HTC Touch HD Review
The big buzz in mobile phones this year can be summed up in two words: "iPhone killer". Who's going to come up with one? Well, if HTC didn't just fulfill the prophecy, it won't be for lack of trying.
Here's one area where they're ahead already: video calling. That's right, a video camera phone, albeit a low-resolution one, is available, which still beats out Apple since the iPhone has no video calling capacity at all.
When you pick up the new HTC Touch HD, the first thing you'll notice is the screen: it's bigger than the iPhone's screen, at 3.8 inches, and behind that glass is an impressive screen resolution of 800x480. It is, at last, a phone that is comfortable to read documents on. That luxurious screen real estate will be even more appreciated when you're using the Opera browser in landscape mode.
HTC appears keenly aware that their screen is the big selling point, since the instruction booklet sternly warns you about protecting it, and they provide a nice felt baggie to protect the phone. We hear you loud and clear, HTC! It's basically a small tablet PC. Got it.
You'll also notice that with the upgraded screen size comes a larger phone overall. This weighs quite meaty in the hand, and you'll find it to be quite a fistful of phone! But the back has that great rubberized plastic coating so you have a secure grip. It feels solid in the hand, and it's actually quite fun to use. For those of us with big hands and fat fingers, we at last have a device that doesn't feel likes it's made for a doll-sized human. With so much bang you'll be getting for the buck, you won't mind that the dimensions are an inch bigger. Wear jeans with larger pockets.
The volume control is also an improvement; a rocker-style button that takes up the whole left edge of the device, ensuring that you can easily find it in the dark, even. The front has four buttons for 'call', 'home', 'back', and 'end', and the buttons provide a pleasant haptic feedback buzz, to let you feel when you've pressed a button. The stylus is on the right, and once again when you slide the stylus out the phone automatically turns on.
The performance is comparable to the TouchPro and Diamond, with the 528 MHz Qualcomm processor and 288 MB working RAM. Amongst other things, this model shows a vast improvement in online video. Spin over to YouTube and pick a video, go to landscape mode, and view it full-screen; the playback is even smoother than the Pro.
While we're on memory, the storage is 512 MB on-board, with of course a slot for SDHC memory cards that will take up to 32 GB. We have 16 GB cards on the market now going for a pittance, and when the 32 GB cards hit the shelves, you'll be all ready.
HTC's TouchFlo 3D interface, which runs on top of Windows Mobile, has never had a chance to shine before like it does on the HD. The hardware and software really come together here. You don't have to press as hard as you did in previous TouchFlo models. The standard stylus and finger touch-and-tap system works flawlessly, with new improvements such as a scrolling zoom bar in Opera and the ability to flick through photos. Small tweaks and features have been added here and there, showing that HTC has gained great confidence in its user interface and now it's just a matter of ironing out those last wrinkles.
One such tweak is the addition of the ability to change the order and display options of the tabs themselves. This is nice for those of you who use some features more than others.
A word about that scrolling zoom bar; some sites out there say they like the pinched-finger zoom control on the iPhone, but really the scroll bar on the Touch HD is much more precise and accurate. It might be a matter of personal preference, but some people prefer having finer control over the device, and HTC has always been good about that.
Keyboards haven't been neglected in the UI, either. You can pick from standard QUERTY, standard phone keypad, and compact QUERTY, all with word completion, and you can also change the language preferences from the same screen.
What about the camera? A 5-megapixel camera built into the back, which also puts it on an even footing with the Samsung Omnia, as far as Windows Mobile phones go. And about headphones, the new headphone jack is the industrial standard of 3.5MM, exactly like any pair of headphones you can buy off the shelf, so you no longer have to fiddle with adapters.
In the software department, a new feature is the stocks tab. Just like with viewing photos, you can flip over to a series of stocks you select and view a graph which updates regularly. Tapping on the stock graph brings up a full data view of the stock on Yahoo! Finance. You can add and remove stock symbols and drag them around in a different order, exactly as you would expect to. Just the thing for them to have innovated now, when the global stock market bears such close watching.
The weather tab shows much improvement on the HD's wider screen. You can now see the four-day forecast under the current conditions, and the whole display looks beautiful. Google Maps is another feature that gets a lot more mileage out of the large screen space; combined with the touch-screen interface, it feels more like an interactive flat map than ever before. The maps of course uses turn-by-turn software, working with the GPS.
And now, finally, to battery life. With the bigger screen and higher resolution, you're probably cringing in anticipation of the news here. Well, the battery is 1350mAh and it performs like a champ! You could get about 36 hours of usage out of this between charges. The 528 MHz Qualcomm processor is living up to its expectations in running lighter on resources while delivering top-notch performance.
Chances are this isn't the first review of the HTC Touch HD you've found on the web today, so by now you might be expecting our summary to echo the others, and you'd be right. Our conclusion is that this is definitely the best Windows Mobile experience we've found yet. The solid performance and capacity of the system is beyond other models that have come before.
You can pick one up for yourself from the guys over at Press Digital from the following link.
BUY the HTC Touch HD at Press Digital
Filed Under: Mobile Computing • Product Reviews
