With the Touch HD HTC have gone all out to provide an iPhone beating device, not only does it boast a massive 3.8" screen with a 480 x 800 resolution, it finally adds a 3.5mm headphone port, a 5MP camera and HSDPA/HSUPA connectivity support.
Box Contents:
HTC Touch HD (sim-free), 8GB microSDHC card, AC Adapter (UK), USB Cable, Stereo earphones with mic, Pouch Case, Battery (1350mAh), Additional Stylus, Screen Protector, Getting Started CD, User Manual CD
Specs:
- OS: Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
- Processor: Qualcomm MSM 7201A 528 MHz
- Memory: RAM - 288 MB, ROM - 512 MB
- Display: 3.8-inch (480x800WVGA) TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen
- Operating Frequency: HSDPA/WCDMA - 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
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets, HTC ExtUSB, 3.5 mm audio jack
- GPS: GPS and A-GPS ready
- Expansion: microSD memory card (SDHC capable)
- Other: FM Radio, Touch sensitive front panel buttons
- Camera: 5 megapixel colour camera with auto focus.
- Front facing VGA CMOS colour camera.
- Battery: Rechargeable Lithium-ion or. Lithium-ion polymer battery with a capacity of 1350 mAh
- Dimensions:115 mm x 62.8 mm x 12 mm
- Weight: 146g
- Warranty: 2 Years
What we like about the HTC Touch HD
- The large WVGA 3.8" screen is ideal for viewing not only office documents (which you get Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote) but is also useful for watching videos and pressing the on-screen icons without the stylus.
- All the buttons are seamlessly integrated, the ones at the bottom give off a slight haptic feedback.
- The product may be large, but at least it’s slim, though those blessed with small hands may still struggle to hold the device without using both hands.
- With a 3.5mm port for your headphones this makes the HTC a better multimedia prospect and the port placement at the top makes it pocket friendly.
- HTC's TouchFLO 3D is deployed and this provides stylus free operation from the home screen. Essentially you can access your mail, contacts, swipe photos with your finger (though this requires harder finger presses), manipulate music and access key programs. Whilst Windows Mobile is still underneath, the TouchFLO 3D system does work a lot quicker than previous versions.
- The built in acccelerometer works within the web browser and photo gallery software and this seems to work a lot smoother than before when rotating the screen from landscape to portrait.
- Loads of utilities are included with the TouchHD, so for example you get a YouTube player, RSS hub, FM radio, remote desktop software, full Office suite, Windows Live software, Windows Media player, Opera web browser - which provides a great internet experience, Google maps (for your GPS receiver), a Quickfix GPS utility to speed up your location acquisition time, voice speed dialling, zip program for extracting contents from compressed files, World Card reader software which uses your camera to read back business card text and then it converts this into a digital format to be used in your contacts software and finally Twitter, a game that utilises the accelerometer to great affect.
- Connectivity options are well catered for to, with Wi-Fi and the inclusion of 3G HSUPA (supports 2Mbps uploads speeds) or HSDPA (supports up to 7.2Mbps download speeds) is a welcome addition.
- Performance in terms of call quality was generally good, though we did find that the speaker had problems coping at higher volumes, but we think this was due to one of the utilities included with the HTC which tries to artificially boost the audio amplification.
- Multitasking was doable thanks to having 288MB Ram, with over 100MB of this free. Storage is also enhanced thanks to the inclusion of an 8 GB card in the box. Internally you get a respectable amount of storage left from the initial 512Mb of ROM.
- GPS receiver seemed to perform well with Google Maps, but it does need the Quickfix GPS utility to boost its location acquisition time.
- Despite the 5MP cameras problems (see What we don't like), it can take some quality images at times.
What we don't like
- No dedicated camera button is a real pain when it comes to taking camera shots. Camera performance was also sluggish at times, the preview screen is a little bit wobbly and you have to press an on-screen icon to take shots. Autofocus was also out at times, though it appeared a lot of the problems were down to the lens needing cleaning (as this is not behind a protective shutter).
- No Flash on the camera is also a strange omission, HTC if you are going to add a 5MP camera then at least go all the way.
- No d-pad is available, which can hinder those looking to play games.
- Expensive, not only is the sim-free price costly, the Orange contract deals are also pretty high.
- HTC removed the TV-Out option which will annoy those looking to use the Touch HD for presentations, though with a 3.8" screen onboard this provides enough viewing pleasure.
- Performance in general was fine, with videos playing back fine and the operating system generally working well. However underneath the surface our synthetic benchmarks showed that the TouchHD is slightly slower than the Diamond and its 528Mhz processor is still not being optimised properly.
- By default the accelerometer does not work in all applications, however get hold of a little program called Gsen (which unlocks the latter) and this will provide landscape typing in office/email programs.
- There is no haptic feedback with the keyboard, however we could still type remarkably quickly.
- Windows Mobile 6.1 is still a dominating force on the Touch HD, so occasional stylus operation is required when manipulating calendar entries for example.
- Multimedia support is miles behind the iPhone in terms of providing an iTunes style content platform.
- No GPS software was included other than Google Maps and the WVGA resolution possibly may cause compatibility issues with some 3rd party programs.
Battery Life:
We ran a standard battery test which involved leaving the back light on, turning brightness up to max and then seeing how long it would take before the battery would fail when continually running through a full screen movie.
In the end the battery gave us just over 4 hours of video playback, but when you consider the 1350mAh battery has to power a 3.8" screen, this does not seem too bad. At least you will be able to watch a couple of movies before it drains.
Claimed battery life is as follows: Stand-by - Up to 450 h, Talk time - Up to 6 h 30 min.
