HTC Desire 510 review: Inbetweener

Performance

HTC Desire 510 is among the first devices to utilize the next generation of mid-range chipset with a 64-bit processor - the Snapdragon 410. The new chip offers a snappy quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU running at 1.2GHz, Adreno 306 GPU and 1GB of RAM.

We've met with plenty devices powered by the highly popular and widespread Snapdragon 400, so we are definitely eager to see the progress of its successor. As usual our first benchmark - GeekBench 3 - gauges the CPU performance. As it turns out the new Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.2GHz are 25% faster than the older Cortex-A7 running at the same frequency, and on par with the Cortex-A7 ticking at 1.6GHz. The 25% performance boost and the new 64-bit instruction set are definitely a worthy upgrade by our books.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• HTC One mini 2
  1526
• HTC Desire 816
  1510
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  1492
• HTC Desire 510
  1471
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  1175
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  1171
• Sony Xperia E3
  1118
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  1106

AnTuTu 5 is a compound test taking in consideration the on-screen GPU performance and the storage speed as well. The HTC Desire 510 is better than every Snapdragon 400 device we've tested to date, though the margin isn't that high and a part of it is certainly due to the lower FWVGA resolution compared to the qHD and HD competitors in our chart.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• HTC Desire 510
  20756
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  19912
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  19016
• HTC One mini 2
  18641
• Sony Xperia E3
  18336
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  18245

The cross-platform BaseMark OS II tests even more - it adds the browsing performance to the already lengthy performance equation. Somewhat surprisingly however the HTC Desire 510 is running on a lower-resolution display, a newer generation chipset and faster Android KitKat, it did quite poorly on this test.

Basemark OS II

Higher is better

• HTC Desire 820
  605
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  526
• HTC Desire 816
  520
• HTC One mini 2
  517
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  495
• HTC Desire 510
  491
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  452
• Sony Xperia E3
  417
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  394

The single and multi-core CPU scores of the BaseMark OS II test are very good though - a hair better than the Cortex-A7 quad-core CPUs running at the same 1.2GHz.

Basemark OS II (single-core)

Higher is better

• HTC Desire 816
  1739
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  1435
• HTC Desire 510
  1332
• HTC One mini 2
  1304
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  1192
• Sony Xperia E3
  1171
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  1131
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  1123

Basemark OS II (multi-core)

Higher is better

• HTC Desire 816
  7071
• Sony Xperia E3
  5697
• HTC Desire 510
  5484
• HTC One mini 2
  5182
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  5012
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  5001
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  4887
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  4875

The Snapdragon 410 chipset comes with a minor upgrade over the GPU - it now uses the Adreno 306, which as the name suggests isn't a great deal faster than its Adreno 305 predecessor. The HTC Desire 510 has some advantage over the onscreen tests because it has a lower FWVGA resolution (just like the Sony Xperia E3), but the offscreen benchmarks will show us the real difference.

The HTC Desire 510 indeed did great on both T-Rex and Manhattan on-screen tests. In its own price range it was bested only by the Adreno 305 in the FWVGA Sony Xperia E3 on the T-Rex test, but the Desire 510 had the same output as the Xperia E3 on the new OpenGL 3.0 Manhattan benchmark.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia E3
  17.1
• HTC Desire 510
  15.5
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  15.5
• HTC Desire 816
  11
• HTC One mini 2
  11
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  10.8
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  10.8
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  10.3

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• HTC Desire 510
  8.3
• Sony Xperia E3
  8.3
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  6.9
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  4.1
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  4
• HTC Desire 816
  3.9
• HTC One mini 2
  3.8

Unfortunately the raw performance of the Adreno 306 turned out mostly the same as its Adreno 305 predecessor judging by the offscreen tests.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  6
• HTC Desire 816
  5.9
• Sony Xperia E3
  5.9
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  5.8
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  5.8
• HTC One mini 2
  5.8
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  5.7
• HTC Desire 510
  5.3

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• HTC Desire 510
  1.8
• HTC Desire 816
  1.7
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  1.7
• Sony Xperia E3
  1.7
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  1.7
• HTC One mini 2
  1.7

The GPU intensive BaseMark X came up with a promising score for the Adreno 306 in the HTC Desire 510, better than the rest of the S400 gang but not the second generation Moto G (2014).

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  3142
• HTC Desire 510
  1906
• HTC One mini 2
  1650
• Sony Xperia E3
  1577
• HTC Desire 816
  1437

Finally we've checked the HTC Desire 510 web browser performance. The default HTC browsing app does OK on the JavaScript test, but fails to impress in the compound BrowserMark 2.1 benchmark.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  12470
• HTC Desire 816
  13564
• HTC Desire 510
  14171
• HTC One mini 2
  15684
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  15988
• Sony Xperia E3
  16059
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  16118
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  16129

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  1085
• Sony Xperia E3
  1044
• HTC One mini 2
  945
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  911
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  883
• HTC Desire 510
  832
• HTC Desire 816
  774

HT Desire 510 is a snappy smartphone with smooth UI navigation and performance better than the low power consumption of the chipset would make you expect. It is ready for the next generation 64-bit Android apps, where the hardware upgrade will count even more. For now the HTC Desire 510 offers a solid user experience that should be enough to please non-power-users. And it should get even better in the future once Android 5 Lollipop with its ART runtime and 64-bit apps hits it.