot over time and is a very impressive interface. Unlike other custom software, this one is more than just a fancy launcher and funny icons. The alterations go deeper into the software and nothing feels out of place. We have seen the same HTC Sense UI 6.0 on many other devices but this one lacks a couple of features. They have done that to make sure the software runs on the device without any performance issues. Most key features have been retained and there are many applications that you get preinstalled. Many of the stock apps have been replaced by the corresponding version cooked by HTC.

Price & Conclusion

This seems to be a fairly decent device and they haven’t watered down a lot of specifications. But then the price difference isn’t huge. The Desire 816G is priced at Rs.18,990 in India. You can find the HTC Desire 816 at just above Rs.20,000 at many online stores. We would recommend picking the HTC Desire 816 over the 816G. It would offer you better performance and paying the slight premium would be worth. But if performance won’t make much difference to you, the device will be available near the beginning of October.