HTC Touch HD Smartphone

HTC Touch HD is the next big thing in the Windows Mobile. It is slighty big and bulky but how else would they fit all the features in?
The massive 3.8" touch screen gives the HTC the edge over most other mobile phones with a screen resolution of 800x480 pixels making it great for viewing pictures and videos.
I have had an LG Viewty for the last year and this is defintely the next step without going for an iphone.
The 5MP camera keeps it up to date with all but the very latest 8MP phones and takes brilliant pictures.
Internet connection speed upto 7.2mb dependant on network is twice as fast as the Apple.
I dont think even the brand new Blackberry Storm 9500 gets close.

Cheers Richard

The big question is this phone better than the i phone. It depends what you want from your phone. The i phone is slightly easier to use but this doesnt mean the htc is difficult to use. If you only need your phone as a media device, internet, music, games then go for the i phone. If you need more from your phone go for the HTC. Over all the HTC out performs my wifes i phone. The screen is biger, much clearer. The camera is far superior and music capabilities is on par with the i phone however the HTC runs windows which means you have Word, Excell, Adobe reader. You also have all the applications as the i phone does such as Youtube, Google Maps, E Reader Books and many more. The battery life is better than the i phone and typing on the touch screen is far easier on the HTC especialy using the stylus. E mail capability is on par with the i phone. The only thing the i phone does better is the use of the touch screen which is easier to master than the HTC but after getting used to using the HTC for a while this isnt such an issue.I use my phone for work as a paramedic, it means i can transfer files from my pc to my phone, keep track of my shifts, keep all my drug protocols to view at the touch of a button, have e mail on the go and have internet access 24 hrs a day with wi-fi, edge, 3G, H and bluetooth connections. To conclude both phones are amazing but for me personaly the HTC does so much more than the i phone it has to be the winner but because it does so much more it is more difficult to learn how to use than the i phone, as i stated at the begining it all depends what you want from your phone.

Since it's release I have been living in a world where my only priority was obtaining this phone, As i'm a PAYG user I had to buy one for a heck of allot more than a contract would cost, I eventually found a BIN on ebay for £370 for one which was listed as NEW, It looked brand new when it arrived, I've been a user of Windows Mobile powered phones for around 7 years now.. and to me this is all i ever wished for becoming a reality..This is a big upgrade for me from a HTC S170. finally, I can surf without needing to zoom in, some people will need to zoom but for somebody like me with perfect eyesight I can read the text fine on most sites, you don't even have to scroll left or right as the sites fit fine.. The other feature I love is the gravity sensor, when you tilt the phone, the screen adjusts.. there is also a game with it where you can play around with this..

I love using youtube and allthough you can use it fine on the phone, you can't download the clips.. which is what i want to do as I can't be online all of the time except when i'm near a wireless box.. so I found this site which lets you download them as MP4 format, www.goolzer.com.

excellent phone would recommend to anyone, this phone is the new era in phones, first you had HD televison now you have HD phones

I recently decided to sell my Iphone 3g as after using the iphone music ect during long flights i always found that i ended up having next to no battery life for making calls when i arrived and as you now you just cant pop in another battery. So i made the choice and replaced it with an ipod touch and HTC touch HD. The HTC Touch HD is so much better as a phone and i have installed Sling, Skype and TomTom all of which work flawlessly. I am now enjoying the best of both worlds.

Have always been a fan of HTC products from the first Orange branded SPVC500. The UI is highly intuitive and the wiondows mobile 6.1 is there but well disguised.

A real bonus is that there is a stylus, ok TouchFlo is cool but for speed and accuracy you still can't beat the stylus and qwerty keyboard. Some of the original bugs have been noted and patch releases are available from the HTC Europe web site, I'd strongly recommend downlaoding and installing them which is very simple to do.

It's also good that they recognised how ugly the big clock was so with a swish of the thumb it can be replaced with a smaller digital time that doesn't dominate the home screen. Battery life is great even when using it as an MP3 player.

Alternatives to try are the iPhone of course but also the Blackberry Storm. It measures up well for me against both with a mammoth screen and a very slim profile I went for this over the competition and have not been disappointed.

