Mobile Concerns

After having used the HTC Touch HD for just over two weeks now, I would like to share with you my experiences and discuss some of the pros and cons of HTC’s latest smart phone. Others have described the Touch HD as the Windows Mobile answer to the iPhone. When you first open the box you are indeed presented with a very sleek and stylish looking mobile with a form factor very similar to that of the iPhone 3G. It may be personal preference but I think the straighter lines and larger screen of the Touch HD make the overall look more appealing.

The thing that immediately stands out is the large 3.8” screen that screams promises of new entertainment and productivity possibilities. See the comparison table below to compare the Touch HD with the iPhone and Touch Diamond. With a resolution of 480x800 the Touch HD doesn’t disappoint. Reading documents, browsing the web and watching wide-screen video are now not only “doable” but also “enjoyable”.

Having used the Touch HD, Touch Diamond and iPhone 3G I found the Touch HD to have the most useable form factor. It is of a convenient size that you can carry around in your pocket or handbag but with a screen large enough to allow you to get some real work done.

When you turn on the Touch HD you are presented with HTC’s TouchFLO 3D Home screen. For those who don’t know, TouchFLO 3D is an application that sits on top of the standard Windows Mobile 6.1 user interface, allowing you to use screen gestures to navigate through your most commonly performed tasks and applications. At first responsiveness of the touch screen was sluggish but downloading a patch from the HTC support site quickly fixed this. Overall, TouchFLO 3D is a joy to use and had me accessing all of my most commonly used functions via a very stylish user interface. My only comment is that I wish that it went further, in terms of being more customizable and allowing similar control of all Windows Mobile windows and applications. Are you listening Microsoft?

The Touch HD is fully featured with 5 Mega-pixel front and rear cameras, Assisted GPS, G-Sensor and FM Radio. There is no proximity sensor but HTC have added some nice touches such as how the device comes out of stand-by mode when the stylus is removed. It would be great if all applications responded to the G-Sensor to automatically change orientation when switching between portrait and landscape orientations. The 3.5mm audio jack is a plus but the lack of a flash with the camera is a minus.

Connectivity is great and I love using Wi-Fi at home as a way to save on mobile access and data charges. The best thing about this phone is you can sit at home on the couch and browse the Internet, read email and blogs and watch YouTube. I downloaded my work email and thanks to Office Mobile could easily read attachments such as Word documents and Excel spreadsheets without moving back to the PC. It is also the first time I have been able to read PDF documents as in the landscape orientation I can easily fit a full line of text across the screen.

The Touch HD comes with an impressive suite of applications including Office Mobile, Adobe Reader, Google Maps, YouTube, Opera and World Card Mobile. World Card Mobile is an interesting applications that allows you photograph business cards and automatically generate contacts from them.

Battery life is a nice surprise. When the Touch HD was announced there was a lot of concern that the large screen would be a power drain. The specifications state talk and stand-by times that exceed those of the iPhone and I am happy to report that I can use Wi-Fi access for most of the day without needing to recharge. In normal use I am finding that it will run for several days without needing to recharge.

So are there any downsides? There are a few and I hope these will be fixed in coming releases. First I have tried downloading a couple of 3^rd-party games and found that they won’t run on the Touch HD. I am not sure if this is due to not supporting the device’s screen resolution or interaction with TouchFLO. I have however installed DivX player without any problems. My only other gripe is that I have no short-cut key to quickly lock the device. According to the documentation this should be possible by holding down the end key, but all this seems to do is take you back to the home screen.

Despite these short comings I am very happy with the Touch HD. It is designed to offer the perfect balance of business and personal use. It seems to have plenty of processing power and the 8GB micro-SD card will keep me going for a while

I am a little disappointed with the problems I encountered with 3^rd-party applications but in reality, the pre-installed applications do everything I need. I would love to see TouchFLO 3D extended and all applications respond to the G-Sensor. If the Touch HD did all this then I would have no hesitation in rating it 10 out of 10. Instead, HTC will need to be satisfied with a 9 out of 10. This is a great smart phone that I would recommend to anyone who needs a mobile for both business and personal use that justifies the price tag.

Comparison Table