Gilly rules’s review of the HTC HD2

Let me start of by saying that this phone is just gorgeous. If you want a phone that no one else has and is over the top sexy, it’s the HTC HD2. The phone only offers Edge for data connection until the North American version is released. The phone is only available overseas but it comes unlocked and is sold at import retail cellular phone locations. I bought mine at cellworldco for just under 7 bills. Expensive? Yes. But worth it? We will find out.

Box Contents:

-Phone
-Headphones
-Manuals
-8GB micoSD
-Charger
-Leather pouch
-micro USB

One thing to note about the packaging of this phone is that the all the packaging for the headphones/charger/microusb is wrapped with cornstarch which apparently is fully recycle. Nice to see HTC putting in effort in “green” packaging.





Hardware:

The phone boasts a super ridiculous large 4.3in screen with incredible resolution. The screen is so big that it makes me think I am holding a PDA. The screen has a glass finish so it is very scratch resistant. Capacitive touch screen is also a bonus. I used to own a phone with a resistive touch screen (Nokia 5800) and it didn’t have the same responsive feedback as the capacitive. So the screen is huge but how about the thickness? With just 0.43 in thick, it will fit in your pocket without a huge bulge in your jeans. Props to HTC for making such an amazing screen and still keeping it in a thin factor. The weight of the phone is just right and it feels good in your hand. The phone also boasts a whopping CPU monster of 512mb of ROM, 448mb RAM and a 1GHZ processor. Lag? No such thing on this phone. Internal memory of the HTC is weak with just 128mb but my phone came with a 8gb microSD card. There is a 3.5mm headphone jack which means you can use any kind of headphones for music.



These 2 pictures taken from Engadget.

Software:

The phone is running on Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional. This is my first windows mobile phone and I am just truly disappointed with it. HTC did however put their own “skin” on top of the windows platform called the HTC SENSE. Sense is very smooth and attractive to the eyes. It is easy to navigate and has stunning animations. I would say that about 90% of the time you will be on the Sense platform. But 15% of the time, you will experience the dreadful outdated windows mobile platform. You will only experience this when you go into advanced settings and checking your email with the built in email client. The reason why I dislike the windows mobile platform is because it is really dated compared to the other platforms on the market. It just looks plain ugly. The transition from a very sleek and gorgeous skin on the Sense and then suddenly going to the windows mobile theme is really disappointing. Also, there are no special features with the platform. It is very basic and offers only simple options.


HTC SENSE skin


Gmail client with HTC SENSE


Once you open Gmail client, you see Windows Mobile


Advanced Settings with Windows Mobile skin.

Recently however, Microsoft just announced Windows 7 mobile and from what I saw, it looks amazing. HTC HD2 also has its own twitter, facebook, stocks, msn messenger and weather client built in the phone. However, if you want more applications, you are out of luck. The Apple iphone’s apple store destroys windows mobile’s marketplace. There is no good apps available for free on the marketplace and there are only about a couple hundred apps compared to iphone’s 1 million apps.


Facebook client


Twitter Client

Mutimedia:

There is a 5MP camera on the phone and it takes decent photos. Autofocus works great and you can choose where to focus. Video quality is good but not the greatest compared to other phones with a 5MP camera phones. HD2 comes with only one game which kind of fails. I am impressed with the phone’s music player. It is easy to navigate, has good sound quality and supports photo covers. Internet surfing on the HTC HD2 is where the big prize is. The 4.3in screen makes internet surfing on the phone astounding. You get to see so much more on a webpage and the phone supports multi tap for easier web surfing. Texting of the phone is comfortable. Since the screen is so large, the keyboard letters are bigger so it is easier to type. The phone supports XT9 which makes typing faster and it auto remembers the words that you type. HD2 uses the opera browser and webpages load up fairly quickly on a wifi network but not as fast compared to the Apple iphone. Opera also supports flash which is a huge bonus which automatically 1 up the Apple Iphone.


Opera Browser


Final Thoughts:

The HTC HD2 is an incredible phone. The hardware specs are off the charts and is defiantly one of the leaders in the mobile industry. Where it falls is the software. If only it has a symbian, android or even iphone operating system in it, I would love it to death. Windows 7 mobile is coming out and with this amazing hardware combined; HTC will be looking at a very bright future. I love the massive gorgeous screen and the sleek Sense skin but in the end, HTC HD2 < Apple Iphone.

- gillyrules