The HTC Explorer is HTC’s first budget oriented smartphone running on Google’s Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread with the Taiwanese company’s latest Sense 3.5 property skin on top. HTC is mostly known for it’s mid range and high end phones like the Desire and Sensation but the Explorer is sort of a first for the company. At the time of released the HTC Explorer will be one of the cheapest Android phones to be available in the market, being free on most carriers.
Unboxing
Box
The HTC Explorer comes inside a small rectangular box, sliding the top cover off presents you the phone. Under the phone is the charger, USB cable, the standard manuals and warranty information. Although the Explorer is a budget oriented smartphone we were hoping for some earphones, Samsung cared to pack them in their Galaxy Y so we can’t understand why not HTC.
Specifications
The HTC Explorer has the following specifications:
- Quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G support with no CDMA version available as of yet.
- 14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA support
- 3.2-inch 256K-color TFT capacitive touchscreen of HVGA resolution (320 x 480)
- 600MHz Snapdragon S1 MSM7227A chipset, Cortex A5 CPU, 512MB RAM, Adreno 200 GPU
- Android 2.3.5 (Gingerbread) with HTC Sense 3.5 UI
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with hotspot functionality
- GPS with A-GPS connectivity
- 3MP fixed-focus camera with geotagging and face detection
- VGA video @ 24fps
- microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v3.0
- microSD slot (up to 32GB)
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- Accelerometer, proximity sensor
- Stereo FM radio with RDS
Hardware
The HTC Explorer sports a Quad Band GSM radio with dual band 3G along with HSPDA and HSUPA support which will make sure your phone works almost everywhere and you receive the fastest 3G speeds. The screen on the Explorer is a 3.2-inch TFT touchscreen with 256k colors and a resolution of 320 x 480 (HVGA). The screen as you must have guessed by now is of very low quality with bad viewing angles, but it’s bearable.
The camera on on the Explorer is a fixed focus 3MP camera which is pretty mediocre by today’s standards. It records video in VGA resolutions at 24 frames per second, video and still samples are later in this review. The 600 MHz Cortex A5 is kind of on the slow side for Android, multitasking can really bring it down to it’s knees. There’s also 512MB of RAM and an Adreno 200 GPU powering the Explorer.There’s 90MB of built in memory which can be expanded up to 32GB thanks to it’s microSD card slot. The other standard stuff includes WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, standard microUSB port, 3.5mm headphone jack and GPS. The speaker on the Explorer is very mediocre but a guy on a budget can’t really complain.
Design
The HTC Explorer takes part from the standard aluminum HTC build and is made from a special sort of plastic which has a rubbery feel to it. I must say the phone feels very good in the hand, much better than the Galaxy Y which is sort of a direct competitor to the phone. The phone has a strong feel but it still creeks when squeezed from the sides, which is a huge disappointment.
The Explorer measures in at 101.3 x 59.4 x 12.4 mm and weighs just 108 g. The phone is much smaller in real life than what I expected from the pictures and looks like one of those oval rocks you find on the beach. The phone will be available in a variety of colors; namely in Black, Purple, White, Orange and Light Blue.
The front of the HTC Explorer has the 3.2-inch screen with the HTC logo on top and the four standard Android capacitive buttons below which are nicely spaced and are easy to press. Above the screen are the proximity and ambient light sensors. On the left side of the phone we have the microUSB slot which unfortunately doesn’t have a cover and on the right side we have rubbery volume rocker. On the back we have the fixed focus camera and a brushed metal strip with an engraved HTC logo in the middle which looks very nice. You can remove the back by pressing your thumb against the top of the phone. Removing the back presents you the 1230 mAh battery, SIM cart and microSD card slot.
Video Sample
Camera Sample
Software
The HTC Explorer runs on Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread with HTC’s Sense 3.5 propriety UI skin. As I mentioned in my HTC Rhyme review, HTC Sense 3.5 is a brilliant custom skin and it shows on the Explorer.
Sense 3.5 features new and updated widgets along with a brand new menu and app drawer background. Although Sense 3.5 is pretty light you can notice a bit of lag due to the Explorer’s slow CPU. This can be tackled by overclocking the CPU and sacrificing battery life but that certainly isn’t recommended. HTC Sense 3.5 has also been tweaked a bit to cope with the Explorer’s lower resolution screen.
I had doubts on how the slow processor will perform while browsing the Internet, surprisingly it did pretty good. Full web pages with flash content loaded much quicker than I thought they would, don’t expect it to play 720p videos from YouTube, though 480p ones should work fine.
The 1230 mAh battery of the Explorer coupled with the small screen and Sense 3.5 result in awesome battery life. It lasted me a day and a half on average usage with occasional gaming, watching videos and browsing the internet.
Just like the the Rhyme, the HTC Explorer is also fully integrated with HTCSense.com. You can download wallpapers, themes and other neat content along with backing up your phone’s data and even delete it if your phone gets stolen.
Performance
Performance on the Explorer is pretty good considering the price, benchmark scores are above. It scored 2200 on the AnTuTu Benchmark, 944 on Quandrant which is impressively more than the Samsung Galaxy S, 18.84 seconds on Linpack, 3262 on CF-Bench. Pretty decent scores don’t you think?
The Explorer also has excellent telephony capabilities, I had no reception problems or dropped calls throughout my testing.
Conclusion
The HTC Explorer is a very good budget phone, dare I say it better than the Galaxy Y. HTC has always been known for their high class and elegant designs and have managed to maintain their signature style with the Explorer while keeping it affordable. Our only complaints are the mediocre camera, no microSD card and earphones in box and creaky body. Overall the Explorer impressed us a lot, both hardware and software wise and is definitely recommended.
TechDeville gives the HTC Explorer 4/5 stars.
Stay tuned to TechDeville for everything Tech! Follow us on Twitter (@TechDeville), add us to your Google+ circles and like us on Facebook.
Incoming search terms:
- htc explorer
- gingerbread 2 3 5 circle
- htc explorer earphones
- htc explorer review
- android 2 3 to 4 version upgrade for htc explorer
- htc explorer benchmark score
- overclocking htc explorer
- sensors next to htc logo on explorer
- хтц еьплорер