HTC Touch HD Review
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HTC Touch HD’s hardware is really impressive, but its software is not revolutionary at all as opposed to the G1. The high-definition model runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional with HTC’s TouchFLO 3D, we’ve seen in Touch Diamond and Touch Pro. We think that this is the best personalization of this OS, but we would’ve liked to see some substantial innovations here.
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Home screen | Favorite contacts | Internet | Stocks |
For those of you who are not familiar with TF3D we’ll say couple of words; the standard home screen is replaced by an interface with about 10 tabs, which give you direct access to specific functions – favorite contacts, messages, music, weather forecast, etc. There is additional personalization like keyboards for example. Please read Touch Diamond’s review for more information. There are small differences introduced with the HD – we now have a new tab “Stocks”, to help business people stay updated with stock index changes. In case that you don’t care about such a function, you can deactivate it or rearrange the tabs as you like – an option that should’ve been available from the very beginning. Another new thing is the incoming call screen – it is very reminiscent of the iPhone, with a slider used to accept or reject a call.
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Tabs reorder | Incoming call screen |
We were up for a surprise opening the phonebook. Starting from the CDMA variant of the first Touch, HTC has offered their Random Access bar with all the letters on the right, to assist you sort your contacts by name. In the HD, this option has disappeared, but thankfully there are no other negative changes. The type and number of the on-screen keyboards have remained the same but using them on a 3.8” screen is much easier, because they are bigger. We still think that the QWERTY found in the Pixon is much better. It visualizes when the phone is viewed in landscape mode, offers larger buttons and vibration upon pressing, which reduces the mistakes. HTC should take some notes.
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As we’ve said in the beginning of the review, the large screen can be helpful for reading. We opened the browser (based on Opera Mobile 9.5) and loaded phoneArenа. Thanks to the screen and the excellent software it was a very pleasurable experience. This version comes with the option to change the zoom level, via a scroll in the bottom of the screen. This way is easier ( though not as easy as Safari’s multi-touch gestures) to set it up so you can view more contents.
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Web browser | |
While viewing pages is easy with other phones with Opera Mobile 9.5 as well, we can’t say that for the document viewing features (PDF or Microsoft Office). The resolution and the size of the display have a great influence; HD is simply a pocket book. Viewing a large file like the user manual in PDF is very convenient. We had no troubles with any Word documents either, but bear in mind that this is not a laptop and when we tried to open a 3.5 MB .DOC file of 550 pages, we waited a few minutes for the HD to load it.
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Word | Excel | PowerPoint | Adobe Reader LE |
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53 Comments
1. emblema (unregistered) posted on 20 Oct 2010, 01:55 0 0
i really love the display of this phone and i am a HTC lover, but i am still considering the xperia .. waiting for a review of it
4. (unregistered) posted on 13 Nov 2008, 13:34 0 0
I was about to buy this one too... Now I'm really considering the Xperia instead. Those 5MP photos look as if they were interpolated 2MP photos. Why couldn't HTC put their hands on some good (e.g. Zeiss) lens, borrow a samsung sensor and give us some good results? Is throwing in a Divx codec that expensive? Ok HTC, take a $150 more for the set and just make it happen... I can't avoid a comparison to say.. KIA motors: for some reason they must be thinking their brand should remain cheap and are trying to keep the prices low even when they don't have to. This way HTC is just losing market. hey.. take $700 per unit, not 550, but give us a decent camera to take photos with and we DO want a Divx player when we buy "HD" devices!
38. (unregistered) posted on 30 Nov 2008, 22:34 0 0
I think there's something wrong with this review. I've read other reviews, as well as seen Youtube videos showing videoplayback and it doesn't seem to be the problem indicated by phonearena. Besides, the HD actually comes with hardware video acceleration, so videos should run fine.
