Moving around the home screens is smooth, as are the app and settings menus. The Desire C does lag somewhat when harder work is put its way. Web browsing was surprisingly smooth for such low-spec handset.

On-board storage is small at 4GB although the Desire C does include a microSD card slot for expansion. HTC offers 25GB of free cloud storage with Dropbox for two years.

The HTC Desire C has a 3.5in screen, the same size as the iPhone 4S. Its resolution is much lower than the Apple smartphone, though, at just 480 x 320 -- one-quarter the iPhone's pixel count. It equates to a pixel density of 165ppi.

The screen doesn't look awful but it's far from being detailed. Most elements of the interface look reasonably clear, though there is inevitably fuzziness around the edges of text and images.

Connectivity is pretty basic -- the obligatory 3.5mm headphone jack, Micro-USB port, 11n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0. One surprise is the inclusion of a near-field communications (NFC) chip -- a rare thing for a phone this cheap.