The HTC HD2, packing a palatial 4.3-inch screen and HTC’s new social networking skin, Sense, was the highlight of the Windows Mobile 6.5 launch announcements yesterday. We’ve just had a paws-on sesh with the phone, so read on to glimpse all the photos in our gallery!
It hardly needs saying, but in the flesh, the HTC HD2 is beyond huge: it’s even bigger than the Toshiba TG01 and while it’s pretty thin, it’ll still stick out of skinny jeans thanks to its length. That’s more than made up for though by the screen: like its predecessor, the HTC HD2 sports a knock out, hi-res panel with acres of space for web browsing. That tablet sized display is ideal for watching movies and perusing pics on too, so this could give the LG BL40 Chocolate a run for its money for movie buffs.
HTC HD2: Windows Mobile gets HTC Sense
The HTD HD2 is incredibly easy to type with, as the screen is capacitive (a first for Windows Mobile), and HTC’s own answer to multitouch, Pinch Zoom, is included too. It works in just the way you’d expect, letting you zoom in and out of not just photos and webpages, but documents too. It’s so natural that you wonder how Microsoft’s team weren’t able to factor this support in years ago.
We’re still not won over by Windows Mobile 6.5: the HTC HD2 we tried was a prototype, but other final Windows Mobile 6.5 phones we’ve tried have had web browsing experiences just as bad. But HTC’s Sense UI as seen on the Hero and the Tattoo works wonders.
Pull up the contacts page and you’ll see an easy to use grid of your favourite contacts. Clicking through on to one lets you drill down and see their Facebook happenings, just like on the Hero, and there’s also Peep, the integrated HTC Sense Twitter widget.
As we said in our HTC Touch2 review, the Taiwanese phone pusher has made the absolute best out of a bad job with Windows Mobile, and the same is true of the HTC HD2 too: it’s shaping up to be the best Windows Mobile phone ever made, so have a look at our hands-on gallery to see why, and stay tuned for plenty more coverage in the run up to launch.
Out 2009 | £TBC | HTC
