HTC Touch HD

Review by Julian Prokaza on Thu 13 November 2008

Page 1 of 3

Summary

Guide price
£534.99 unlocked; from £50 with contract (Orange)
Rating
 5 out of 6
Good
Huge, hi-res screen; TouchFLO 3D keeps Windows Mobile out of sight (mostly); excellent spec.
Bad
Crying out for a capacitive touch-screen; steep unlocked price.
Verdict
The Touch HD is a stylish Windows Mobile smartphone with a big, beautiful display, but it's let down by its old touch-screen technology.
Manufacturer
HTC

Review

HTC Touch HDHTC has been plugging away with its own-brand Windows Mobile smartphones for a couple of years now, and its steady stream of new handsets has been pretty impressive, by and large. And “large” is certainly an adjective that can be applied to its latest model – the HTC Touch HD.

Although no bigger than an iPhone (in fact it’s virtually the same size), the HTC Touch HD packs in a screen that is not only huge, but also very high resolution – 3.8in from corner to corner, with a whopping 480 x 800 resolution. This is by far the largest, high-resolution screen on a Windows Mobile smartphone – or any pocket-size portable device, for that matter (see it in action in our hands-on video).

As you might guess from the name, the Touch HD is the latest device in HTC’s Touch range of smartphones and the similarities with the original Touch handset are clearly apparent. Although it’s not as rounded as other models in the line-up, the Touch HD fits nicely in the hand and it has a solid, weighty feel, which is a design aspect that some other smartphone manufacturers seem to ignore.

HTC Touch HDHTC Touch HDHTC Touch HD

Seen in isolation in photos, the Touch HD looks like a large handset and you might imagine it to be a bit on the chunky side, given its 3.8in screen. Nothing could be further than the truth – it’s actually only marginally larger than the Apple iPhone.

HTC Touch HD vs iPhone vs HTC Touch Pro

HTC Touch HD vs Apple iPhone 2G

The Touch HD’s back cover has a pleasant rubbery feel, but there’s a sliver of glossy black plastic along the bottom edge, much like that on the iPhone 2G. The lens for the 5-megapixel camera is surrounded by a stylish brushed-aluminium bash-plate, the speaker grilles are fashioned from metallic mesh and the black metallic screen surround makes a change from the usual silver. All small touches, it has to be said, but the devil is in the details and it’s this level of attention that elevates the Touch HD from the rank and file Windows Mobile smartphone crowd.

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HTC Touch HD specification

Operating system
Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
Processor
Qualcomm MSM 7201A (528 MHz)
System memory
512 Mb ROM
User memory
288 Mb RAM
Memory expansion
microSDHC slot
Screen
3.8-inch (480 x 800)
Bands
GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz; HSDPA/WCDMA 900/2100MHz
Camera
5 megapixel with auto focus; VGA CMOS front-facing
Connectivity
802.11 b/g, Bluetooth 2.0 +EDR, 3.5mm audio jack, microphone
Other
GPS, FM radio
Quoted battery life
Up to 480 minutes talk time; Up to 440 hours standby time
Size
115 x 62.8 x 12mm
Weight
146g

Comments

Comment 1
neutral
Andy 13:53 on 19 Nov 2008

Okay, so you just reviewed a phone. And you didn't talk about the phone! How easy is it to CALL someone? Is it easy to find contacts? How is the call quality? This seemed more like a UI review with touches of opinions on the hardware. I can SEE in your pictures that the 480x800 screen is big and awesome, tell me something I can't see! Does it support tethering, and how well did it work? Are text messages in conversation form or the ol' inbox format? You stated the factory specs for things like battery life and talk time, test it! It seems 440hrs standby time is an amazing claim -- 18 days! I can't imagine going two weeks without charging something...i'd forget i needed to. Well written for whats here, but i think a couple of pages are missing. Thanks for my first look at it though....off to do some research.

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Comment 2
neutral
Julian Prokaza | registered | 58 posts 15:00 on 19 Nov 2008

A fair point, Andy, but unless a smartphone's standard features are particularly bad, we tend not to bother mentioning them. More to the point, the UI aspect of phone calls is pretty much the same across all Windows Mobile devices.

The same goes for tethering and SMS -- Windows Mobile supports it (though some operators do not) and has had threaded SMS for some time, now.

So, rather than repeat the same standard Windows Mobile features in every Windows Mobile smartphone review, we tend comment on the new, interesting and/or inadequate features.

Hope that makes some kind of sense...

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