The HTC HD2

HTC is out to rival Apple

It is inevitable that every new touchscreen phone will be compared to the all powerful iPhone at some stage.

Apple’s product has been leading the way for years.  El Jobso was right when he claimed at the iPhone’s keynote speech that Apple’s phone was at least two years ahead of the competition.

Other manufacturers have been struggling to produce anything that can rival it, but Taiwanese firm HTC is doing its level best.

The HTC Hero has been a storming success, particularly in the States, and HTC’s latest high end handset, the HD2 comes as close to beating the iPhone as any we’ve seen so far.  It’s full of innovative features.  One such example is that the phone senses when it has been picked up, and reduces the volume of the ring tone accordingly.  This might sound weird, but in practice is extremely handy.  If you want to ignore a call you can simply turn the phone over to send it directly into silent mode.

HTC has dropped the distinctly dubious “chin” which graced (or some might say, ruined) the Hero’s design and opted for a more conventional, cleaner look.

Left to right: HTC HD2, iPhone, HTC Hero

The screen is massive, and one of the largest that we’ve seen on any smartphone to date, measuring 4.3 inches compared to the iPhone’s 3.5.

The other controls will be familiar to anyone who has handled an HTC phone in the past.  Beneath the screen are five physical buttons.  From left to right, these are the Call, Home, Windows, Back and Power/End Call buttons.

At the base of the handset are the connectors.  There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack and a micro USB port, both of which are universal connections.  The rest of the handset is free from fuss, so the only other button is the volume rocker on the left hand side; there’s no dedicated shutter button for the camera, but this is a minor inconvenience.

Speaking of the camera, however, we were irked by the fact that it protrudes slightly from the back of the device.  This means that the phone does not sit flat on a desk or table.  Aside from this the design is slick.  The HD2 is actually thinner than the iPhone, at only 11mm, and the screen’s small surround means that it doesn’t feel too bulky in the hand.  To quote HTC, the phone is “pocketable” despite its large screen.

Aside from its annoying sticky-out nature, the camera on the HD2 is pretty decent.  There’s a dual LED flash and the camera packs 5 megapixels.  It’s a common myth that a higher MP count equals better photos.  The lens and the size of the sensor are more important, but in this case it does translate to some good images, though not exceptional.   In many cases the sheer eye watering brightness of the flash is just too much, meaning that photos are flooded.  Another byproduct of this is that your subjects will be hard pressed to keep their eyes open when you’re snapping them, but what’s a little permenant retinal damage between friends?

In autofocus mode you can tap on an object to focus, much like the similar feature on the 3GS.  The settings can be accessed very easily from an on screen icon, giving you a range of effects and other options to help you optimise your photos.

The zoom is a little disappointing, being digital rather than mechanical.  In layman’s terms this means that the picture is merely enlarged, leading to some noticeable pixilation when zoomed in.

The best thing about the camera on the HD2 is its speed.  The camera application makes it easy to take photos one after another in rapid succession; a vast improvement on the speed of previous HTC and Windows Mobile camera apps.

The HD2 is running on Windows Mobile 6.5.  HTC has typically used the Android operating system in the past, and so this is something that we haven’t seen before.  The HD2 uses a hybrid version of WinMo, mashed up with HTC’s Sense user interface.

The results are impressive.  While the screens are not quite as customisable as those of an Android device, you can still personalise the screens to your tastes.

At the top of the home screen is the familiar flippy weather clock.  The HD2 adjusts the time and weather according to your current location.  If you choose to keep the weather on screen, you will be greeted by an animated display that describes the current climate.   Being based in Scotland I would commonly be greeted by rainclouds with droplets that seem to land on the screen, or howling gales with leaves flying around.

Along the bottom of the home screen are an array of icons that whizz past as you scroll left and right. These are designed to offer you one touch access to your favourite applications, and you can monkey around with the order in which they appear for even speedier navigation.

Another way to access your favourite content quickly is via the quick links.  There just three of these on the home screen, but if you scroll downwards you’ll find a whole extra grid that you can fill with almost anything.  You can create quick links to photos, contacts, web pages, apps and just about anything else you can think of.  If you select web one of your quick links, an image of the page appears as the icon.  It’s all very clever and well thought out.

The contacts too are beautifully organised on the HD2 under a “people” tab.  Photos of your friends appear in a grid of thumbnails, with little notifications beside each image to let you know that you have a text message or email from that person waiting for you.  Tapping on this lets you see their integrated contacts tab, with details of all communication you’ve had.  It’s very easy to follow the thread of conversations, and the whole thing just makes sense.

On to the browser.  The 1 GHz Snapdragon processor is very quick and means that the internet is similarly speedy to load.  The phone also supports the “pinch to zoom” gesture due to its capacitive touch screen.  When you zoom in the text is resized to fit the screen, which makes everything extremely easy to read.

Because the screen is so large the onscreen keyboard also beats that of the iPhone hands down.  Even my skinny lady fingers have trouble with the iPhone in portrait mode, but the HD2 was much easier to work up a decent typing speed with.  In landscape mode it’s a dream, and to top it off, the predictive text makes typing even faster.

Though the iPhone 3GS would win in a straight comparison of loading times, I have to say that I prefer the internet on the HD2’s huge screen.  It has double the screen resolution of the iPhone 3GS, and the browser is not constrained by information bar that appears on the iPhone.

The music player on the HD2 is downright lovely.  You can opt to use the outdated Windows Media Player which also comes installed, but quite why you’d ever want to is beyond me.  HTC’s media player looks beautiful, with a cover-flow like interface that is extremely easy to use.

When you pick an album in landscape mode, a list of tracks appears at the left of the screen so it’s simple to find the music you’re looking for.  Another massive advantage for me is the integrated FM radio, which uses the headphones as antennae.

The main downside to the HD2, and the reason that many might hesitate to buy is the feebleness of the app store compared to that of the mighty iPhone.  At present the choice of applications in the Windows Marketplace is very limited, and the range pales into insignificance beside Apple’s App Store.

So does the HD2 beat the iPhone?  The screen is gorgeous, the processor is quick and the user interface is slick.  The app store, on the other hand is woeful, and the browser moves a fraction too slowly for my tastes.  Another area that I haven’t covered so far is the video playback.  High screen resolution and a gloriously large viewing surface make for a pleasant visual experience, but we did find that it stuttered on occasion.

In the end it all comes down to personal preference.  The iPhone comes with the not inconsiderable draw of the App Store, looks amazing and browses like a dream.  The HD2 can be tweaked and customised to a much higher degree (unless you’re of the jailbreaking persuasion), and has a beautiful screen but we would have preferred an Android version.

If you’ve been saving up for a top of the range smartphone you should definitely look at both devices before deciding.