HTC HD2 review: Portrait of a rockstar
- W
- White Lion
- nCc
- 23 Nov 2009
Well guys, I bought the HTC HD2 even before this good review is issued. I have one thing to say, among all smart phones, windows mobile, Android, symbian, HTC HD2 is the best in the following aspects:
1) Speed (even with too much programs, applications, multimedia stuff installed, it is as fast as it was out of the box.
2) Screen size: you wont understand how greate having a 4.3" screen until you try your self, specially in viewing websites, photos and videos (although it has 65000 colors, you will notice the difference if you bring it side by side with a 16million colors screen and thats one of the windows mobile disadvantages where it only support 65k colors not the screen, anyway I'm talking about the size here not the colors).
3) User interface (really easy, fast, easily customied and an eye candy, I'm really enjoying it and I cant get bored of it).
4) Scratch resestive screen and body (you can find other mobile phones with a scratch resistance screen such as the LG Chocolate BL40, but its hard to find a scratch resistance body)
5) Ease of use: I cant think of a more simple way to structure such phone with the largest screen in mobile phones world. The 5 buttons are the only buttons you will need, and when i say need, I mean you will really need them, I'm happy they didnt put a lesser buttons or touch buttons coz like this its really easy to use and I want effeciancy of use more than design.
Those are the best features the phone has that give it a comarative advantage upon its compititors. but, there are many other good features you will diffinetly enjoy, not to mention the windows mobile community with its larg range of applications that you can add to your phone.
Here are the advantages and disatvantages of the THC HD2:
Advantages:
The GSMArena list of advantages:
-Huge 4.3" 65K-color WVGA glass-covered capacitive touchscreen
-Multi-touch input
-Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional OS with Sense UI
-Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250 1 GHz CPU and 448MB RAM
-Quad-band GSM support
-3G with HSDPA 7.2Mbps
-Wi-Fi connectivity
-Built-in GPS receiver with A-GPS support
-Stereo FM radio with RDS
-5 MP autofocus camera with dual LED flash and touch focus
-VGA video recording at 30fps
-microSD card slot
-Standard microUSB port and Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP
-Standard 3.5mm audio jack
-Great audio quality
-MS Office Mobile document editor
-Opera 9.5 web browser
-YouTube client, Facebook and Twitter integration
-Excellent video playback performance
-Good battery life
Added by me from my opinion and judgement:
-Greate flash (as strong as SE c905 if not stronger + can be used while shooting video or as a flash light)
Disadvantages:
I dont see all the disadvantages that GSMarena has listed as a real disadvantages that cannot be avoided, I agree with the following disadvantages listed by GSMArena:
-Poor sunlight legibility
-65K color limitation of display has color gradients banding
-Card slot under the battery cover (although for me its not a disadvantage since I take out the memory each month to transfer my data, but it may be for others who do that daily)
-No dedicated camera key and no lens cover
-No secondary video-call camera
-No voice dialing
-No handwriting recognition (although thats obviouse coz its a capacitive screen and it does not support stylus but only your finger, even your nail wont work and its really hard and tierfull to handwrite using your finger)
Listed disatvantages I dissagree with:
-It's a pretty large phone ( Believe me, go see it for yourself, its hardly noticable that its larger than the iphone. Whn the iphon hit the market, it was the one of the largest if not the largest phones in the market and no one complained abouyt its size, however, the HD2 isn't the largest snapdragon processor mobile and some are saying oooh its too big!! and being too thin makes it feels good in hand. And believe, I find no issue using it by one hand, even writting messeges using one hand is quit accurate and i dont messtype, even if i did messtyped, it hs a nice feaures where it corrects the word you messtyped it as you press the space button.)
-Disappointing photo and video quality (I have one of the best 8 megapixel cameraphones which is LG Renoir, ofcourse the Renoir take a much higher quality pictures, but the HD2 pictures is close in terms of macro, sharpness, and little bit better in treating colors wher it take a more saturated picture than the Renoir does. The only problem is that it doesn't has image stapilizer, you have to keep your hand as steady as possible to get the greatest pictures you can. And for the colors, as mentioned in the review sometimes it create a pink color in some part of the photo but you can deal with that by manualy setting the white balance to sunny for example and get a more balanced colors in your photo. But in general, the camera is the best camera among htc phones and do an acceptable performance and takes better indoor and dark pictures than my lg Renoir (which has a xenon flash) thanks to its pwerfull dual LED flash which is far better than the N95 one's.)
