HTC HD2 review

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HTC has released myriad of Windows Mobile as-well-as Android phone devices in the past. From the past couple of years, they have been trying their best to come up with a device that could strongly rival the Apple’s iPhone. The HD 2 is a well-bred mixture of style and power. Is it the most awesome (MID) phone so far?  Read on to find out!

The HTC Touch HD2 is a huge creature and by huge, we really mean HUGE. The HD2 sports a big 4.3-inch display that is ~1-inch bigger than the iPhone which comes with a 3.5-inch display. Folks at HTC have a peculiar affection for high-resolution screens and this one is no exception. This baby has WVGA (800×480) resolution compared to 480×320 pixel resolution possessed by the iPhone and iPod Touch.  HTC HD2 is also the first HTC Windows Phone equipped with a capacitive display. The display, just like the iPhone and iPod Touch display is silky smooth. That said, not all the Windows Phone menus are designed to be finger friendly, but with the huge display, you won’t miss the stylus much.

Web Browsing

The HD 2 comes with the excellent Opera 9 web-browser that manages to bring almost-desktop like browsing experience to this wonderful Windows Phone device. Thanks to the muscular Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor  that runs at 1GHz clock speed, doing web-browsing on this Windows Phone was a pleasant experience.

(HTC HD2 and HTC DIAMOND)

(HTC HD2 and iPod Touch 3G)

Here is a comparison table of the HTC TOUCH HD2 with the iPod Touch 3G (64GB Model) and the HTC DIAMOND. Opera Mobile was used on both of the HTC devices and on iPod Touch 3G, Safari was put to tests.

Looking at the table, it is clear that the HTC is much faster than the Diamond which is powered by Qualcomm 7201 that runs at 528MHz clock speed. HTC HD2’s 1GHz processor certainly does helps in improving the overall web-experience, but it still could not beat the iPod Touch 3G, which has a much weaker ARM Cortex A9 processor that runs at 600MHz. So, having more horsepower shall not be considered as a litmus test for determining the performance. Safari was always a few second faster than Opera.

Battery Life

Battery Life is extremely important on a mobile device and HTC HD 2’s battery would last you one full day with good usage. It is definitely nice to see that HTC somehow managed to keep the overall profile of the device thin.

Of course, so many wireless radios under the hood guzzle the battery juice like anything. But, the device showed good stamina and lasted for 3.5 hours in continuously used for web browsing (connected via Wi-Fi)

UPDATE: Get even more hours with this excellent extended from battery from gpsforless.

[Link to the extended battery]

Other features

The HD2 works like a charm as a phone and has an excellent auto-focus 5MP camera. There is a 3.5mm headphone jack where you can plugin your favorite earphones too. HTC has included a 8GB micro-SD card in the package too. However, it would have been even more gratifying to see 16GB one instead, but 8GB is not-too-bad for some movies and songs.

Other obvious advantages that Windows Mobile brings is the excellent multi-tasking ability. HTC has included nifty apps like Youtube and the wonderful HTC TOUCH FLO3D that allows you to perform all the basic functions without going into the complexity of Windows Mobile. Here are few screenshots of TouchFlo3D:

Windows Phone never felt so fast. Everything is fluid as one expects from a super-smartphone.

Positives:

(+) Great display

(+) WVGA Resolution (800×480)

(+) Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU (1GHz)

(+) Excellent TouchFlo integration. Now it feels as a part of OS

(+) Capacitive screen. Finally!

(+) Opera Mobile provides excellent browsing experience

(+) Slim profile

Negatives:

(-) Windows Mobile OS feels sluggish sometimes, despite so much raw power underneath its hood

(-) Size: Can be too big for some

(-) Comes with no case or pouch

You may also wish to read iPod Touch 3G 64GB review

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