[UPDATE 1] Updated with display quality comparison shots of the HD2 against the Samsung Omnia 2 and i8910 HD below.
[UPDATE 2] Added an additional section on the camera button, or lack thereof.
First off, apologies for those who have been waiting eagerly for the first part of the review on the HTC HD2. As most of you may know, I took delivery of the review unit of the HD2 late on Wednesday evening, and I wanted to try it out and carry it around for a few days before I passed any judgement on the hardware bit of the review, rather than rush into writing one after having had it for only a few hours.
As we know, the HD2 is currently the largest screened smartphone on the market, with a 4.3 inch capacitive touchscreen with 800 x 480 pixel resolution, also a first for any Windows Mobile powered phone. For the HD2’s full specifications, click here. A capacitive touchscreen allows one to perform multi-gestures or more popularly known as multi-touch as first found on Apple’s iconic iPhone. Windows Mobile does not come with multi-touch support, so HTC had to bake this feature into their version of the customised Windows Mobile operating system. Multi-touch does not work in every application on the smartphone however, only the most “common” ones, such as the browser, photo viewer, etc.
Two other differentiating characteristics of the HD2 include its use of a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor operating at 1GHz, the fastest mobile processor in use today on a smartphone running any mobile operating system. In addition, the HD2 has a whopping 448MB of RAM which enables the phone to “perform faster” and also allowing it to have many more applications to be opened simultaneously without unnecessarily slowing the system down as is often the case on other smartphone operating systems.
The hardware itself feels very solidly built – none of that cheap plasticky feel that I get when picking up other expensively priced smartphones. It’s difficult to tell which part of the HD2 is plastic and which is metal, as the entire phone has a heft and weight that feels as if the entire phone casing is made out of metal. At only 157 grams, this is of course not true! Only the battery cover is made out of metal and it has a beautiful brushed metal look to it – very classy. The HD2 is “only” 9 grams heavier than the Samsung i8910 HD, 34 grams heavier than the Samsung Omnia 2 and 22 grams heavier than the iPhone3GS (based on phone specifications on gsmarena).
The HD2 is one of those phones with a minimalist hardware design – none of those smartphones with buttons adorning almost every side of the phone. On the front is the huge 4.3 inch touchscreen. At the top of the touchscreen is the earpiece, next to the earpiece, on the left, is the LED notification light, and next to it is the ambient light sensor and the proximity sensor.
At the bottom of the touchscreen are 5 buttons – from the left – make/answer call, home, Windows Start shortcut, back and end/reject call. The home button takes the user to the HTC Sense homescreen with the default large clock, weather widget, calendar, application shortcuts and HTC Sense navigation bar (more on this in the software review later). The Windows Start shortcut brings the user to the default Windows Mobile start screen, and the back button takes the user back one screen from wherever he/she navigated from.
At the bottom of the HD2 is the 3.5mm industry standard headset jack, the microUSB port as well as the microphone port. On the left is the volume up/down rocker button. There are no buttons nor ports on the top and right hand sides. As I said, a very minimalistic design.
At the back is the battery cover, easily removed by putting your fingernail into a groove on the side of the phone and “peeling” off the battery cover. This is definitely one of the easiest to remove battery covers that I’ve encountered on a smartphone in recent memory – no need a PhD to figure out how to remove the battery cover! There is also the 5 megapixel autofocus camera on the back, with dual LED lights for still photography as well as video recording modes.
In terms of size comparisons with other smartphones on the market, the HD2 is amazingly thin, considering the amount of hardware that HTC packed into the device. Its thickness is only 11mm, except where the camera lens is, where it is slightly thicker – I guess camera lens technology has not reached the super miniaturisation stage as the other components yet! This is not a criticism of the HD2, of course – smartphones from other manufacturers also have the “protruding lens” which make their smartphones look thicker where the camera lens is located.
Here are some comparison shots of the thickness of the HD2 compared to other smartphones – from left to right, against the Samsung Omnia 2, Samsung i8910 HD/Omnia HD, Apple iPhone3GS and then a “family shot” of the HD2 at the bottom, followed by the Samsung Omnia 2, i8910 HD/Omnia HD, Apple iPhone3GS and the RIM Blackberry Curve 8520.
As you can see from the shots below, the HD2 is amazingly thin, as I mentioned.
