Mike Wheeler gives the once over to HTC’s HD2 touchscreen handset and finds a lot to like.
By Mike Wheeler
A few things I really liked about this unit when I first opened the box and starting testing it – it has a huge screen, and a touchscreen that actually allows big mitts like mine to stop hitting the wrong keys and widgets. But even better than the screen’s size, is its clarity, which is really noticeable when watching a film or YouTube clip – than again, they’d be fools for calling it an HD if the screen wasn’t anything but!
Speed of processing is another key ingredient to making this a likeable product, which is probably due to its 1GHz Snapdragon processor assisted by 448MB of RAM. It doesn’t muck around and there was no annoying lag has I flitted from one feature to another. Emails came up quick, SMS’s went off in no time at all, and more importantly, for a social media wannabe like me, there was no time lag with Twitter or Facebook, which are both a problem on my current mobile phone.
Volume up and down is pretty simple as there is a bar on the side that you press – strange as it may sound, there are plenty of handsets that don’t have this function, which when you think about it, is logical – the number of times I’ve fumbled for the up and down switch as the mobile goes off its nut at the most inopportune moment are too numerous to count.
To say there are widgets galore is like saying the Beatles could hold a tune – there are a tonne of them – almost too many in fact, such as Twitter, YouTube, sporting updates, MySpace, Flickr, OzChat, LinkedIn – the list goes on and on. Still, it makes a long bus or train trip go quickly.
What’s not to like – hhhhmmm – possibly a little heavy and big for the back pocket, but still, the functionality is hardly to be sneezed at, even though the Windows operating system is one of those O/S’s that splits critics (most dislike it).
Overall, I think the manufacturer has done a good job on this one, and I would happily trade it in for my current handset. HTC’s biggest problem in the Australian market is that it doesn’t have the presence of Nokia, Apple, Blackberry or even Samsung, but its handsets certainly make the most of what they’ve got.
4 Shacks out of 5
Brought to you by CyberShack.com.au
