The HTC Desire 816 runs Android 4.4 KitKat with Sense 6 out of the box. It's powered by a Snapdragon 400 MSM8928 chipset with four Cortex-A7 processor cores at 1.6GHz and Adreno 305 GPU. It has 1.5GB of RAM. interestingly, this one is better spec'd than the HTC One mini 2, and yet it costs less.
This should give it an edge in performance over the likes of the Sony Xperia T2 Ultra, but HTC's phablet should be behind the Exynos Hexa-powered Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo.
We kick off with a simple CPU benchmark that, expectedly, places the Desire 816 above the Xperia T2 Ultra (4x Cortex-A7 @ 1.4GHz), but behind the Galaxy Note 3 Neo (a hexa-core processor with two Cortex-A15 @ 1.7GHz as the muscle).
Higher is better
Unfortunately, the results prove to be not very reliable as we ran both the Play Store version and the anti-cheat versions of Basemark OS II and there was a noticeable change in score.
Higher is better
Higher is better
Higher is better
Going back to AnTuTu, we see that the Desire 816 tops the lot of affordable phablets in overall performance, but keep in mind the results are probably a bit off due to benchmark optimizations on HTC's part.
Higher is better
The on-screen versions of the GFX 3D benchmark didn't run at a satisfactory framerate.
Higher is better
Higher is better
Since the HTC phablet has a 720p screen we should be looking at the on-screen results. And as could have been expected, Adreno 305 just isn't up to snuff when it comes to delivering quality 3D graphics at 720p. Even the relatively old GFX 2.7 T-Rex test didn't get anywhere near a playable framerate.
Higher is better
Higher is better
JavaScript performance is not great, though it's in line with what we can expect from a mid-range device. In the BrowserMark 2.1, an HTML5 test, the HTC Desire 816 score was proportional to the JavaScript score. These tests fully stress the browser (we used the stock browser, by the way), in daily browsing the phablet works without annoying slowdowns.
Lower is better
Higher is better
The HTC Desire 816 is a middle of the road device when it comes to performance. It's not sluggish by any means and it will do okay for daily multitasking, browsing and even 3D games. From a user point of view, we didn't experience any
Tip us
1.9m 150k
RSS
EV
Merch
Log in I forgot my password Sign up