-No DivX/XviD video support out-of-the-box (I dont assume things that you can change as a disadvantage, fo example, in my HD2, to get to task manager, I have to go through start/settings/others/task manager which I feel little bit frustraiting where I like to check the task manager frequently, so I downloaded a software that makes a shortcut to the task manager and put it in the home screen. The same goes here, since you can make it support Divx/Xvix by installing a third party software which is availabe free on the net)
-Preloaded CoPilot Live navigation software is a trial version (Well does other smartphones from samsung, sonyericsson, and nokia give a free navigation software?! I dont think so)
-Dodgy web Flash support (Opera doesn't support flash and its faster than the Internet Explorer and it has the pinch zooming ability but, Internet Explorer does support flash with a slower speed in rendering pages but not too slow, say 5 to 6 seconds to load Youtube hompage for IE, 3 to 4 seconds to do so with the Opera, and it doesnt has the pinch zooming. However I'm trying to uninstall the Internet Explorer and install the zooomer application which allows you to pinch zoom newly instaled applications and then reinstall the IE and find out ifit will work or not. Anyway, I used the IE to browse some flash website like youtube and it played the videos well, may be HQ videos with 720p or higher will be hard to be played but I dont realize the reazon why would you play a 720p video instead of 480p where the difference wont be noticable in a 4.3" screen!)
At the end, I can say this phone is really one of the greatest if not the greatest phones in the mobile phones market. I cant describe it, you just have to try it. And sorry for the long talk xD
*Note: All what I said is from my opinion and based on my knowledge, it my be true and it might be wrong, so please dont take it in a harsh way if you disagree with something I wrote, and I welcome any oter opinion or disagreement. Thanks.
- ?
- Anonymous
- m5x
- 23 Nov 2009
Anonymous, 20 Nov 2009Compared to Toshiba TG01 (after upgrade to WinMo 6.5): Pro... moreplease stop complaining buy Apple Iphone. at least your worry will be over.
- B
- Bash
- m5x
- 23 Nov 2009
Ladana, 20 Nov 2009I was waiting eagerly for this oh so nice looking phone for... moreho sorry to hear about the hd2 camera. I would suggest you go Iphone for £998 on expansys. but behold it had bad camera too. so its a trade off. everybody want to kill apple but they can't pay for it.
- S
- Sepehr
- p@5
- 22 Nov 2009
I have two questions about this device:
First about compatibility of old Windows Mobile softwares with this Capacitive Multi-touch screen and new OS.
And the second question:
Is it possible to add more than one mobile Phone number for a contact? (Or like older Windows mobile it's not possible)
- L
- Liam
- 0RG
- 22 Nov 2009
hi would you say this phone is good for a 16 year old im getting it soon on vodafone cause ive had so much trouble with my blackberry storm 9500
- M
- Mark
- 3pc
- 20 Nov 2009
Touch HD user, 20 Nov 2009HD2 uses 1GHz Snapdragon CPU and has 448MB of RAM.Well I called o2 to get my PAC no, with the intention of getting a HTC Hero on Orange, and came away with an upgrade to a HD2. Must admit I'm looking fwd to getting it v.soon, tho gawd knows how I'll fit it in the front pocket of my jeans... Btw, any news on how to download CoPilot Live 8 to the HD2's microSD card rather than it's built-in memory..?
- T
- Touch HD user
- tRh
- 20 Nov 2009
Mark, 18 Nov 2009Wow! I'm tempted by how this handset looks, especially in d... moreHD2 uses 1GHz Snapdragon CPU and has 448MB of RAM.
- ?
- Anonymous
- nYQ
- 20 Nov 2009
Anonymous, 20 Nov 2009I absolutely agree with you. Such a shame with that camera.... moreI would expect HTC to solve the problem with the camera, even if they have to RMA the affected units, simply because that there are units which don't seem to exhibit this problem, AT ALL.