Simply the best phone around, no blackberry no iphones, it's a personal computer in your pocket. Enough said.

Beats the iphone in every way. Put TomTom on it and it's SatNav in your pocket. There are a couple of mods that you need to put on it - HD Tweak at least. Then put CorePlayer on and it really makes the phone worl the way it is meant to.

100% perfect.

HTC Touch HD is a PDA and a mobile phone in one device.
What attracted me first on this phone/PDA was the design of HTC on all of their models. But you don't pay so much money just for the design of a device, but for its abilities.

The good thing about the HTC HD is that it has both design and abilities.
They don't call it "the iphone killer" for no reason. This phone has:

- excellent design
- a huge 3,8 TFT-LCD touch screen with 480 x 800 WVGA resolution.
- a stylus that is in the body as it should, unlike Samsung Omnia where you have to carry the stylus separately
- Vibrant TouchFLO 3D with Stock tab, to easily browse through your phone's abilities
- Integrated GPS that you can use by installing a GPS program (like Destinator for example).

It has a 522 MHz Qualcomm processor and is operating on Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro.
Its ROM is 512 MB and its RAM 288 MB and comes with a free 8 GB storage card.

It weights 147 grams with battery and

It's got FM Radio and G-sensor.

Using this phone has been a great experience for me. It is an expensive piece of equipment but I it's worth every pennie!

Well, you know that HTC Touch HD is carrying Windows Mobile operating system. I have to distinguish the points on the HD from the points on the Windows.

Positive:
+ Compared with iphone, HD has a very beautiful screen. The high resolution makes the screen photo-like -- I can't find a pixel.
+ The battery support two days of my normal use, just as iphone. But you can buy extra batteries, which is not supported by iphone.
+ 3.5mm standard headphone jack allows to use my own earphones, better than iphone
+ The touch screen is more accurate than iphone. Using with stylus is more suitable for business, while iphone is more for entertainments.
+ The audio quality is comparable with iphone, when use high-quality headphones. The attached headphones are terrible.

Negative:
- The audio volume control buttons are troublesome, too large the interval of volume, and too large the buttons to avoid touches by mistaken.
- Fewer accessories than iphone. I want a dock with speakers...

Windows mobile is not as stable as MacX. But there seems to have a wider range of softwares for Windows. Windows support multi-task, i.e., you can open a Word and Opera at the same time and copy texts from websites into your notes. But too many tasks will make the system unstable. I am satisfied with Windows.

Since I have used so many mobile, I can even say i have used at least one mobile for every major mobile brand, and i 've recently sold my Sony X1 to the HTC HD. major reason is that the phone have a big screen, also it has the "G-sensor" as well, which is exactly same as the accelerometer, so it is really an iphone killer! the disadvantages are that is it really unconfortable for those get used to with the "keyboarded" mobile, also even the camera has 5 m.p , but the quality doesn't even match the X1's 3.2 m.p. But overall i am very satisfy with this phone! and at least, there are something that the X1 doesn't have but appear on the HD (excluding the Panels, becase we are working hard to get it on the HD!)
Thanks for reading.

The HTC Touch HD is without doubt the best Windows Mobile experience I have ever had, the screen is simply stunning, TouchFlo 3D works for what it does, the sensitivity of the screen is excellent and the most sensitive that I have used.

Now to the crunch, the same old problems still remain in my opinion and it’s not HTC’s fault but Microsoft’s. HTC have pushed the boundary’s as far as possible with this device and given Windows Mobile diehards a device that they will no doubt love, but I don’t think it is going to be enough for me. If you want this device as a business phone, the Outlook integration is unmatched on any other platform no question and the telephony is brilliant, but if your after a device to access your media easily then that is a whole different ball game. Windows Mobile just does not do a good enough job at organising and synching your media or allowing easy access to it at this moment in time in my opinion. Compared to the iPhone’s excellent iPod interface with easy one handed usage it is too far ahead for me to consider changing to this device unless a third party application can deliver that experience. From what I have tried third party developers have failed to deliver anything like what Apple have produced either, with the iTunes media synching capabilities and organisation. Sure by choosing Apple over Windows Mobile you lose a lot of features and that is the question you have to answer. Are you a media lover or a power user?

