The best Windows Phone ever made?

When you first pick up the HD2, it’s hard not to notice the feeling of quality. The size of the screen (4.3 inches) and the weight of the device (5.5 ounces) put it in a class all its own. It feels luxurious. When I first heard about this device, I was concerned that the screen would be too large to be practical, but it feels great in the hand. It’s not too wide to hold (2.6 inches, or 67 millimeters [mm]), and the fact that it’s 4.8 inches (122 mm) tall, together with its amazingly thin, 0.43-inch (11-mm) profile, actually makes it easier to hold. If it were even a few millimeters thicker, it would be too large to hold comfortably, but HTC has made all the right decisions with the physical aspects of this device. The back is dominated by the metal battery cover, which takes up the majority of the space, and the top and bottom of the rear are covered with a smooth-textured coating. Fingerprints don’t show up anywhere on the back, which is a nice change from most phones. Overall, the HD2 is simply gorgeous. Every person who has seen my HD2 has commented on how amazing it looks, and that’s before they even turn it on and see how bright and vibrant the screen is. Let’s talk about that big screen for a moment: At 4.3 inches, it’s the largest screen that has ever been shipped on a Windows Phone. The 480 x 800 resolution, capacitive screen provides a touch experience unlike any other Windows Phone on the market. The HD2 has no stylus—it’s all fingers, all the time, which is another Windows Phone first. Throw out any preconceived notions about what that implies though. The resistive screens found on every other Windows Phone out today are significantly less sensitive to touch, so, until you’ve used the HD2, it’s hard to describe how much more finger-friendly it is than any previous Windows Phone. The improvements in touch aren’t without a downside though. If you want to use a stylus, you need a special capacitive model, which isn’t included in the box. If you need a stylus for a particular application (say, a drawing application), you’ll have to purchase the stylus. For most people that won’t be an issue, but it’s something to be aware of. On the front of the HD2, there are five buttons: Call, Home, Start, Back, and Call end (which also doubles as the Power button). On the left side, there’s a volume rocker button, but there are no buttons on the right, top, or bottom of the device. If you’re used to having a dedicated camera button, you may miss it on the HD2, but there’s a large icon on the home screen for starting up the camera. The bottom has the microUSB sync and charge port, along with a 3.5-mm headphone jack. The 3.5-mm headphone jack is a welcome addition—I’ve always found it irritating to have to carry around an extra adapter for my favorite set of headphones (Ultimate Ears SuperFi 5ebs).

Smart software, top to bottom The care that HTC and T-Mobile have put into the user experience on this phone is apparent from the moment you first power it up. It starts out with a brief tutorial on how to use the on-screen keyboard, which is helpful to learn tricks such as pressing and holding a letter key to get the symbol associated with that key (!, @, and #, for example). The HD2 then scans for local Wi-Fi networks, prompts you to connect to one, and then allows you to configure a Microsoft Office Outlook, Gmail, AOL Mail, Yahoo! Mail, or other email account. Social networks play an important role on the HD2—there’s a step to set up your Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter accounts. When the phone detects the local time, you’re finished setting up the device. Although you can skip any of these steps, it’s important to realize that if you take a few minutes to configure everything, you’ll have a phone that’s ready to send and receive email, access your Facebook and Twitter accounts, and upload YouTube videos. The HTC custom software interface that sits on top of Windows Mobile 6.5 is dubbed HTC Sense. Originally known as TouchFlo3D, HTC Sense has evolved with every phone HTC has released, and now it’s a fast, powerful interface that allows you to access a wide variety of functions very quickly. When you power on the phone and unlock it, you’ll see a large clock, the current weather for your location, and your upcoming appointments, and you'll have one-click access to up to nine of your favorite applications. There’s also a finger-friendly favorite people communications hub. You can add up to 15 people, each having his or her own preferred method of communication (mobile phone, text, or email, for example). HTC created its own user interface for the threaded text messaging application, and if you text frequently, you’ll appreciate the work the company did. HTC also put extra work into the calendar and contacts application, making it more finger-friendly than the default Microsoft program. Everything about HTC is optimized for finger use.

The HTC Sense interface: Home screen

The HTC Sense interface: weather application

It’s easy to show off the beautiful screen on the HD2 with the included Photos & Videos application, which includes a slide show function, complete with smooth transitions between images. Forget about carrying photos in your wallet—this is the best way to share your photos with others. There’s an application that automatically scans your entire phone for music, and allows you to play music directly from the Home screen. HTC also includes a stock ticker application, a Recent Documents list, a Twitter application (HTC Peep), one-click access to the Opera Mobile browser, and a full-featured weather application that has some amazing animations.

The HTC Photos & Videos application

T-Mobile also added some software that adds some fun to the phone. A Blockbuster OnDemand application allows you to rent or purchase movies and have them downloaded directly onto the HD2. It’s a neat idea, though the initial experience is a bit strange, because when you first load the application, you’re staring at categories of movies with nothing in them. It’s not until you try to search for something or tap Settings that you are prompted to activate the application so you can start using it. It’s worth jumping through the hoops to get it activated though, because two free movie rentals are waiting for you when you do.

