bobpeers -> blog

After writing about this problem and seeing that the fix I thought worked didn’t really, I decided to return my Desire to 3 Denmark to be fixed.

It could well be that I could have fixed it myself but since the phone was under warranty I didn’t see the point.

It could take up to three weeks to fix but at least they lent me a phone to use in the meantime. It’s a Sony Xperia X8 mini and takes a bit of getting used to after using my Desire. Typing on a 2.6″ screen was very difficult but installing the Swype beta made life much better. I also did them a favour by upgrading the phone to Android 2.1 since it came with Android 1.6 installed.

At least I got to test my own App on the phone running 1.6 and it worked perfectly.

My Desire is 6 months old, not rooted and has Android 2.2 installed. Just recently the proximity sensor has issues, it seems that it only detects very bright light so is useless indoors (or in grey Danish winter).
Basically the sensor should detect when I make a call and hold the phone to my ear and then turn off the screen, it should turn back on when I remove it from my ear.
In reality as soon as I start a call the screen goes blank and it never turns back on. I’m unable to hang up the call or press any buttons during the call. Only after the call is ended by the other party does the screen turn back on, and then it takes about a minutes after the call ends to do this.
If I insert the charger, headphone jack or hold the phone to a very bright lamp the screen turns on so it seems to be a software issue as the sensor does work, it’s just the sensitivity is totally out of calibration.
I contacted HTC who suggested a hard reset, which I did, but the problem still exists so after the New Year I think I’ll have to send it for repair.
It’s a shame, I really like the phone but this issue makes it useless for phone calls right now.
The issue seems to affect a few people and there’s a thread on the HTC community forum.
Update – I found a stupidly easy fix. Just blow between the screen and the ear piece. It looks like there is no gap but it blows dust out of the sensor. HTC needs to seal the screen better to stop this.
The fix came from this tweet.