The HTC Desire HD was launched in October 2010 and has received a warm reception in the smartphone market, which until now has been dominated by a small number of models. The HTC Desire HD’s specs are impressive to say the least, with highlights including an 8-megapixel digital camera and a huge 4.3-inch touchscreen and Android 2.2 Froyo.

The phone measures 123x 68x 11.8 millimeters, so considering the screen size, it’s a relatively compact unit and certainly slim and pocket-friendly. It’s also relatively light at 164g, considering the amount of tech inside the phone.

Measuring 4.4 inches, the HTC Desire HD has an LCD capacitive touchscreen that has a 480×800 pixel configuration that can display up to 16 million individual colors. This results in fantastic display quality of images on the screen, making it perfect for viewing photos, videos, playing games and browsing the web. The display comes with accelerometer and proximity sensors as standard, and it also supports multi-touch input. There is a touch sensitive control panel placed below the screen that offers shortcuts to the Android menus. The highly customizable HTC sense user interface is used, which allows users to assign up to seven highly customizable home screens for different scenarios.

A handy 1.5 GB internal storage is provided along with 768 MB of RAM in the HTC Desire HD. Obviously, users will need more storage for their music tracks and other files. Therefore, a microSD slot is provided as standard and it comes with a pre-installed 8 GB memory card. However, this can be replaced with a card of up to 32GB, meaning users have plenty of storage space at their disposal.

HTC Desire HD relies on class 32 versions of GPRS and EDGE to keep it connected to the appropriate cellular networks when users are on the go. HSDPA offers ultra-fast download speeds of up to 14.4 megabytes per second, which means users have a very fast Internet connection when in areas with 3G coverage. Both Bluetooth and micro USB connections complete the package of connectivity features. Both allow users to connect the HTC Desire HD to compatible hardware devices.

One of the most impressive highlights is that the HTC Desire HD has to be its 8-megapixel digital camera. This produces fantastic quality still images thanks to a 3264x 2448 pixel resolution and features autofocus, face detection and dual LED flash as standard. Geotagging is an additional feature of the camera and, thanks to GPS, allows users to keep track of where they took their photos. As a bonus, users have the luxury of using this camera to record high-definition videos at 720p quality.

As you’d expect from a smartphone running Android 2.2 Froyo, a host of features are included as standard, ranging from social networking integration with the Facebook and Twitter apps, to a versatile media player that supports many different file formats. music and video, along with the standard suite of Google features including Google search, maps and Gmail.

These features are just a small part of what HTC Desire HD has to offer. It is one of the most advanced and versatile smartphones on the market and offers a fantastic alternative to conventional models like the Apple iPhone.