How water resistant is the HTC Desire? I read on another question that the Motorola Defy is a good choice if you want a water resistant phone. I assumed I wouldn't get the phone wet so water resistance was not a factor I considered when I was deciding which phone to buy. As it happened I ended up buying an HTC Desire.

However I do occasionally find it convenient to operate the phone in light rain, or with wet hands. So far no problems apart from a slightly unresponsive touchscreen sometimes, but I'm wondering how much of a risk am I taking here?


Could operating the buttons while they are slightly wet cause permanent damage to the phone? If so, how likely is it to happen in practice?


Mostly I'm interested in the HTC Desire, but if you have had a similar phone that was damaged by a small amount water then that would be interesting too.
If the water finds its way into the circuitry and causes a short, that could be bad, but I don't think there is any good way to quantify how likely that is to happen to any phone.  I have a Moto Droid and get it a little wet all the time and have never had a problem, although I have heard of people bricking their phone under the same circumstances.  

If you do actually get it wet and it dies, it may not be bricked.  After it dries out it will probably work again.  You can aid the process by putting the phone in some rice or just blowing dry warm air on it.  

It's also worth noting that many phone manufacturers install moisture detecting stickers inside the phone.  On the Droid it can been seen through a little hole under the battery cover that shows red plus signs on a white background.  If that gets wet, it'll bleed and that way if you try to return a broken phone and say it just died the tech can see if you got the phone wet, and even if that's not why it died, it'll void your warranty.