Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
65 of 69 people found the following review helpful.
Very nice gadget
By Dispie
I received mine in the end of December. A month is probably not enough to discover all bugs but so far I'm happy with the phone.First of all, it is really fast. The 1GHz processor does it's job.The screen resolution is high and the screen size is big enough to surf the web with comfort.HTC shell is something new to me (I used to have E-ten with Spb Mobile shell) but getting used to it.Cannot say that I'm impressed with the still picture quality (SE phones have better pictures with less Mpx) but video recording is relatively good. There is no button for shutter so you always have to click on the screen to take picture - not convenient.I need to charge my phone every second day - that definitely exceeded my expectations, taking into consideration fast processor and big hi-res screen.The screen uses almost full width of the body, which sometimes causes unexpected clicks when I grab the phone (slowly getting used to it). When browsing e-mails the shell has button "reply to all" on the left side and when you click it, it changes to "send". One time I grabbed the phone and it replied to all and sent an empty message to a huge distribution list. So keep it in mind and be careful ;) I hope there will be a way to protect it somehow.The phone is bigger than I expected - it's exactly the size of 12oz beer can (you can hide one behind the phone).The sound level and quality in conversations is excellent. Also, my Highlander hands-free connects very quickly with good sound level.So far I did not have chance to use built-in GPS. I don't expect anything special comparing to other similar phones.It does not have a stylus. If you turn the phone, full size keyboard is big enough but.. I think I will get a stylus. At least you need one, when you surf Internet.Overall - some little flaws, which I found so far, will not be enough to downgrade my 5 star rating. I really enjoy the phone and recommend it to others who is ready to spend [...] bucks on a gadget.
66 of 71 people found the following review helpful.
Expectations exceeded
By Antonio Martínez
OK! I bought this phone considering two main reasons:1.- I wanted a Widows mobile phone2.- I wanted a gigantic screen to surf the web, watch videos and pictures, etc.This phone runs Windows Mobile 6.5 with HTC Sense which is an excellent HTC Shell, brilliant, executive, serious, innovative, useful, customizable and extremely user friendly. First request has been fulfilled.This is the greatest screen you'll find... There's just 1 device that comes closer (Toshiba TG01) and it is 0.2 inches smaller (Toshiba 4.1" / HD2 4.3") So my second reason is clearly covered. Indeed it is bigger than what I thought and I am obviously happy about it.Extras: A LOT!!! The design is perfect, but device's pictures describes it better than my words, it is so elegant and I like it very much.Camera resolution is fine (not the best) but it does its job. Still pictures are very nice and video recording quality is also very good. I am very impressed about taking still pictures on dark environments beacuse it gets a highly brilliant and beautiful pictures. Its two led flash allows you to photograph almost anything on black dark environments (as long as it is closer enought to light it)The capacitive screen prevents unwanted touches from any other thing that is not your finger (or skin) and it has a proximity sensor so you won't click buttons with your face when talking on the phone. This proximity sensor turns off the screen when you place the phone on your ear and turns it back on when removed.Battery life is amazing considering 1GHz processor and extra giant screen, I get more than 24hrs of power listening to music, placing and receiving calls, sending and receiving SMS, MMS, surfing the web through WiFi, GPRS, EDGE or 3G (any available) and "playing" with GPS, google maps, Garmin, etc.It comes with an extremely addictive game (Teeter) that uses the built-in accelerometer to move a ball while you move the phone, the objective is to insert the ball in a green hole preventing the gray ones.It has a built-in connection with Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Windows Live, so your contacts are always up-to-date with status, tweets, profile pictures and even birthdays! (it stores birthdays on the calendar and alerts you on the go)Microsoft has a very useful software "MyPhone" (not exclusive for this device but 4 all Windows Mobile phones) which allows you to sync contacts, calendar, pictures, text messages, music, documents, storage card contents and even location. This lets you change your device and by simply synchronizing with a couple of clicks, your new device will be exactly as the old one, and you don't even need a computer 'cause it stores the content on your Windows Live account. (I've heard about a lot of BB users who loses their contacts when updating