The Blockbuster OnDemand application

T-Mobile has also included MobiTV, a monthly subscription-based streaming TV service, the Barnes and Noble eReader application (handy if you’re a Nook owner), the Slacker Personal Radio application, TeleNav’s GPS software (there’s a monthly fee for this service), and six months of in-flight Wi-Fi service from Gogo. You want games? How about a full version of Guitar Hero and Teeter (the accelerometer-based game from HTC)? The excellent HTC YouTube client is also included, which is vastly superior to accessing YouTube videos through Internet Explorer Mobile. Last, lest you think that this device isn’t also capable of every business function you can name, you’ll find the full Office Mobile suite on the HD2: Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, OneNote Mobile, and PowerPoint Mobile. The HD2 also includes a Remote Desktop client and the normal contacts, calendar, notes, tasks, and email programs you’d expect. When it comes to text input, the HTC software keyboard can be a little unpredictable, so it’s worth trying one of the other input methods. The most interesting one is called Swype, and it’s a truly innovative way to enter text on a Windows Phone. You don’t type words on the keyboard—you drag your finger from letter to letter in a fluid motion, and Swype figures out the word you want to use. It sounds a bit odd, but it worked quite well in my tests, and I think with a little practice I could get very fast at using it.

Under the hood The T-Mobile HD2 is a quad-band GSM phone (850/900/1800/1900 bands) that also supports 3G WCDMA/HSPA (1,700 megahertz [MHz]) and AWS (2100 MHz). Driving this experience is the Qualcomm 1-gigahertz (GHz) Snapdragon CPU; this processor makes the HD2 fast and fluid in nearly every operation, with minimal lag when you move from application to application. And a generous helping of program RAM— 576 megabytes (MB) to be exact—is the most RAM available on any Windows Phone on the market. So you can heavily multitask with ease, loading up your GPS program while you listen to an audio book and check your email. One gigabyte (GB) of internal storage space is included, with approximately 600 MB of that storage space free for installing applications. And if that’s not enough, the storage space can be expanded with a microSDHC memory card—in fact, T-Mobile includes a 16-GB card with every HD2 it sells. For a bit of added fun, T-Mobile has also included two movies on the 16-GB card: Transformers and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Both movies are formatted to play back seamlessly on the HD2 in full screen, and they look fantastic on that gorgeous screen. Worth noting is that the files are in MP4 format and aren’t shackled by digital rights management (DRM), so you can transfer them to your desktop or laptop computer and watch them there if you want. This is the first time I’ve seen a mobile operator do something like this, and it adds tremendous value to the product when it comes with so much storage right out of the box. Nicely done, T-Mobile! Other hardware on the HD2 includes 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, GPS/AGPS, built-in microphone and speaker (the HD2 can get quite loud if turned up all the way), an FM radio, Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR, a proximity sensor, an accelerometer (HTC calls it a "G-Sensor"), and a 5-megapixel autofocus camera with dual LED flashes. I’ve never in my life seen a camera phone with a flash as bright as the HD2—it’s almost too bright. People in your images will probably have a stunned look on their faces from the brightness of the flash, so use it with caution. The camera takes surprisingly good images, and can capture VGA-resolution (640 x 480) video clips in MPEG4 format. Keeping all of this impressive hardware running is a 1,230 milliampere-hour (mAh) battery, which, according to HTC, provides up to 6.3 hours of talk time or up to 20 days of standby. In real-world terms, I’ve found that my HD2 stays charged for around two days of regular usage, but if you’re someone who uses a mobile phone all day long, you’ll want to recharge the HD2 every night.

Who’s this Windows Phone for? It might be easier to define the T-Mobile HTC HD2 by who it isn’t for: Because it lacks a hardware QWERTY keyboard, the HD2 isn’t going to be ideal for someone who does a lot of text input. Even with innovative text input options such as Swype, it’s hard to match the speed and accuracy of a hardware keyboard. Beyond that, however, I’d say the HD2 is a fantastic Windows Phone for almost everyone. For business users, the large, bright screen makes email, web access, and using Office Mobile a delight. For entertainment-focused consumers, the great multimedia applications, 3.5-mm headphone jack, and big screen make watching and sharing photos and videos a great experience. Games also look great and run amazingly well on the HD2. The included 16-GB storage card with two movies is just icing on the already delicious cake. The T-Mobile HTC HD2 is the pinnacle of Windows Mobile hardware and software, and until Windows Phone 7 devices arrive, it will likely remain the king of the hill.

TC HD2 has. It’s a truly magnificent device packed with powerful hardware and fantastic software. I consider it the pinnacle of the current Windows Phone platform, and perhaps the last great high-end device we’ll see until Windows Phone 7 arrives. The first mobile operator to bring the HD2 to North America is T-Mobile, and this is a review of that version.

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