51. yp198408 posted on 26 Sep 2009, 07:05 0 0
I know a free program. Umm, actually, it's commercial, but you can get it for free via... Go ahead! You can also add DVD menu and chapter menu in a flexible way. Check their official site http://www.flvdvd.com/flv-to-dvd-converter/
2. losdrivare (unregistered) posted on 13 Nov 2008, 08:04 0 0
Regarding the bar with letters to the left, sorting the contacts, this can be enabled or disabled in Contacts/Menu/Options, uncheck "Show alphabetical index". Howcome you never covered GPS performance?
5. (unregistered) posted on 13 Nov 2008, 13:43 0 0
...How come the English in this review makes me think they can't afford a good dictionary, let alone a native English speaker to write it? "...we can live with the mediocre camera, but ***why the bad video capabilities*** and not the multiple.."??
3. The Dark Knight (unregistered) posted on 13 Nov 2008, 10:00 0 0
Play.com have changed the price of this handset a few times over the past 4 weeks - it was £549, then £499, then went back up to £519 last week. £474.99 with the discount code is probably the best price for the time being.
6. koko (unregistered) posted on 13 Nov 2008, 15:34 0 0
Hey Guys, its smartphone - with ability to install any third party software like Core player... not only video, but nothing is problem!
23. (unregistered) posted on 15 Nov 2008, 15:32 0 0
If you read the review, they said that Core player didn't work that well with the device, as the video was choppy. READ!!!!!
28. (unregistered) posted on 19 Nov 2008, 18:28 0 0
Bet u monkeys never even touched a smartphone. LOL. There is something in this technological term we call UPDATE. Every softwares will be updated. Just wait for a new version more suited for HD. Not suprised if you don't understand. Don't even bother. Sheesh. Monkeys.
46. Suatae posted on 01 Mar 2009, 04:24 0 0
The latest news on this problem is a new windows program made by Jandre from XDA-Developers. It's called "MP4HtcHD". With that, you can transcode and optimize any (avi, mp4, wmv, mkv, mpg, m2v, mov, vob, flv) video. You can even transcode direct from a DVD, including srt subtitle support for foreign films; as well as the ability to select the audio language of a multilingual DVD. It can also split, join, and preview your video. It's designed specifically with the HD and it's MP4 format. But the built-in quality and format support may change if HTC updates the HD to 6.5 when it releases the next generation touch smartphones.
50. heavybreathing posted on 12 Mar 2009, 13:25 0 0
*All software will be updated. Learn engish. Monkey.
7. (unregistered) posted on 13 Nov 2008, 17:15 0 0
I have just bought this phone (unlocked) & have been experimenting with various video formats that i re-encoded from avi.files. To date the best result i have got from the built in windows media player is a H264 codec, MPEG-4(mp4), video 196kbps, audio 64kbps, 720x480 resolution, 23.976fps & audio sample rate of 44100 Hz. This is acheived by using a prog by Allok. The playback is smooth & in sync. I hope this helps people.
12. koko (unregistered) posted on 14 Nov 2008, 01:21 0 0
its windows mobile, so WMV format must be supported too... try this
30. veronica2s (unregistered) posted on 21 Nov 2008, 02:34 0 0
is the hd support divx?? is any 1 knows? many thanks veronica.
8. (unregistered) posted on 13 Nov 2008, 18:09 0 0
how about standard divx/xvid not converted of recorded tv shows? will it play it with default software without conversion?
17. PhoneArena Team posted on 14 Nov 2008, 07:58 0 0
It doesn't play them at all. If you install Core Player they play, but not well. Check out the review text. Thanks!
31. veronica2s (unregistered) posted on 21 Nov 2008, 02:38 0 0
thank you but how can i install core play? is that will make divx work on the hd? thank you so uch veronica
9. (unregistered) posted on 13 Nov 2008, 20:08 0 0
Until Android gets ported to this thing it will never realize its full potential
24. (unregistered) posted on 15 Nov 2008, 15:34 0 0
LOL!!! At the moment android sucks... It needs time to mature an enough software developers to make it usable.... the G1 was just a taste, not that great of one mind you, but a taste nevertheless of the entree that is to come.
