HTC Desire 516

As far as design goes, HTC smartphones definitely feature distinct looks compared to plasticy Samsung devices or blocky offerings from Sony. The Desire 516 is no different, though it’s not that well-designed as the stylish One (M8) or even other devices like the One E8 (first impressions) and Desire 816, that follow the same design ethos, albeit in polycarbonate bodies. In fact, the Desire 516 might look good from afar, but when you hold it in hands, things are vastly different. For one, the plastic body doesn’t arouse much confidence about the build quality, plus it has considerable weight. Tipping the scales at 171g, the device is quite heavy compared to its peers, especially at the time when manufacturers are accentuating the lightweight factor of their products.

HTC already has the Desire 210 (first impressions) and 310 in the entry-level segment with 4-inch and 4.5-inch displays respectively, while the Desire 816 takes care of the thriving phablet category with its 5.5-inch screen size. The Desire 516 offers a 5-inch screen, which completes HTC’s portfolio as its display falls in the middle of devices referred above. The display bears a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels, which is on the lower side as it churns out a pixel density of 220 pixels per inch. For the most part, you won’t notice any problems, but when the handset is held close enough, there’s visible pixelation. Other than that, the display is good and offers crisp visuals and colour variance. It isn’t exactly legible under direct sunlight because it's too reflective, but you’ll still be able to make that important call or send that urgent text. Similar to the rear, the display is also a fingerprint magnet and hence it’s highly advisable to use a screen guard with it.

The HTC Desire 516 comes equipped with a 5-megapixel sensor at its back. At the time, when we’re seeing devices with as high as 13-meg snappers in its range, the megapixel count of the smartphone camera didn't keep our hopes up. However, we expected it'd be good enough for casual purposes as well as sharing on social networks.

Unlike other recent devices from HTC’s stable, the Desire 516 doesn’t run the latest Android iteration. Instead it gets the older Android 4.3 Jelly Bean with the brand’s custom UI called Sense on top. Thanks to the custom skin, the smartphone looks and works similar to its brethren, though it’s vastly different from them in most of the other aspects.

To compete with the Moto G, HTC has supplied the Desire 516 with a quad-core processor clocked at 1.2GHz. However, the processor is based on Snapdragon 200, which is slightly older than the Snapdragon 400 series powering the Moto G. The SoC also offers the Adreno 305 GPU for rendering high-quality graphics. Accompanying the chipset is a gigabyte of RAM. The combination results in smooth operation while scrolling the screens, navigating the menus, and switching between apps. The story continues to casual games like Angry Birds and Subway Surfers as well, but not to heavy 3D games like Riptide GP2. There was a visible stutter while playing such titles. We have noticed a heating issue with some MediaTek-laden devices, but the Desire 516 also falls in this league as it heats up within a short period of gaming.