If you want the freedom that Windows Mobile gives you and can live with the interface then no question you will like this device, in fact I would go as far as to say you will love it. If however you want something that is easier to use but comes with a lot of restrictions then the iPhone may be a better alternative for it’s media prowess, it is for me for now anyway, until Windows Mobile 7 comes out and hopefully delivers the media experience matched to the already great business features with an easy interface, unless of course Microsoft surprise us all and embed the Zune software in the Windows Mobile 6.5 upgrade, now that would make this decision one to revisit if a ROM upgrade would be available. Final verdict is the HTC Touch HD is a brilliant device let down by the same old Windows Mobile problems, if you can overcome them this is a fantastic device, make no mistake.



Pros

3.8″ 800 x 480 Sensitive screen

Email and messaging

Opera Browser

Form Factor

5 megapixel Camera

TouchFlo 3D

Battery life

Proper GPS with ability to use turn by turn software



Cons

Access and use of media

Depth of TouchFlo 3D exposing Windows Mobile non finger friendly interface

What can I say about this HTC. Everything has been before, but I just want to mention, that the touch screen isn't anywhere near the touchscreen on ipods or iphones. It's a completely different feeling, when you're working with those 2 devices. Other than that, the functionality is amazing, you can get many free apps and games for free and there are plenty of discussion boards where you can ask questions about the device itself. It's 5 stars from me, hope you'll like it too.

This phone boasts the biggest display of any of the high end phones on the market today at 800 x 480. The screen just looks brilliant from the first time you switch it on.

It runs Windows Mobile v6.1 professional software which sits just underneath the Touch Flo user interface. This gives a touch-sensitive front panel with buttons that respond to your finger gestures when scrolling through contacts, browsing the web, and launching media. Depending on what you want to look at the windows mobile software sits just below this so it will be familiar to most users. There is also a G-sensor which switches to landscape view for pictures and browsing as the unit is rotated.

The browser is very good with zooming made possible by a slider at the bottom of each screen. The scale of the display makes reading very difficult without this facility.

Connection to services can be set up automatically by the unit. This includes HSDPA/WCDMA for Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz up to 2 Mbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds. Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz 3G, Bluetooth 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets. Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g the other plus point is a standard 3.5mm earphone socket so you can use a standard headset.

I watch a lot of movies and the display is absolutely excellent for this. I have loaded additional software for this as the windows media player lacks the ability to open certain video files. Battery life is extremely good for this with a 2 hour film taking approximately 20% while using headphones.

GPS is also built in but I have had a problem trying to load TomTom software because this unit is not supported by the latest version of TomTom. This should improve as the software becomes available.

The 5 megapixel camera is excellent for quality stills and video and several modes are available. Automatic focus works very well and although there is no flash the range of use of the camera is impressive.

Storage is available through the use of Micro SD card. There is a 8Gb card included with the package.

This is the fifth windows mobile unit I have had over the past six years and it is absolutely streets ahead of the competition. It is very similar in size to the i-phone but has a lot more capability. There is a world of additional software available out there and most users would not be disappointed with the excellent performance.

HTC Touch HD is simply the next big thing in the Windows Mobile realm. And big is by no means limited to size. Indeed, the handset does come out a little too hefty but the feature pack is the kind to make you forget about size. The massive screen and so-unlike-WinMo multimedia skills give HTC Touch HD the kind of crossover appeal to reach beyond the hardcore PocketPC following.
Among the HTC very own - the Touch Diamond will probably seem more appealing to those who find the HD too big for a nice ride. The Diamond lacks the 5MP shooter but it ain't much of a loss from our point of view. And if QWERTY is higher on your list than screen estate - the HTC Touch Pro is a must consider.
Having mentioned Touch Pro, the archenemy Xperia X1 inevitably leaps to mind. However we're not quite sure whether we can call the Xperia a direct competitor of the Touch HD. It's not only the smaller screen and full QWERTY. It's just that the Touch Pro seems better suited to keep Sony Ericsson X1 busy.
The HTC Touch HD is guaranteed to change the way people think of Windows Mobile. It is a bold and confident step, taking full advantage of all the hardware and software strengths and a worthy effort of addressing the weaknesses.There are still quite a number of performance issues but the problems of Windows OS are far too deep to disappear overnight. Still, if modding and tweaking is your game, you can fix quite a lot of the issues that come out of the box.
But while this certainly isn't a flawless phone, the results are impressive indeed. The multimedia power of the HD is immense, and only a touch away on that huge screen. The high-resolution camera and the tons of software available, make the HD a truly attractive package. And with looks like those - what more can you possibly want in a phone.
The great response and sweet thumb-optimized handling are remarkable (in WinMo terms) but that's hardly an achievement of the Touch HD alone. The company's headliner is the cutting edge of a consistent effort that started back with the HTC Touch and went sky-high with the Diamond.
The crown of that effort, HTC Touch HD, is now set on a path pretty much signposted by iPhone. Its driving inspiration has brought to the scene a capable candidate for a hefty bite at the apple.

