HTC Explorer A310E – Nostalgia smartphone review.

htc-explorer-a310e-nostalgia-smartphone-review

Smartphones are upgrade of telephones and keypad mobile phones even though world’s first touch screen smartphone is from IBM manufactured by Mitsubishi inc. released on August 16, 1995 named simon personal communicator but the world’s first multi-touch technology smartphone is made by Apple inc. then launched by it’s founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007 named iPhone.

People, around the world depended on telephones, mobile phones to voice communicate with each other for decades but when smartphones came into existence they shifted to them as smartphones have powerful hardware and software which is much better then telephones and keypad mobile phones.

Apple inc. didn’t name operating system used on iPhone but as per marketing team of Apple inc. they used a custom version of i Mac PC operating system OS X but later on from iPhone 2 Apple inc. named it’s operating system as iOS with alot of improvements and new features that has potential to totally replace keypad mobile phone operating systems like Java and Symbian etc.

iOS is one of the main reason iPhone got huge demand from people around the world as they never seen such cool and futuristic mobile operating system due to that Apple inc. was able to sell iPhones in matter of minutes on all it’s stores thanks to iPhone popularity mobile companies around the world who used to make telephones or keypad mobile phones started making plans and strategies to make smartphone like iPhone to survive and stay in mobile market.

There are numerous big mobile companies like Nokia and Samsung who can make best hardware smartphones but what they lack is modern and advanced operating system like iOS but thankfully search engine giant Google in year 2005 acquired a operating system named Android from Andy Rubens then developed and made it free and open source software to release on smartphones that eventually become best alternative to iOS.

HTC aka High Tech Computer is a Taiwanese mobile company founded by Cher Wang in year May 15, 1997 at first HTC used to make and sell keypad mobile phones in year 2008 search engine giant Google partnered with HTC and released world’s first Android operating system smartphone named HTC Dream.

Fortunately, HTC released number of Android OS powered smartphones but they’re are costly at that time like any other mobile company smartphones still people used to them as Android powered smartphones are bit less expensive then Apple iPhones but HTC used to loose alot of customers because of high price mainly in developing countries like India.

In October 2011, HTC released a low end less price smartphone HTC Explorer A310E at 11, 650 INR price in india which is around 145$ that has pretty good features at that time but it comes with very low storage and ram packed with Snapdragon 600 mhz processor considering this it’s not worthy as Samsung is releasing better smartphones.

But, HTC is well known for quality of it’s smartphones so many people buyed HTC Explorer A310E even though there are better low end smartphones with increased features and now it’s been more then a decade so very likely most people who once owned HTC explorer A310E didn’t have it now but if you do consider yourself lucky.

• HTC Explorer A310E key features •

– 3.2 inch TFT display

– Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)

– Sense UI 3.5

– Qualcomm MSM7225A Snapdragon S1

– 600 MHz Cortex A5 CPU

– Adreno 200

– microSDHC ( dedicated slot )

– 3.15 MP back camera ( No selfie )

– 480p video recording

– 512MB internal storage ( ROM )

– 512MB Memory ( RAM )

– Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, hotspot

– single sim with 2G, 3G network support.

– Loud speaker and 3.5 mm jack

– Surround sound

– 108g weight

– Removable Li-Ion 1230 mAh battery

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Foremost, the design of HTC explorer a310e is of Google Nexus it has solid and durable quality available in classy black, white, blue, orange, purple colors when you hold HTC explorer a310e it not just feels comfortable and also look cute thanks to it’s 3.2 inch size less then iPhone 1st generation due to that it is preffered choice for minimalists.

But, back in year 2011 people wanted big displays at higher resolution to watch and enjoy content but most big displays smartphones are pretty expensive even though we eventually got big display smartphones at affordable range yet most smarphones back then are 3 to 4 inch size if you’re someone who want big display then HTC explorer A310e is not for you.

The most important part after display is operating system Google developed and upgraded Android OS every year on December 6, 2010 they released Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) that was installed on HTC Explorer a310e with custom skin Sense UI 3.5 like MIUI to provide new user interface and few extra features for ultimate usage experience.

HTC sense UI is special it is better then Android OS so most people used to buy HTC smartphones especially to get it’s sense UI which is still continuing by HTC on new smartphones with latest Sense UI versions anyway in case you like custom Android OS then HTC Explorer a310e will work for you if not buy stock Android OS smartphones like Google’s Nexus.

HTC Explorer A310e is first smartphone from HTC to use Qualcomm MSM7225A Snapdragon S1 600 MHz processor with Cortex A5 CPU and Adreno 200 GPU that is specifically developed for low end smartphones so you can’t expect much but HTC Explorer a310e managed to give decent performance and battery life.

You may probably know battery life is not just depended on your battery Mah capacity and usages it is also linked to your chipset if your processor is optimized to save battery then very likely you’ll get increased battery juice but HTC Explorer A310e only have 1230 mah battery so you mostly get few hours on moderate usage which is ok but not for those who use and play HD games on smartphones whole day.

Even though, on paper HTC says Explorer A310e has 512 MB ROM and 512 MB ROM it does but most of that is occupied by Android OS and OEM system apps thus you will get only 100MB ROM and RAM max that can only install and run 5 to 6 small apps which is disappointing isn’t? but HTC explorer A310e has memory card support so by unblocking bootloader and rooting HTC Explorer a310e you can use memory card to increase internal storage isn’t interesting and useful?

Unfortunately, HTC stopped providing softwares upgrades gingerbread 2.3.2 with HTC sense UI 3.5 is last Android version of HTC Explorer a310e but thankfully there are many third party developers supported HTC Explorer a310e from XDA they build several latest Android OS versions for HTC Explorer a310e to keep it up to date.

The last custom rom is Android OS 5.1.1 lollipop since then no new Android OS custom rom is build for HTC Explorer a310e as internal storage and memory is very low on HTC Explorer a310e it’s very hard to develop new Android OS versions for HTC Explorer a310e which is why 5.1.1 custom roms on HTC Explorer a310e lag so much at present CM9 based on Android OS 4.01 is best stable custom rom for HTC Explorer a310e for daily usage purposes.

In case of camera, you only get 3.2 mega pixel back camera to shoot photos and 480p video recording that’s not at all satisfactory you need natural lighting conditions or proper light to capture good photos and videos and there is no front camera for selfies thus HTC Explorer a310e is not camera centric smartphones so photographers stay away from it.

Atlast, HTC Explorer a310e like most smartphones has single sim with 2G, 3G network and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, hotspot to connect internet and browser WWW – world wide web and it does have bluetooth to transfer files including that it has loud speaker and 3.5 mm jack with surround sound to enjoy music and movies anytime.

Finally, HTC Explorer a310e is not worthy now as we have better and more powerful and advanced smartphones but if you own HTC Explorer a310e then you may keep it for nostalgia reasons, are you an existing user of HTC Explorer a310e? If yes do say us why you like HTC Explorer a310e and mention do you still have HTC Explorer a310e in our comment section below, see ya 🙂

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