• HTC HD2

    HTC HD2

    Prasad Naik, Feb 04, 2010 1739 hrs IST

    The phone's stunning looks and massive display make it very desirable

    Spectacular display, good touch sensitivity, excellent design, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, superb HTC Sense UI, feature rich

    Too big to carry around comfortably, outdated Windows Mobile OS, average camera quality, unimpressive battery life, mono loudspeaker

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Hardware

The HTC HD2 is a big, big phone. Almost every inch of the front surface is occupied by the glorious 4.3" display. The other things that you can see on the phone is the earpiece at the top, with the display light sensor and the proximity sensor on its left, which is hidden under the glass panel and a row of buttons at the very bottom. All these have been moved to the edges so the display takes the centre stage, which it does quite effortlessly. The keys below consist of the call and end keys at the two ends and the Home key, Start Menu key and the back key in the middle.



Apart from the size of the phone, the other aspect of the design that catches ones eye is how relatively thin it is. HTC claims that the HD2 is almost as thin as a pencil and it is hard to argue with them on this. Of course some compromises have been made to achieve this lack of thickness, but we shall discuss them later. 



The sides of the phone are relatively barren, save for the volume rocker on the right, and the microUSB port, microphone and the 3.5mm headphone jack.  



On the backside of the phone, you can see the 5 megapixel lens of the camera jutting out of the body, considering how little space it has to stay inside. On its side is a dual LED flash and the loudspeaker. It is sad to see how the lens is left exposed to the elements without any thought given to protect it from damage. Also, there is only a single loudspeaker on such a large phone. From a phone that stresses so much on multimedia you'd expect it to at least have stereo loudspeakers.
 
Below is the metallic battery cover that uses a rather primitive method of removal: brute force applied on the right side. The cover is the only metallic part on the body and it was observed that when the phone was charging through a wall outlet, there was a very minor buzzing felt when the battery cover was rubbed with your finger (it basically means a small electric current is passed through your body). There is nothing to be alarmed though as it is very mild and is hardly felt, and the phone can be used without any harm while it is charging. 


 




The new industrial design theme of the new HTC phones gives them a very classy and sophisticated look. They look attractive without being too flashy; a kind of design that would suit anyone. The build quality of the phone is fabulous and the phone has a lovely matte finish on the back side. However, the display is a horrible fingerprint magnet.

Now with a display that big, the phone itself had to be pretty big; and it is. Now, although it is great for bragging about in front of others, large phones are not very easy to carry around. But the large display makes the HD2 great for watching movies and browsing the web.

Underneath the large slab-like design is a gem of a hardware. Most notable out of it is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz processor. Yes, we have finally arrived at a stage where mobile phones are now being powered by 1GHz processors, something that desktop computers used to run on until a few years ago. To accompany this processing power the HD2 also comes with 484 MB of RAM and 512 MB of ROM. At least those are the official figures. But as it turns out, it has been recently revealed that the HD2 actually has 576MB of RAM, 128 MB more than what is available to the user. There is of course a way to unlock this additional memory. Watch the following two videos to learn more about it.  


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Discussion Board
(6) Comments
ZAK
,Chennai, on Feb 06, 2010 12:55 AM
THREE STARS???? You must be joking !!..Its a very capable phone and fast at that. The UI is great.....Sense has worked wonders on a old but very very powerful OS. The phone is going to be big...if you want a big display. Used it for two day and sold my iPhone and went back to Windows mobile camp. Its awesome
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Fire
,Firecity, on Feb 04, 2010 11:14 PM
What the heck is a stereo loud speaker? Its a phone, and with a phone people aren't going to use it to play glass shattering music. As long as the loud speaker is clear, it is sufficient. I wouldn't call it a CON of the phone. Techtree's reviews seem to nit-pick on the more insignificant details and the reviewer ends up harping continuously about such details. Are flaws that difficult to find that you have to use a microscope to look for them and then make a big deal out of them?
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Danesh
,Chennai, on Feb 05, 2010 09:41 AM
Do not quite agree. You only need to walk around colleges and youth gatherings to see how phones are being used these days. Also, when the cost is Rs.38k, reviewers are bound to highlight flaws albeit minor. If it had costed around Rs. 25k, that is a different story.
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Prasad Naik
,Mumbai, on Feb 05, 2010 01:29 PM
I wouldn't have mentioned the lack of stereo loudspeakers as a con had it been, say, a business phone. But it is a multimedia phone, with a big display, meant for enjoying your movies and videos. A stereo loudspeaker is not just about being loud, it is about creating a proper audio experience around the user when he is watching a video on it, something that phones like the Omnia HD do very well. Your TV does not come with a single speaker on the back now, does it? The loudspeaker on the HD2 does not do much justice to the kind of video playback that the phone is capable of.
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nick192
,pune, on Feb 05, 2010 02:09 PM
i totally agree with Prasad. At this cost, a multimedia phone shud have these features. but as htc has tried really hard on this device, 3 star looks too bad cuz d hardware is high end. n 1 more thing when windows 6.5 became outdated? i guess its d latest version. interface is unfriendly n outdated but not os.
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Prasad Naik
,Mumbai, on Feb 05, 2010 03:59 PM
@nick192 One of the big factor in the lower ratings has been the battery life. As good as the phone is, if it cannot go beyond even one day of usage then all the features become meaningless.
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