Published on : 2026-09-14 10:32
       
       While looking through my old room at my parents' house recently, 
       I found something I hadn't seen in 10 years: my first Android 
       phone the HTC Desire HD which was last used in July 2016.
       
 (IMG)  And somehow, I managed to store it in the original box
       
       I honestly expected the battery to be completely dead after all 
       these years... but I was wrong. I plugged it in and, to my 
       surprise, the battery still charges and holds a charge.
       
       That's probably the most impressive part of the whole discovery. 
       After sitting forgotten for 10 years, the battery isn't completely 
       destroyed.
       
       A phone from another era
       ‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾
       The phone is from the Gen Z era. It was a pretty impressive 
       Android phone when I got it. Big screen, physical volume buttons, 
       a proper camera, and HTC Sense making Android feel very different 
       from the stock experience. 
       
       HTC Sense looked really good. Check out these screenshots:
       
 (IMG)  HTC Desire HD Home Screen
 (IMG)  HTC Desire HD Back
        ( the phone still has the screen and back protector installed 
       and looking good )
 (IMG)  HTC Desire HD Weather
 (IMG)  HTC Desire HD Last used in 2016
 (BIN)  HTC Desire HD Unlock animation [video]
       
       Pardon the shaking in the video - I didn't want to setup a tripod 
       just to record a few seconds.
       
       The weather widget doesn't sync anymore but it had a nice feature: 
       I remember that the whole screen (widgets, app shortcuts etc) were 
       covered in snow if weather said it was snowing outside. 
       It looked amazing.
       
       Back then, having a smartphone like this felt futuristic. It was 
       my first phone that silenced the call if I flipped the phone. w0w
       
       The Android version is ancient: 2.3.5. The built-in applications 
       are ancient. Google services are ancient and, of course, you 
       cannot login into Google anymore. The apps that are installed are 
       essentially fossils. Even if I wanted to use it as a normal 
       smartphone today, there isn't much I could do with it.
       
       And that's fine. I'm not interested in making it useful again.
       
       The phone itself is still alive. It's just that the world moved 
       on. This HTC Desire HD is a nice reminder that hardware can 
       survive software.
       
       I'm not going to throw it away. For now, the HTC Desire HD is 
       going back into its box with the battery removed from the phone. 
       Yes, we could do this back then:
       
 (IMG)  HTC Desire HD with battery removed
       
       I didn't find the original charger. It doesn't matter since the 
       phone has no modern apps and no practical purpose. It's just an 
       old Android phone that somehow survived all these years. But, as 
       I said earlier, I'm going to keep it. It has a place in my big 
       blue ❤️.
       
 (DIR)  Back to my phlog