HTC Desire Z review

The whole design of the HTC Desire Z looks and feels very well made thanks to the metal backplate and screen surround. A touchpad and four touch-sensitive buttons sit beneath the screen.

A 3.5mm headset connector sits on the top edge of the chassis alongside the on/off switch, the microUSB port and the volume rocker are on the left, and there is a shortcut button for the five-megapixel camera on the right edge.

One of the more interesting bundled apps is CarPanel which gives you a six icon grid of shortcuts for use when you are driving it makes the HTC Desire Z's screen look a little like that of a personal navigation device. You can use this to provide in car access to HTC's own new Locations application which is present alongside Google Maps. Location's navigation services include free map downloads and caching, but you need to pay for some additional data such as traffic information.

More familiar extras include QuickOffice for viewing and editing Microsoft Office Word and Excel documents, and HTC's FriendStream service for bringing together Facebook and Twitter communications.