HTC Desire Eye

[Roy Palinkas]

I was planning on buying my daughter for her birthday an HTC Desire Eye for about $350.00 at the AT&T store then I saw the LG Nexus 5 D820 Unlocked Gsm 4G Lte Quad-Core Android Smartphone on Amazon for $348.00 and being 60 years old I'm not really sure which she would like best. I bought her a Nexus 7 Tablet which she destroyed but she loved it while it was alive so maybe another google device maybe? She'll be 20 yrs old can anyone offer some input? Thanks!

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! From a techie standpoint, the Nexus 5 is probably the better phone. Despite it being almost 2 years old, it is still very fast, has an excellent screen, and has the advantage of being a Nexus device--so it should receive Android M when it comes out (although that'll probably be the end of the line for official system updates). I find the camera to be quite good as well. The main downside is very mediocre battery, so if she's a heavy user, she'd have to charge up at least once in the middle of the day, maybe twice.

The Desire Eye's claim to fame is selfies--both rear and front facing cameras are 13 MP, so the image quality of the selfies will be high. It also has an SD slot, which is important if she plans to store lots of music, photos, and videos locally. I'm not sure what the battery life is like, but the 2400 mAh battery is only a bit bigger than the Nexus 5's 2300 mAh battery, so it might not be much better. So if selfies and using the phone as a media machine are more important, then the Eye might be better for her. It's unlikely that the Eye will get more system updates--I think it got up to 5.0.2.

 

[Roy Palinkas]

I'm going to lean towards the HTC. Really wanting the google experience I have to remember that I'm buying the phone for her and not me and knowing her reputation for lack of gentle handling it seems as the HTC is more resistant to water damage so unless something compels me to go a different direction I'll give it a go. Your comment on battery life was one of the deciding criteria, I can just hear her now complaining to me that it's always dead and I should of bought her one of those solar charging kits to go with it. The price point on both I thought was attractive though. Thanks for helping with the decision making process.