Is HTC HD2 better than iPhone?

Hitesh Raj Bhagat

It isn’t very often that tech journos get excited on seeing a phone. Sure, the iPhone was cool, and the recent spate of Android devices are affordable, capable and smartly turned out. But the HTC HD2 is a whole new ball game. Yes, it’s just a ‘plain old’ Windows Mobile phone, but whichever phone you use now, it’s guaranteed to blow you away.

A thousand words can be written about that screen alone; all glorious 4.3-inches of it! Capacitive of course, with multitouch support and a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. The screen is massive! And it has a really thin bezel. It makes the device wide, but not uncomfortably so. You really have to hand it to HTC because the design is truly inspiring; no matter how closely you inspect it, and no matter how long and how hard you look at it from every angle. Despite the screen, the device is only 11mm thin, but doesn’t feel flimsy or cheap.

Windows Mobile 6.5 could have been the downfall of this device, but you don’t get to see any of it, thanks to the HTC Sense interface. HTC Sense is upgraded with complete social networking integration, it’s intuitive and very, very pretty. Hardware wise, you can’t fault it either.

The 1Ghz Snapdragon processor and 488MB RAM makes sure that everything runs buttery smooth (Note" The HD2 is HTC's first Snapdragon powered device, but more are sure to follow given the superb performance). Special mention must go to the awesome weather animations. There are similar effects on other HTC devices, but the combination of the screen and more power under the hood mean that the animations are breathtaking. Everything on the new HTC Sense is well laid out, with large, glossy buttons and an overall design that easily bests any Android or Windows Mobile device out there. Under the screen, you'll find five buttons that look small, but are surprisingly easy to press. There is no d-pad, because you just don't need one; even if there was a d-pad or scroll pad, given the responsiveness of the screen, you would have abandoned it anyway.

Using HTC Sense to browse through your multimedia, you realise just how much work has gone into development. Turn the phone sideways while looking at your music and you'll see the display seamlessly switch to an iPhone Cover Flow-like album art display. Turn it sideways while looking at your photos, and they will instantly rotate with smooth animation; no delays, no jaggies, no flickers. Multitouch means you can pinch to zoom in and out (or double tap to zoom in and out). Users of Windows Mobile devices may also be used to long pressing an item to draw up a contextual menu; well that works here too! Social networking buffs will be pleased to see that a Twitter client and Facebook is built in. There's also a YouTube client, Opera browser and Microsoft Office Mobile. More apps can be added using the Windows Marketplace of course, but this is one feature that has nothing to do with HTC. Windows Marketplace still has loads of catching up to do.

A nice feature is the built in Wi-Fi router (you can share your device's internet connection with nearby laptops using Wi-Fi); in other words - dead-simple tethering. The camera takes good images and the call quality is stellar. There is no dedicated camera shutter on the side though; you click a picture by pressing the shutter release on the screen. In fact, the only buttons on the sides of the device is a volume rocker. Battery life is about a day (roughly 5 hours of continuous talktime) but it could get used up much faster using GPS and Wi-Fi. The 1230mAh battery could be deemed as below average for this class of device. Any other faults? Well, if you can call a blinding LED flash a fault, then yes. The dual LED flash is blindingly bright, and since it stays on for about a second (unlike a xenon flash), your subject can’t help but squint. I would have liked a TV-out cable to be included in the box considering the high price of the phone. And strangely enough, there is no front-facing video call camera. In a phone that has everything, this is surprising. But all this is trivial. Perhaps the only real flaw of this device is you will sometimes drop out of the dazzling HTC Sense cocoon, only to be met with the (comparatively) ugly Windows Mobile 6.5 interface. This can happen when you want to modify a setting. It feels like you've gone back in time to an era when 8-bit colors and blocky buttons were the norm.

However, I’ll stick to my conviction that the HD2 is worth every penny. It is currently the very last word in geek chic and highly recommended if you can afford the INR 35k asking price.

Full Specifications:
Quad band GSM with 3G
Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional with HTC Sense HD
4.3-inch 800 x 480 pixel capacitive touchscreen with multitouch
Ambient light sensor and proximity sensor
5MP camera with dual LED flash
VGA video recording @30fps
Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250 1Ghz processor with 448MB RAM, 512MB ROM
Micro SD slot (32GB support)
Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP
A-GPS with digital compass
Wi-Fi
3.5mm audio out
TV-out (cable not supplied)
MicroUSB slot (data transfer, charging)
Stereo FM with RDS
Built in accelerometer
Dimensions: 120.5 x 67 x 11 mm (H x W x D)
1230mAh Li-ion battery
157 grams