So time for another review and thanks to HTC for sending me the lovely HTC Desire Z to review. So first things first. Let take a look a the specifications of this phone.

Hardware(First impressions)

Okay, So the size of this phone is 119 x 60.4 x 14.2 mm, While that makes its a little thick and the weight isn’t shy at 180g, holding the phone really gives you the idea of solid build quality which is to be expected from HTC.

The reason for the thickness is of course because this phone has a qwerty keyboard!!! The phone also has an aluminum unibody which again makes it feel very strong,  The phone sports a Qualcomm MSM 7230 800 MHz processor, It makes running Andriod very easy and extremely responsive. Also there is 512MB ram in there so you need not worry about running into to many problems this phone can’t handle. It comes with 1.5gb built in memory and can also take a micro SD card up to 32GB. The camera on this phone is a 5MP Autofocus, LED flash and face dection, Its great for taking pictures and we will talk about that soon. The camera can also record at 720p. Also inside this beast is 3G HSDPA 14.4 Mbps and HSUPA 5.76 Mbps, It really is great for out on the bout needs and gives you fantastic speeds!! The phone also has Wifi N! Bluetooth 2.1 and an FM radio with RDS! The battery is 1300mAh and reported stand-by time is 430 hours or 6h 40min talk time on 3g or 9h 50 min on 2g.

The keyboard is a nice 4 line with very good spacing between each key, The number keys are located on the first row along with letters. Its very easy to start typing on this keyboard, But remember if you don’t want to whip it out or are just typing something small it still has the fantastic on-screen keyboards!! The phone Also sports the normal 4 onscreen touch buttons which are Home, Menu, Back and search. The Desire Z also sports a very nice optical trackpad, Which i have to say is excellent to use and is very responsive.

The phone has a very nice looking 3.7″ S-LCD capacitive touchscreen, With a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels. Its very bright and great too look at. You will immediately be impressed with how well it looks. Thats pretty much it for Hardware,

Camera

Pictures

OK, So the camera in this phone is a nice 5MP with LED Flash, Auto Focus and Face Detection. After taking a few pictures with the camera you will quickly see that its extremely good, Most camera phones are becoming increasing better in overall quality. I must say that the quality of the HTC Desire Z is extremely clear and pictures turn out great. The flash will give better lighting for most indoor picture with the occasional  glare here and there which is normal for any flash. I have included a few pictures to give you an idea of what the camera is like, The phone comes with plenty of settings for you to change and there is too much too go through, For a 5 megapixel camera, You can be sure that you will capture those moment with great detail with the HTC Desire Z.

Video

The Recording on the HTC Desire Z is also pretty incredible, It can record at 720p and videos do turn out pretty crisp but i must note that recording at 720p the phone started to show a drop in frame rate. Dropping the resolution will allow the frame rate to increase, Its a pity because 720p does look pretty incredible. Once a video is done you have the ability to upload it to Facebook, YouTube, Flickr,

Software

HTC Sense UI

One word!! Froyo!! This phone does have Andriod 2.2.1, Which means it gets all the goodies. It also however has HTC new Sense UI, Which is pretty amazing to say the least, They really do alot to call the phone theres, Its got a very nice lay-out to it and navigation is pretty straight forward and it uses an n900 like dashboard for stand-by, You have 7 homescreens to load up all your widgets you may want and have them auto-update at your choosing, The phone i must say runs froyo very well and i haven’t noticed any of those laggy moments that some phone suffer,

Maps

Whats nice to see is that HTC have included there own maps program, Which comes pre-loaded with the maps of the country you buy said product, If you are looking for different maps or bought the phone online, Don’t worry, You can download any of the maps right on the phone and have over 90 countries to keep you from getting lost.

Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, Picasa integration

This phone comes with all of these built in and ready to use, Even has the widgets for the sense UI ready to go, The facebook and twitter app and to be expected and work very well like on any android phone.

HTC Sense(Security)

So this feature i must say is very impressive, Say you loose your phone, Can’t find where you left it, Or someone may have taken your proud possession, No problem HTC has your back, With the security built in to this phone it would be very hard not to find it once again. Simply jump over to htcsence.com slap in your log in details, Then presto!! You can track, Lock, Wipe or even make it ring. The tracking is great if you need to find out where you left it, You can also forward all message and calls if you left it at home or at work, If stolen or lost you can LOCK IT DOWN, Leaving a custom message displayed and a number for the finder to ring you on, You can also Wipe the phone completely which may sound harsh but ifyou have secret stuff you want know one seeing the bam you can erase it all!! This feature works exactly as described and tracks the phone perfectly.

Battery

Ok, So the battery supplied is a 1300mAh and is suppose to give 430h standby time, I had the phone on standby with very light usage in between(few pictures), With the battery indicator at just below half and with an uptime of 126 hours this phone really does have an amazing standby, You can easily get a full days usage out of it with WiFi and some calls and music, A basic day for most people. Average charge is around 40-60 minutes. It uses micro-usb meaning you shouldn’t have a problem finding a place to charge it if needs be.

Overall Impression

So after using the HTC Desire Z for the past few weeks, I can say without a doubt this is an extremely good phone, Its ability to run Android is flawless and it can handle anything that throws at it. Its battery life is pretty amazing to say the least. The camera quality is crystal and is pretty much at the top of todays camera phones. The overall features this phone has to offer and nearly endless, Also HTC Sense 2.0 UI is a dream to use and works very well on this phone. The qwerty keypad makes typing long messages a pinch, But also has the great on-screen keyboard aswell.  Its current price sim-free is €520 but cheaper if bought on a network. Its easily worth that price range.It really is hard to fault this phone. The only thing would be that it only has 1.5gb built in storage, Would have been nice to see more but adding a micro-sd card isn’t hard!! I must say hands of to HTC for this Great GeekTech!!