-:: Malaysia Mobile Tech News ::-

[EDIT] Updated with a link to a short video.
Today must have been a good day for me.  After dreaming about the new HTC HD2 for so long, a unit finally landed in my hands, courtesy of an anonymous source.  I only had a very short time to play with it, so this is more of a “preview” rather than a review.  I’ll do a review when I get my review unit when the HD2 is released in Malaysia, of course!

Let me say this before I begin – I had really high expectations for this phone.  And having played with it, the phone met those high expectations, which is a rare thing indeed for me!  Instead of writing a long post, let me try to summarise my experience using bullet points:

1. the phone is fast.  Scrolling is fast, launching programs is fast.  The screen rotation between portrait and landscape mode is fast.  That’s the difference a 1GHz processor makes to performance.
2. HTC Sense is very nicely implemented on the HD2.  If you’ve been using the HTC Hero, using the HD2 will be rather familiar, although in certain places you will still see the Windows Mobile interface.  Because Windows Mobile does not have a multi-homescreen concept, there is an icon bar along the bottom of the homescreen that allows the user to switch quickly between the various pre-configured application shortcuts such as contacts, Footprints (HTC’s picture-geotagging application), etc.
3. kinetic scrolling is present in all the screens I played with.
4. multi-touch, otherwise known as “pinch zooming” is supported in the built-in Internet Explorer Mobile (“IE”), as well as the Opera Mobile (“Opera”) browser.  The browsing experience is much better with the Opera Mobile browser.  Loading a website such as this website in Opera Mobile shows the entire page in its entirety, and the user can immediately navigate to the portion of the webpage and zoom in.  With IE, one still has to pan left or right, and up and down to see which part of the webpage he/she wants to navigate to, although of course the size of the text on IE is more readable compared to Opera, especially on long webpages.
5. both IE and Opera will hide the on-screen navigation buttons after a period of time to maximise the on-screen viewing area.  Neat.  To “reactivate” these icons, the user simply has to tap on an icon in the bottom right corner.
6. when pinch zooming, the text will reflow, to minimise the need for left/right panning.  This feature was already available on the browser in the HTC Hero, so it’s nice to see it here as well.
7. playing YouTube videos was smooth.  A trailer of the upcoming Street Fighter IV game played smoothly in full screen mode.
8. the HD2 is thin.  And I mean, really thin!  It’s about the same thickness as my iPhone3GS.  It’s a little heavier than the iPhone3GS (157g vs 135 g).  I actually expected the HD2 to be a lot heavier due to its size, but this was not the case.  But because of its slightly larger size, one wouldn’t be putting this phone into a tight jeans pocket anytime soon!
9. physical dimension wise, it doesn’t dwarf other comparable phones.  Check out the size comparison picture below with the Apple iPhone3GS which has a 3.5 inch screen, and the Samsung i8910 HD, which has a 3.7 inch screen.
10. the build of the phone is really solid.  It doesn’t feel plasticky at all.  The battery cover is brushed metal, and removed by inserting your fingernail in a groove on the cover, and peeling it off with your fingernail.  The microSD card slot is accessible only be opening the battery cover.
11. the inclusion of a 3.5mm headset jack as well as the microUSB charging port is a nice touch – the HD2 can use “standard accessories” out there.
12. the battery life is “very good”, according to my source.  During the short duration I played with the phone (around an hour or so, with WiFi on), the battery life indicator bar did not drop.
13. screen quality was excellent, although it can only display 65536 colours.  I found colours to be vivid and bright.
14. call quality was very clear, when my source called me yesterday.  No hissing, crackles, drops, etc.
15. the only minor annoyance I found was when one had to select a character to correct when typing – positioning the cursor at the exact character to be corrected proved a bit of a challenge – and I guess that’s why the virtual keyboard has arrow keys for this very purpose!
16. the haptic feedback while typing on the virtual keyboard is nicely implemented – the vibration is not too strong or “rough”, and the keys being pressed “float” up a little to show the user which key press is being registered.
17. free memory upon startup when I checked was around 118Mb.  I neglected to check how many programs had been left open in the background, apologies.

I took some pictures and wished I had time to take more.  Check them out below.  I also took some videos of the phone’s performance, Opera Mobile in action with pinch zooming and text reflowing, and tried to do the same with IE Mobile, but unfortunately the WiFi network acted up and I lost network connection when I played with IE Mobile!  Maybe it’s an omen not to use IE Mobile!  I am processing these videos, I’ll update this post when I finish uploading them to YouTube.  The sound quality of the videos is also a bit scratchy due to radio interference; apologies in advance about that.

The HD2 is expected to be launched in Malaysia in mid-November, which is around three weeks from today.  The price is as yet undisclosed – hey, we need to keep some secrets till launch day, right?  ;-)  My first impression is that this is a phone that will make me want to use Windows Mobile again – it is that good!

As usual, I’m sure you will chime in with your comments, sarcasm and insults!

[EDIT] And here’s the video I promised – it’s in this post.

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