the BB messenger) So this deserves a big "Hurrah" for Microsoft. I found it soooo useful and important.The stock manager allows you to keep track of your stocks, always up-to-date, it can even show graphics for 1 day behavior, 5 days, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 and 2 years.Storage card is placed below the back cover and it is not below the battery, so you can change it while phone is still on. It supports up to 32 GB microSD HC.Applications included are very useful, I saw a review that talks about the simple calculator and this is wrong... it is not so simple, it has a simple calculator when holding the phone in a vertical position and you can get a scientific calculator if you turn your phone and hold it horizontal.The MP3 trimmer allows you to cut an MP3 file in a determinated position and save and extract of it to use it as a ringtone.Office Mobile includes OneNote where you can write using the keyboard or handwritting. (I also read a review that says that this phone won't let you handwrite to create a message), this is also wrong... you can turn on this function on the keyboard options while you are writting your message.WorldCard Mobile (found on tools) is an OCR recognition engine that lets you take a picture of a bussiness card and it recongnizes names, email, website, address, phones, etc and save it to a new contact so you don't have to write it manually.Remote Desktop Mobile lets you connect to any PC, the digital compass can be combined with google maps to get directions or orientate on unknown places and this HD2 can be configured as a WiFi router to use your mobile internet connection everywhere (GPRS, EDGE or 3G) so your laptop will be always online no matter where you are, it can connect to a network or bluetooth printer to print your documents on the go including Acrobat PDF documents. The Opera browser and even IE are flash compatible and you can navigate almost as if you are in front of your desktop PC.The performance for this device is impressive with its 1GHz processor and as if this is not enought out there are millions of software apps that can be installed and customize your phone covering all your needs.So, I can see no reasons why not to buy this monster. I hope that my review helps you decide what you want.
41 of 45 people found the following review helpful.
Windows Phones Make a Comeback
By diljs
As an avid user of smartphones, for years I've completely ignored a series of dull, uncreative phones running windows. While a variety of hardware form factors, some even technically superior to the competition, have come out, the software continued to look incredibly boring compared to the iPhone, Android, and even Blackberry. The main selling points consisted of "It runs windows and has a start button like you're used to on a computer" and "We have Office and sync with Outlook!". While these may have appealed to some business customers, the consistently shrinking market share of Windows phones demonstrated their lack of appeal to consumers as the recent smartphone boom hit.With the HD2 this trend may finally be coming to an end. In conjunction with HTCs beautiful Sense interface, some aggressive hardware, and some genuine innovations, the HD2 is a Windows phone I can actually use and recommend. Let's start with the pros and follow up with a few drawbacks.**Hardware**-The 1ghz Snapdragon processor coupled with 448mb of ram is blazing fast. This is the fastest speed in a phone currently available. The HD2 loads everything quickly, and can run multiple apps at the same time. You can feel how fast the phone runs by playing with it for a few minutes. Gone are the sluggish Windows Phones of old, constantly running out of memory and crashing. The HD2 is fast and has top notch hardware and you can feel it.-The screen is huge: 4.3 inches and stretching from corner to corner. The Resolution at 800x480 pixels means you'll see much more on that big screen than average. That means more room for icons and that sexy weather display on the main screen.-The HD2 supports 3g on T-mobile, including the upcoming higher speed 3g. This means the fastest downloads and best call quality available. Note: the phone does NOT have ATTs 3g bands and the 3g will not work if you're using it unlocked on ATT.-5mp camera with auto focus and 2 LEDs. 5mp is the highest we see on most phones, and the camera looks great. Having not 1 but 2 LEDs for flash seems a bit silly but works well. The phone even comes standard with a little flashlight app for a blindingly bright way to see in the dark.-Included 3.5mm jack - this is becoming standard on most phones, and it's great to see it on the HD2. This allows you to use standard headphones without an adapter when playing music or listening to the built in FM Radio.-Included wifi, bluetooth, and a hardware (real) GPS for turn by turn directions round out all the bells and whistles included in the phone.