A very warm welcome to the HTC Touch HD2 into the MID/Phone crossover category of devices. It coincides nicely with the work I’ve been doing today to update the product database with all the WVGA phones out there. I’m trying to write a summary article too but this unboxing video from Chris at SlashGear is keeping me away from doing that right now!
The HD2 is due to launch this week with availability in the following few days. Pricing is already available in Germany too with latest prices hovering around the very expensive 599 Euro mark.
Clearly though, a multitouch capacitive touchscreen with Opera Mobile 9.7 on a 1Ghz Snapdragon CPU is something rather special and with the Windows Mobile 6.5 OS and Sense UI adding to the experience, I think it adds up to make it of the most exciting ‘slate’ style high-end phones out there and definitely one that readers here should check out.
Chris will be getting into some more testing with the HD2 over the next few days and it will be interesting to see where he thinks this one fits in. Unlike the (240 Euro) Archos Android Tablet that I use as a secondary device, this (600 Euro) tablet is targeted at being a primary device. Is it really going to slot into the 24/7 usage scenario or is it designed to be used as part of a two-smartphone strategy?
Slashgear have written an article that accompanies the video. Check it out here.
New article: Slashgear unboxes a MIDPhone. The HTC HD2 http://bit.ly/1TK03X
gorgeous device, but it is really big & very PDA-ish circa 2003/2005 era or so. unlike other slate devices (ie iPhone) which manage to have more character in their design & can actually pass as a phone not a PDA.
they should have maybe considered making it 4″ instead of 4.3″ & removing all physical buttons (thats why it looks like a PDA) including the entire bottom bezel.
it seems picky, but the Droid has a smaller screen & higher rez. hopefully by the time this is released with Android instead of WinMo they will bump up the rez some.
The Droid has only slightly higher res. (800×480 compared to 854×480), but is physically almost the same size, slightly thicker, but a little less wide and long. Bezel impressively thin in both cases. Droid is slightly heavier.
This will pass as a phone more so than the Droid, but with better CPU and an easier pixel size for reading, the only real hardware advantage the Droid has is its keyboard – though battery might last longer too.
i wasnt comparing this too the Droid, i like this device much better. i was just saying it should have an equal or higher rez. you would be surprised at the goofy reasons clueless people decide not too buy a 1 device over another (50px might do it).
i’m still not crazy about the 2005 iPaq/Axim design it has going on, not a huge surprise though considering HTC made just about every popular PDA back then.
Wow! I didn’t notice before how *huge* it is! N900 for me, I guess.
It’s worth remembering how much thicker the N900 is compared to the HD2:
http://www.slashgear.com/htc-hd2-vs-nokia-n900-keyboard-comparison-0362604/
Chippy, you like hardware keys, what do you think about Slashgear’s
“Even in the short time we’ve had the HD2, we’re already faster at typing on it in this way than we are with most hardware keyboards on smartphones”?
Cant wait to switch from my HD to the HD2 :)
Death to the iPhone (aka idiotPhone) :P
I purchased my HD2 almost month ago, already got lot of apps on it however need more of course. Still want to in finding higher PDF reader, with higher fullscreen mode and multitouch. Planning install android on it however it’ll be not very soon.
Yes I would like the elements on the home srceen with information updates, sure I would like contacts visable at any given time, I desire a teach app, a flight app, a street congestion standing app and yes I want a telephone in an effort to reply to my each and every command and not grasp/freeze or shutdown like my provide Nokia E72 or my previous Blackberry Bold.