- ?
- Anonymous
- mjv
- 20 Nov 2009
Ladana, 20 Nov 2009I was waiting eagerly for this oh so nice looking phone for... moreI absolutely agree with you. Such a shame with that camera. I could live with an average camera, but I can't live with that pink tint...
- ?
- Anonymous
- 3IX
- 20 Nov 2009
Compared to Toshiba TG01 (after upgrade to WinMo 6.5):
Pros: Capacitive Screen
Touchflow 3d
Cons: Still a HTC, behind the Toshiba name
Problem with lens (purple fringing)
handwriting recognition is missing (the better virtual keyboard is accessible though)
- ?
- Anonymous
- 3IX
- 20 Nov 2009
Since HTC Touch, everything is hyped, till now and such a bold stuffff.
I remember they called Touch iPhone Killer. Still this one is killing the same iPhone, hah!!!!
iPhone is one classic product in mobile tech till now, causing a twist in this technology, Please stop killing the ancestors and learn how to be a legend like them
- Y
- Yosss
- 03}
- 20 Nov 2009
I love the phone! Thanks for the review. Its realy iphone killerrrrrrrrrrrrr!
- L
- Ladana
- n3U
- 20 Nov 2009
I was waiting eagerly for this oh so nice looking phone for months, bloody amazing display and touchscreen. But then I don't get why they have to fail with the camera so badly. The pink tint in the center appears to be a lens error, probably an issue with manufacturing, but that is not really an excuse. Especially because things like that cannot be postprocessed out of the image properly. For a handset that goes for close to 700 Euros here in Europe, such camera issues are a major fail. Pity. Maybe they fix it in the next generation, but such oversights depress me.
- ?
- Anonymous
- tDx
- 20 Nov 2009
wow very good UI from HTC too bad why HTC choose winmo & 65k color.. c'mon HTC use another OS with better color support maybe Symbian next time?
- w
- windows hater
- xmM
- 19 Nov 2009
Thanks Mia for your sympathy
somebody asked me, "if Windows is as bad as you say, how come 90% of people in the world use it?"
I answered "The same reason that McDonald is the same bad and the same high selling"
One friend said I have not used WinMo yet.
I understand, I hate judging something before using it, even more than how I hate windows.
I had HTC S310, (My only experience with HTC) and JAMin, another experience with WinMo 5.0
Remember, greatest haters mostly have been greatest lovers!!!!!
I also suggest you to make a simple switch (iPhone and Android are highly recommended) and see how easy your life is goint be. Please never say you have had one of them for 2 weeks or something. Use it to get to know it. Then chose a title for your comment (I can borrow you mine),
- ?
- Anonymous
- uC4
- 19 Nov 2009
These days with Windows Mobile phones now getting the biggest hardware and the most tweaks, the people who hate Windows Mobile just go Windows Mobile = Fail. And most of the time these are the same people who haven't used Windows Mobile.
- ?
- Anonymous
- 0Bk
- 19 Nov 2009
Thank you GSMArena team for this detailed and quick review!
- ?
- Anonymous
- psk
- 19 Nov 2009
Shame abou the camera and the video. This phone deserved better. Will HTC ever release a phone with a decent camera and video? Also, fitting WM 6.5 in this device is like fitting a diesel engine in a Ferrari.
- m
- mia
- tDx
- 19 Nov 2009
windows hater, 19 Nov 2009When you look from down to up, it starts good.
Relatively ... moreI'm with you man,winmo ruins everything inside the phone and ruin their user's life with those outdated design and iPhone's wannabe for their os.
Android or Mac is much better,remember they're still young and beat down grandpa winmo to a pulp...R.I.P for winmo,just go back to PC Os where you belong.
- w
- windows hater
- pTf
- 19 Nov 2009
When you look from down to up, it starts good.
Relatively minimal, let's say appealing design
Good screen
Capacitive interface, I can predict it to be as good as HTC dream @ least
OOOPS
when you see the START button of WinMo, everything changes, it means a twisted complex, nonuniform, unstable
Windows ruins everything