-Battery life is similar to most smartphones. You will easily get a day's use without having to charge, but most likely you'll have to plug it in at night.**Interface**-HTC Sense is what really makes the phone shine here. This part of the software is done by HTC, not Windows, and runs on top of standard Windows Mobile 6.5 professional. HTC Sense expands on the previous TouchFLO 3d interface and enhances the way customers interact with the phone. Sense creates the beautiful Today screen, animations for messages, social networking features. It also lets you interact with the phone in unique ways, such as pinching to zoom. Some of these features are so close to the iPhone that Apple has recently filed lawsuits against HTC.-The home screen is customizable, though not quite to the extent of Android phones. It lets you place a few apps on the screen, along with a beautiful standard weather app that detects your phone's location and shows the current time and weather in your city.-Touch is a much better experience on this phone than previous windows mobile phones. The screen is capacitive, meaning it uses touch instead of pressure. No awkward stylus or pushing is needed for the touch to work. The phone responds quickly and smoothly to any motions.-Basic phone features like placing a call or sending a text remain simple, with big buttons on the main screen to do so.-Typing on the touchscreen is a breeze due to the size of the screen allowing for a bigger keyboard. As someone who has often stuck to phones with hardware keyboards due to inaccurate screen keyboards, I found typing on the HD2 much easier than previous touchscreen keyboards, although still not as easy as using a hardware keyboard. The HD2 also includes the new SWYPE interface, which lets you type by dragging your fingers through all the letters of a word instead of tapping each one. SWYPE was surprisingly accurate in typing the correct word and will even learn new words once you type them manually.**Included Apps and Accessories**-This phone is being marketed as a media phone, and includes several media apps to demonstrate that. MobiTV lets you watch what is essentially Cable TV on your phone free for 30 days and then ten dollars a month after that. Blockbuster lets you rent or buy movies for your phone. Barnes and Noble eReader lets you purchase ebooks.-The phone comes with a huge 16gb MicroSD card out of the box. This is the biggest memory card available currently, and gives you plenty of room for pictures, videos, music, and apps. The best memory card pairs perfectly with the best processor and screen, and it's great that HTC did not hold back on this extra.-Full videos of Transformers 1 and 2 are preloaded on the memory card. These videos look great and show off the beautiful screen. Note the movies do take about 4gb of space on the memory card.-The phone comes with a gel skin in the box to protect the phone, which you would have to buy separately on most phones.**Drawbacks**-Price is the number one concern here. The phone is priced higher than competing smartphones. This price seems justified, however, due to the cutting edge hardware in the HD2. It also comes with some nice accessories you'd have to buy separately from other phones. Upgrade and new customer deals will certainly lower the cost for those buying from T-mobile.-The app store is another drawback. The good news is that the phone has one, the bad news is it's the smallest of ANY smartphone operating system. As of this review the Windows Marketplace carried less than 1,000 applications, compared to Android at 20,000 apps and iPhone at a staggering 150,000 apps. Even Blackberry, Palm, and Nokia carry more apps than Windows. You are also going to find significantly more paid than free applications for Windows Mobile apps. The Marketplace is simply far behind that of competing phones, which for a heavy app user will diminish the enjoyment of the HD2 by quite a bit.-Windows Mobile 7 upgradeability is still up in the air, but it currently looks like this phone will NOT be getting an upgrade when the new OS is released. The phone does not support some key hardware feature (front buttons) that WM7 requires, and therefore it is unlikely to be upgraded. The upcoming OS promises to be very exciting, and the fact that this beautiful phone will probably not receive the upgrade is disappointing.Overall this phone is fast, pretty, and offers top of the line features. The phone feels solid (and huge) in your hand, while the software is fast, works well and is fun to use. If the HD2 is any indicator, Windows Mobile may become a legitimate competitor in the smartphone market again. The phone seems to be selling very well, with T-mobile selling out almost everywhere the day the HD2 was released. I'd recommend this phone as a viable alternative to Android and the iPhone.
See all 75 customer reviews...
Great as a first Android phone
Battery life is one day or less, pocket-dials 911, freezes all the time
NO memory makes this one painful to own!