Main disadvantages:

* A wee bit overweight
* Sizeable body (still within acceptable limits though)
* Average sunlight legibility
* Video recording maxes out at CIF@30fps
* There's no dedicated camera key or flash
* No D-pad (offers more precise navigation)
* Power key is really hard to press
* No TV out port

It is the best you can get to an "iPhone killer". HTC has done a great job to sell a Windows Mobile phone which can compete with iPhone on all fronts. I love the big 3.8 inch screen and the similar slimness to the iPhone. I like the fact that you can customize the phone to suit your needs with endless applications online available for download. This is an ideal upgrade to my HTC Tytn II and I would fully recommend it to someone considering and alternative to the iPhone 3G.

I bought it because in Portugal we didn't have this unlocked and because was much chipper.
I'm very happy with HTC Touch HD ....much more speed, good screen and high resolution if i compare with my previous one P3600

Negative point - GPS have some delay and on the road we can have little problems

Love this phone as it's so versatile with a huge screen. iPhone lovers will always say this is second best, but I bought this for the PDA and GPS functions as well and I have not been disappointed as the HD performs really well. I love the "touch flo 3D" interface. I've had this phone 2 weeks and it seems perfectly normal now - not sure i could go back to buttons. The 3.5mm headphone jack is a real bonus too!

This phone really is the business. I've had a lot of smartphones/pdaphones/windows mobile phones over the years and this one is by far the nicest to use yet.
Everything about it works smoothly & works well, with the only complaint being that the camera is not quite as good as on the Omnia it has replaced (as in I got rid of the Omnia to buy this), and the lack of a flash with the camera is a shame, but the rest of the phone is much better despite the Omnia having a faster processor.
The screen is nothing short of superb. Prior to having this phone I thought resistive touchscreens were a bad thing due to poor sensitivity, but now I have this and it works so well I would not actually want a capacative one like on the ipod/iphone as you can't use a stylus on them to pick out fine details.

Anyway, as long as you don't mind a bit of messing with settings etc to get the phone just how you want it, you should buy one of these.
Aside from anything else, the sound quality using decent headphones through the 3.5mm jack is nothing short of astounding. I've got a very well planned out & expensive sound system and I was picking up detail through my headphones that I've never heard in my music before. It's that good.

Hurry up and buy!

The phone is absolutely fantastic..cool applications..display and picture quality amazing,,video quality little bit poor..sometimes freezing..but need to download software update and will work perfectly again..Windows media player can't play the divx files,but after download Core player will work smoothly..TOP PHONE

If you want a mobile full of features, that you can customize every single bit. That's your mobile. But it is not problem free like a normal mobile, and sometimes requires a bit more of knowlage. But again, this is not a ordinary mobile, it is a small computer, so if you have no problems using a laptop, you will do just fine with this one.

