HTC Desire Eye review: Undercover flagship

Performance

The HTC Desire Eye is powered by the now widely used Snapdragon 801 chipset. It utilizes the Krait 400 CPU with a maximum clock rate of 2.3GHz. The CPU is joined by a snappy Adreno 330 GPU and 2GB of RAM.

Our opening benchmark is GeekBench 3, which is a multi-thread CPU benchmark. The HTC Desire Eye did great and matched the best performers in our chart - the Galaxy Note 4 and the Galaxy S5.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  3011
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  2925
• HTC Desire Eye
  2911
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  2884
• Sony Xperia Z3
  2860
• Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro
  2709
• OnePlus One
  2663
• LG G3 - EU version
  2563
• HTC One (M8)
  2367

The new compound AnTuTu 5 benchmark however shows a rather underwhelming result - close to the rest of the recent Snapdragon 801 smartphones but still a step behind.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  46824
• HTC One (M8)
  44020
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  43164
• Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro
  42460
• Sony Xperia Z3
  40393
• HTC Desire Eye
  40296
• LG G3 - EU version
  39905

The Basemark OS II gives an overall CPU score to the chipset but also breaks down the single and multi-core performance of smartphones. The HTC Desire Eye matched the overall and CPU performance of the other Snapdragon 801-powered smartphones.

Basemark OS II

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  1222
• OnePlus One
  1196
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  1181
• HTC One (M8)
  1126
• LG G3 - EU version
  1126
• HTC Desire Eye
  1122
• Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro
  1120
• Sony Xperia Z3
  1109
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  1082

Basemark OS II (single-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  4031
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  2588
• HTC Desire Eye
  2478
• HTC One (M8)
  2428
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  2415
• Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro
  2216
• OnePlus One
  2213
• LG G3 - EU version
  2213
• Sony Xperia Z3
  2114

Basemark OS II (multi-core)

Higher is better

• OnePlus One
  10234
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  10063
• HTC One (M8)
  9860
• LG G3 - EU version
  9611
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  9604
• HTC Desire Eye
  9495
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  9446
• Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro
  9332
• Sony Xperia Z3
  8792

The HTC Desire Eye utilizes the same Adreno 330 GPU as the rest of the 2014 flagship gang. Unfortunately, the Desire Eye off-screen performance for some reason is behind the curve and its scores place it at the bottom of our charts.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  44.6
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  41.7
• HTC One (M8)
  28.4
• OnePlus One
  28.3
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  27.8
• Sony Xperia Z3
  27.7
• LG G3 - EU version
  27.2
• Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro
  27.2
• HTC Desire Eye
  23.4

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  18.6
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  18.5
• OnePlus One
  12.1
• Sony Xperia Z3
  12
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  11.8
• LG G3 - EU version
  11.4
• Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro
  11.3
• HTC One (M8)
  11.1
• HTC Desire Eye
  10.3

The actual on-screen performance turned out better, just a whisker below the 1080p Snapdragon 801 devices. You will notice that QHD smartphones such as the LG G3 and the Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro occupy the bottom of the chart due to their high resolution screens being more taxing on the GPU.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)

Higher is better

• HTC One (M8)
  30.1
• OnePlus One
  30
• Sony Xperia Z3
  29.3
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  28.1
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  26.4
• HTC Desire Eye
  24.6
• LG G3 - EU version
  20.5
• Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro
  19.5

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus One
  12.9
• Sony Xperia Z3
  12.7
• HTC One (M8)
  11.9
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  11.7
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  11.2
• HTC Desire Eye
  10.9
• LG G3 - EU version
  7.2
• Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro
  6.9

The GPU-intensive BaseMark X benchmark also puts the HTC Desire Eye behind the Snapdragon 801 competition.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  18684
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  18297
• OnePlus One
  13129
• Sony Xperia Z3
  12637
• HTC One (M8)
  12396
• Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro
  11875
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  11744
• LG G3 - EU version
  11552
• HTC Desire Eye
  10249

The raw web browsing performance of the HTC Desire Eye is also quite uninspiring, the smartphone once again fell to the bottom of our charts in both the JavaScript Kraken test and the compound BrowserMark 2.1.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  4650
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  5351
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  6043
• Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro
  6072
• Sony Xperia Z3
  6355
• LG G3 - EU version
  6987
• OnePlus One
  7008
• HTC One (M8)
  10296
• HTC Desire Eye
  11093

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  3389
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  2208
• Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro
  1543
• Sony Xperia Z3
  1533
• LG G3 - EU version
  1474
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  1398
• OnePlus One
  1339
• HTC One (M8)
  1069
• HTC Desire Eye
  1009

HTC Desire Eye is boasting a flagship Snapdragon 801 chipset that should give it enough raw power for everything. Unfortunately the GPU and web browsing scores turned out lower than expected, though not enough to give you troubles. The real-life performance is as snappy as it gets and we had no problems running whichever apps we tried. And if you don't like the performance of the default web browser, you can always opt for Chrome.