In keeping with the trend nowadays, the HD2’s touchscreen is rather glossy. At certain angles, it will reflect light and act as a mirror to the extent that all you see is a reflection of your environment rather than the screen – thankfully this only happens at odd angles which no one in their right minds will tilt to in order to use the phone! Check out the pictures below to see how glossy the screen is. The second picture below is a comparison of the HD2 against the Samsung Omnia 2, in the next picture, their positions are swapped but the position on the table remains unchanged. Screen brightness are at their defaults with the ambient light sensor activated – the sensor controls how bright the screen should be based on the available light around the device.
Here’s a comparison of the various smartphones I have at my disposal with their screens turned on. The first picture is the HD2 and the Samsung Omnia 2, followed by the Samsung i8910 HD/Omnia HD, then the Apple iPhone3GS and finally with the RIM Blackberry Curve 8520 thrown into the mix as well.
One thing that one will not find on the HD2 is a front facing camera for 3G video calls. I am guessing that HTC likely carried out some market research that shows that the majority of its target customers would not require such a feature; hence its exclusion from the HD2. So, if you absolutely must have a front video camera for video calling, the HD2 is not the phone for you! Perhaps as an indication of how important a front video camera is to users, no one at the media launch for the HD2 that I attended two weeks ago raised this issue, which can only mean that it is unimportant for the majority of people.
While the HD2 may not be significantly longer than other large screened devices such as the Samsung Omnia 2/i8910 HD with their 3.7 inch screens, it is wider. This combination of slightly longer/wider means that if you are a person who wears tight jeans or trousers, you will have difficulty stuffing the HD2 into your pocket!
Conclusion
The HTC HD2 is a beautifully made device, befitting its status as HTC’s flagship Windows Mobile phone. It feels solidly constructed based on its weight and materials used in its casing. The huge 4.3 inch touchscreen will simply blow you away. Due to the size of the touchscreen, you may have difficulty carrying the phone in your pockets unless the pockets are spacious. The absence of a front video camera for video calling over 3G means that this phone may not be for everyone if the front video camera is a must-have for you. The scratch-resistant touchscreen means that you can use the HD2 without a screen protector although I would not recommend this for a RM 3,000 smartphone!
The use of an industry standard 3.5mm headset jack will please many users, as will its use of the soon-to-be-ratified industry standard of using the microUSB standard for charging and data transfer purposes – the Blackberry Curve 8520 as well as the Samsung i8910 HD/Omnia HD and the Samsung Omnia 2 already support charging and data transfer using the microUSB standard – which means less cables to carry for those of us who carry multiple phones.
If I haven’t answered any of your burning questions related to hardware, do drop a comment and I’ll try my best to take additional pictures or a short video to answer them.
[UPDATE 1] Here are some comparison shots between the HD2, i8910 HD and Omnia 2 in an indoor setting, all showing the same picture, maximum brightness with ambient light sensor turned off on all three phones, as well as outdoors.
Based on my testing, all three phones are virtually unusable outdoors, especially under direct sunlight, no matter how you tilt the screen. And the glossy nature of the HD2’s screen made photographing the screen on very difficult, if not impossible!
And the last two photos of the three phones under direct sunlight is with the display turned on, maximum brightness, and you can’t see anything (the angle of the shot may have prevented us from seeing anything, but I hope you get the general idea that these phones are not meant to be used outdoors!).
To conclude, if you ask me, these are non-issues to me because I don’t use my phones outdoors where there is direct sunlight. Using a phone outdoors is asking for trouble, when you stand a much higher chance of being run down by a crazed Malaysian driver or motorcyclist, of which there are many on our roads. Not to mention that you’ll fry very quickly under the hot sun. And get skin cancer from being under sunlight for too long because of the hole in the ozone layer. I may digress, but I think you know where I’m going with this.
[UPDATE 2] I thought that I would mention this for people who use their phones a lot to take pictures or videos. Since the phone does not have a dedicated camera button, this may be somewhat of a minor annoyance, for two reasons:
- the user needs to press a button to turn the phone on from standby mode, then swipe the screen to unlock the phone. Next, he/she has to tap on a camera shortcut on-screen button to launch the camera application.
- next, the user has to tap the on-screen button to take a picture. For people who are used to a dedicated camera button, this may involve some re-learning!
