The HTC Legend might’ve leaked all over the web like a dodgy umbrella, but it’s hard to keep your trap shut when you’ve seen a phone this wonderful. Clad in aluminium, it’s manufactured in the same way as Apple’s MacBook laptops – from a single block of metal. It’s gorgeous, ultra-quick and set to snatch Android fans’ affections in a heartbeat.
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The HTC Legend looks like it’s been plucked straight from Apple’s design studio. The aluminium back is inset with black plastic sections, housing the all-important 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth antennas. There’s no escaping it, the HTC Legend looks like a modernised original iPhone.
Up front, there’s a new optical trackball that’s super-responsive and has a mechanical clicking action to select on-screen options.
The four usual Android control keys sit just above the HTC Legend’s trackball, offering a solid press, with more finality than is offered by touch-sensitive alternatives.
HTC has softened its design cues in creating the HTC Legend. It’s slightly smaller than the HTC Hero, and with a less pronounced ‘chin’. Inside is new HTC Sense software too, with some clever tweaks, and a beefy speed increase.
The HTC Legend packs multitouch, with one of Sense UI’s smartest new tricks an overview mode, letting you pinch outwards from a home screen to see a “hellicopter view” of all six Android homescreens. It’s reminiscent of Mac OS X’s éxpose feature, and much quicker and easier to use than the Nexus One’s similar homescreen thumbnail view.
HTC has built a new FriendStream feature into Sense UI too, in the form of both a widget and an app, letting the HTC Legend pull updates from your contacts Twitter, Facebook and Flickr accounts into a single stream. No more checking Facebook, then Twitter, then Flickr – now they’re all together in one place, with photos, status updates and links scrollable in a single stream. Logical, smart, intuitive – three words that seem to run through the HTC Legend like a stick of high-tech rock.
Underneath the HTC Legend’s smart Sense UI is the very latest version of Android: Eclair 2.1. The screen is an astonishingly bright AMOLED and around the back there’s a 5 megapixel camera with flash.
Even better, the HTC Legend will launch in April in the UK, and shockingly, there’s no confirmed availability for the US. What you’re looking at here is a lovely Android-flavoured treat for us mobile mad Brits. Enjoy!
Out April | £TBC | HTC