I am a long term user of HTC's products and I am also an approved developer of certain brands that use HTC to manufacture their devices, so I am writing this as a very experienced user. So lets start with history. HTC produce devices under many brand names. In recent times HTC released the tytn to replace the ageing blue angel wm 2003 devices. This was an excellent device, very reliable with decent battery life and fixed many of the issues present in the M2000 (blue angel). some more iterations of models came along, some good, some bad. Then came the HTC touch pro. The Touch pro is a dog of a device, poor battery life of 4-10 hours, horrendous interface which regularly crashes, woefull GPS receiver (lagging about 150 feet and dont even try to use in a car, it will be lagging about half a mile behind you). So then comes the HTC touch HD. At first glance you would think its a touch pro but without the keyboard. But you would be wrong. Badly wrong. The HD has a GPS receiver that locks to satellites quickly and is pretty accurate (in tests almost as good as my dedicated Garmin devices) and allows usage in a car at legal road speeds! If only the Pro did that. Battery life, well lets say this, it will last at least two days under normal usage (make lots of voice calls and this drops), this is amazing in comparison to the iphone or the touch HD. The interface (touch flo) is identical to the touch pro. But with a difference, it actually works here. It doesn't lock up or slow down within 15 minutes of use (unlike the touch pro), it has smooth scrolling. The sms program works like a dream (if only the touch pro did again half a dozen opening of texts on the pro sees a massive system crash). So it would seem HTC fixed all the problems of the old Touch pro when they released the HD. But it doesnt stop there. The display is lovely and clear, though visibility isnt so good in strong daylight outside like any of this type of device. being a large display means watching movies and streaming tv like BBC I-player is great. The wifi is a good sensitive reciever (faster 802G than the Iphone), but the phone will get warm when this has been running for a while (all htc devices do this and is nothing to be alarmed at). I use mine as a laptop replacement when I am away from the office, and to be honest it does this really well. Tempted? Well there is more. built in is a very adequate mp3 player which can stream audio to bluetooth audio devices (speakers etc), I use this to play back mp3's to my hifi and car from my touch HD. But this device also offers the standard bluetooth headset channel for taking phone calls via a headset. Get the right bluetooth device and you can have handsfree and mp3 streaming to your car at the same time as well as a wireless remote control for the player! It comes pre installed with some killer apps. Weather is only a slide away, the excellent opera web browser is in there as well as internet explorer. Push mail comes as standard. MP4 playback is standard. Fancy going mobile with you laptop? Then connect the touch HD to your laptop using its supplied usb cable and enjoy HSDPA (mobile broadband) on your laptop without an expensive dongle. This is the best device HTC have produced for a while. Buy one you wont be disappointed. Think of this as a windows Iphone but better than the iphone. Be aware many stolen devices are out there, my first one turned out to be such an item and so got blocked. so buy carefully and always use paypal.

Ok here goes....

I bought one recently and basically upgraded from an Xperia x1.

Pro's:

*Excellent screen and display
*Fast hardware
*TF3D rocks
*Very user friendly
*Has everything u'd need from a Pda/phone i.e. Microsoft office etc (unlike some other makes....all show no performance)
*Loads of downloadable softwares,upgrades and little gizmos (mostly free) *Magnetic stylus
*5MP camera
*Rubberised back plate....hence good grip
*8GB memory card in box etc etc (read the full reviews online before buying)

I could go on and on ...

Cons:

*Battery life could have been better....does 2-2.5 days with moderate/full use i.e. YouTube, emails, music, internet etc etc which is ok I guess (better than iphone btw)
*Slightly poor visibility in daylight
*As awesome as the screen is, it is unfortunately prone to finger prints and scratches! (I recommend, a full body shield or at the least a full screen protector before use along with a silicon/leather case for protection)
*As it runs on windows OS, can be problematic sometimes (having said that no crashes since I bought mine so am a happy bunny)
*I have heard that the phone's body does get paint chips in the long run (hence the reason for recommending a full body protector before use)
*Speakers could have been better

All in all, I would recommend this to anyone who wants a proper functional, PDA/SMARTPHONE. It has everything one needs for all the business and pleasure purposes.

Some might not agree but at the end of the day , do you really want to be stuck with a phone, that looks like a pda but in reality can’t do half of what you would expect it to and with a need for continuous charging...sometimes twice a day even !!!! ???? And yeah I am referring to "iphone" here.

People say, touch HD is the iphone killer etc etc but in my opinion, it is in a class of its own....iphone is just hype and mass hysteria!!!!! And no I’m not basing all this on hearsay; I’ve used an iphone too.....

Hope this helps :)