HTC Desire Eye: The Android superior selfie shooter

Double vision

The front camera, meanwhile, offers a dedicated Selfie mode in which you can enable options such as triggering the shutter by smiling or saying ‘cheese’ and apply different types of digital skin enhancement and numerous Instagram-esque filters.

If you're going to pander to narcissistic tomfoolery why not make it technically impressive

Granted this is narcissistic tomfoolery but people want to take selfies so I can’t blame HTC for pandering to demand. And at least this is technically impressive pandering.

There’s also a photo-booth setting and a split screen option that lets you take a side-by-side image of what both lenses are seeing. Shame I can't think of a use for this feature. All this photographic jiggery-pokery (called by HTC “Eye Experience”) benefits from a well-thought-out camera interface with a handy range of manual overrides.

Take pics from front and back cameras simultaneously, if you're only semi selfie obsessed

Interestingly, the Eye has a hardware camera shutter button which can be set to launch either camera or alternatively the last one used. As shutter buttons go it's a bit small and fiddly but better than nothing.

On the subject of interfaces, the Eye runs Android KitKat 4.4.4 with HTC’s Sense 6.0 launcher draped around its shoulders. According to unconfirmed sources, a Lollipop update will arrive sometime before the end of March.

As for Sense, I still rather like it, especially the full screen news and social network aggregator that you can access with a simple swipe of the home screen.

Still, I wish HTC would invest in a decent video player app for Sense but since VLC for Android is now out of beta and free, that’s not the end of the world.

No speaker grilles but BoomSound still goes boom

The Reg Verdict

Highly competent. That is simply what the Desire Eye is. Photographically well endowed at both front and back, waterproof, reasonably affordable, well made, robust and blessed with a very nice display. It’s a hard device not to like unless you absolutely must have a removable battery.

All that selfie-related guff may leave some of you cold, but I have to admit I started to use it quite regularly when I pressed the Eye into service as my everyday handset. All those Eye Experience software enhancements work rather well too. On balance, I prefer the Eye not only to the HTC One M8 but also to the obvious, more expensive, competition from Samsung and Sony. ®