HTC HD2 - I can't believe it's not butter!

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 19 January 2010 09:00

Mobile devices

Thankfully, HTC haven’t skimped on the specs of the new HD2, and in this case the new specs really make a difference to the experience, rather than being some hyped up add-on or capability that still delivers an ultimately disappointing handheld computing and communications experience.

While I’m going to need a much longer hands-on trial of the HD2 to deliver a final verdict, as everybody knows, first impressions really count.

Thanks to the inclusion of multi-touch capabilities on a capacitive screen, just like the iPhone and despite Apple’s previous patent proclamations, the ability to pinch to zoom and shrink in places like the email client, the web browser and photos delivers a truly iPhonesque experience WinMo has never offered before.

Even better, when multi-touch is used to zoom in on text, as you’d read on a browser, the text actually reflows to fit readably on the screen, even as you zoom in futher – instead of zooming in text and chopping off the left and right hand sides of sentences!

This is such a simple and obvious thing it beggars belief that Apple’s Safari didn’t include this capability from day one, and now that it has been delivered by Windows Mobile, it’ll beggar belief yet again if Apple doesn’t make a similar feature available in iPhone OS 4.0.

Typing on the HD2's new on-screen keyboard felt smooth, fast and eerily iPhonesque too, although from my initial impressions the iPhone still has a more forgiving keyboard AI spelling engine thus letting you type faster still on an iPhone for those with quick thumb-typing abilities. That said, it was very impressive for a WinMo phone, but you can't let HTC or Microsoft get away with the fact that Apple delivered it waaay back in 2007.

One feature it took Apple billions of years to offer is Internet sharing. Microsoft has offered it for some time, but with the HD2 it's had an upgrade and is now like Internet Sharing but on steroids! It's called Wi-Fi Internet sharing and lets up to 7 other Wi-Fi users share your HTC HD2’s 3.5G Internet connection. Sure, this will drain your battery faster than if you weren't sharing your Internet connection over Wi-Fi, but you can charge it while sharing and it does have a removable battery.

There’s also amazing graphics capabilities which HTC shows off with its weather application, embedded under the clock display of the HD2, which can send snow, clouds, sunshine and even thunder and lightning along with rain across the 4.3-inch display when invoked – it’s a nice graphical touch which HTC pioneered with the original HTC HD.

It’s also something that Telstra removed from the original HTC HD, lumbering users instead with a link to “BigPond Weather” which was a web page of information. The local head of HTC assured me today during the Q&A session of the HD2 launch it could be switched back on, but at the time, for the life of me, I couldn’t find it. Thank goodness HTC has made it front and center in the HD2 home page to stop telcos from trying to remove it!

Because this particular version of the HD2 is a Telstra exclusive, compatible with Telstra’s 850MHz 3.5G network, it can access the Internet with upload and download speeds twice as fast as the competition, while also offering paid extras like Foxtel Mobile with 31 streaming TV channels and the GPS navigation software WhereIs Mobile, amongst other integration with wide range Telstra’s BigPond Mobile and Sensis search services.

But in what Telstra says is a first, harking back to my comments about the weather app being blocked on the original Telstra-customised HD from a couple of years ago, Telstra is letting HD2 users make many more personal customisations than ever before, which I understood as being able to remove all the Telstra customisations and replace them with your own, except for one last area – the three big icons on the home screen under the clock.

These are still hard coded for BigPond, Foxtel and Sensis. It’s a shame Telstra couldn’t let go of these either, letting consumers put their favourite shortcuts there instead, but given that Telstra wants its users to use Telstra services, it’s not surprising to see Telstra still keep a major foothold on the home screen even as it relaxes its forced customisation grip in other areas, such as un-deletable favourites in the favourites menu and other "good for the telco, not the consumer" customisation quirks that don’t immediately come to mind, but were annoying at the time.

So, what are some disappointments in what is otherwise the most remarkable Windows Mobile phone to date, and what are the full specs? Please read on…