I miss the ‘Quietly Brilliant’

For the last 12 months I have been using a HTC Desire, but recently I have switched to a Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc to see what the newer devices have to offer.

I really like the Arc, the camera especially is brilliant but there are a few small things that I really do miss, but two things in particular highlights to me and re-confirms the tag line ‘Quietly Brilliant’ of HTC.

The one thing I miss most is the feature that when your phone rang, if face up, you could just turn the HTC Desire over, so the screen faces down onto a desktop and it would silence the ringtone, but not reject the call.

I often find that I am in a meeting or on the phone and I have forgotten to put my phone on silent and that feature was so great because it was not as rude (in my opinion) as just rejecting the call.

On a similar tangent, if the Desire was in a bag or pocket, it would sense this and ring louder, and once removed, the ringtone would reduce in volume, again making it more polite, especially if you are in the middle of a face to face conversation or in a quiet environment.

These are not necessarily features on their own that would make me switch back to the Desire, but they really do demonstrate how small things can make a difference and you do not realise it until you don’t have them.