The HTC Touch HD Review – Part I

Wow! This took a whole lot longer than I expected to come up with but it’s now in its final stages that I can start posting the earlier parts for your reading pleasure and hopefully serve as a good reference for those of you thinking of getting one. So if you are wondering if the Touch HD is worth spending the $700 (if you are in the US), hopefully you’ll come to a conclusion at the end of this series of reviews.

Intro

The HTC Touch HD burst onto the scene in early September of 2008 and went on sale just over a month later. Some call it the best device out of HTC in a long time. Others called it the iPhone/Storm/whatever you want to call it killer. Whatever it is, the Touch HD was a thing of beauty and it’s specs just backs it up:

• Qualcomm MSM7201A 528MHz
• 512MB ROM
• 288MB of RAM
• 3.8” screen
• 480×800 resolution
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• USB 2.0 client
• Bluetooth 2.0  + EDR
• WiFi B/G
• FM Radio
• GPS/aGPS
• 5MP Rear Camera, 0.3MP Front Camera

That’s some really high-end specs for a device. Plus, it comes bundled with an 8GB SDHC card as well (thank you HTC)! It’s quad-band GSM with only dual-band 3G which was made for Europe. Since HTC has it clear as day that the Touch HD will never come with US 3G bands, you’ll have to give up high-speed mobile internet (and a DPAD) if you decide to ride with the Touch HD.

Hardware Design

If I hadn’t said it by now, I’ll say it again: THIS DEVICE IS A BEAUTY!

About the same size as an iPhone 3G (almost the same if you don’t nitpick), the Touch HD packs more buttons, a larger screen and even higher DPI thanks to its WVGA (800×480) resolution. This translates into a really gorgeous screen (which I will spend another whole part talking about) but you do not have to turn it to appreciate it. Here are some shots of the Touch HD for you to enjoy:

All pictures open to their higher resolution counterparts

Are you salivating already?

Initial Impressions

When I got the Touch HD, I never thought I could feel so excited about the phone but I sure did. Being on T-Mobile USA, 3G was clearly not supported on the Touch HD, so coming from the G1, I would have to sacrifice high-speed mobile internet for a much more powerful and better device (in my opinion). Not an easy task because I had grown pretty attached to it.

The other thing I thought would be a drawback to the device was the lack of buttons. Sure it’s got a lot more than the iPhone, but this is Windows Mobile we’re talking about and the more buttons, the better (for binding to shortcuts). So the lack of a DPAD and keyboard (which I had wanted in my next device) was another downer that I had to deal with initially.

Apart from that, the soft reset button and microSD slot were under the battery cover. I’m not a big fan of that. You see, I like to install a lot of applications and do a lot of tweaks to my phone so quick and easy access to the soft reset button AND microSD card is something I wanted. The idea of having to open up the back cover every time I needed to do a soft reset or remove the card was just troublesome.

But those were short-lived when looking at the bigger picture. Transitioning from a 2.8” QVGA device to a 3.8” WVGA might not seem like much on paper but it’s a world of difference to me. The device was a joy to hold as it had a sturdy built-quality to it. It was rather wide for me, due to how I was used to holding a smaller device but after getting used to it, you would think it was just nicely sized.

I would love to tell you more about the device but that’s what the other parts of the reviews are for. Here’s a sneak peek at what you can expect:

Part II: Multimedia
Part III: Navigation
Part IV: Internet
Part V: Performance
Part VI: Benchmarks
Part VII: Conclusion

So do check back often to see how the Touch HD fares in this review. Or subscribe to our RSS feed to be automatically notified of new articles. It’s definitely my longest review ever but then again, this has got to be the most exciting device I have laid my hands on since the HTC Universal.

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