HTC T8282 Touch HD Sim-Free Windows Mobile Smartphone

I just got my new HTC Touch HD phone a few days ago. It has replaced my old SPV M700 (HTC) with Windows Mobile 5 handset. I considered the HTC Diamond but disregarded this due to the slow TouchFLO 3D at the time (has now been updated) however battery life (900 mAh) is still bad. I also considered the iPhone 3G and the Blackberry Storm. The iPhone is fabulous, but not for editing documents etc., plus the screen resolution of the HD is near double. The Storm has a "click" screen which I'm not sure about.
First thing you notice when you take the phone out of its box it how solid and well built it feels. Also striking is the lack of the usual array of "HTC" style buttons. This gives the phone a very minimalistic and elegant look. After starting it up you are greeted with the home screen of the flo menu. This now responds much faster, looks stunning and is a real asset. However the flo does not cover all the phone's functionality and it soon reveals the WM 6.1 prof. underneath. Then navigating the menus using your finger becomes very tricky. Even the fantastically high screen resolution (480x800) can't make up for this. The HD does come with a stylus (held in by a magnet) which you'll need for those occasions. The virtual keyboard is good and responsive but I find it takes some time to get use to. To sync the phone with my PC with Vista was very easy with active sync. It works very well with MS Office 2007 and Media player. I took it to the gym and found the HD works very well as an MP3 player. You can even adjust the volume with the button at the side of the phone without turning the phone back on. The sound quality is very, very good. Importing/converting vids and photos is a doddle with the media player. However I imported a video podcast and the software did not make use of the g-sensor to view landscape, why? Playback is smooth and seems good. Web browsing is a joy with the high resolution screen and Opera 9.5 preinstalled (this does make use of the g-sensor).
I contacted HTC customer service and found them very helpful. If you go to the HTC website you can download the latest fixes for the phone.

Good:
TouchFLO 3D now fast and very useful
Build quality
Battery life
Great preloaded programs e.g. MS mobile office
Very good MP3 player and video playback with fantastic sound quality
Very slim and portable
HTC customer service seems fine
Very good compatibility with MS Vista
Looks stunning
5 mega pix camera

Bad:
Windows Mobile rears its ugly head
Fiddly small buttons in MS windows mobile
G-sensor does not support many prog.
Only digital zoom and no flash

Overall a great versatile handset.

The HD is not perfect and not for everyone however it does fulfil most of its promise, and gives you a good phone and a pda that has the versatility of windows mobile.

Video performance is barely adequate, the camera is fun and useful as a backup. I have no complaints about the GPS, QuickGPS allows it to get very fast fixes.

Touchflo focuses a little to much on eye candy rather than practicality but is still way ahead of the usual win mobile interface and is responsive enough. However if you want games get an iphone, this has enormous potential with the hi res screen and custom graphic chip but many current games cant cope with the hi-res and/or lack of a d-pad, and I am not sure the grapics chip can be used for anything other than touch-flo. Games on win mobile are just not produced at the same level as the iphone, despite in this case better hardware.

Web browsing, SMS and email are a joy to behold, the keyboard is great on the big screen. Small annoyances are easily fixed using software being produced by the developer community but you cant help but feel that HTC do not have the same level of commitment to supporting their customers after they have bought their phones as some other companies.

I have always wanted to leave a review on amazon for my fellow "purchasers" but have never really bought anything worth leaving a review on.... not until i obtained the beautiful HTC Touch HD. My room-mate has an iphone so i have experiemented with the Iphone as well.

The phone is windows based and although personally i think this is an advantage over palm OS or OS X iPhone,... i dont think the avarage phone user will find the OS very user friendly/functional or even good to look at. To conteract the ugly Windows OS, the product comes with a separate interface known as Touch FLo-3D which makes it extremly easy to access the most usefull features on the phone and adds to the phone's appearance.

Because Windows OS is much older and more established than Iphone X OS, you will find that more applications are out there for this phone that you would find for the Iphone. Better still they will most likely be free (Legaly free that is) since Windows Mobile OS is not as commercialised as the Iphone. Just go on google and type Windows mobile application and OILA! The sky (or shall i say, "mouse/keyboard is the limit") is the limit. A downside to this is that the choice is so abundant that you may not always know what is be best particular application to possess on your phone, in addition, because most of them are free,... the quality will not be as high in some cases.

The looks are to die for! simply amazing, when you get this phone on your hands for the first time you wouldnt want to put it down, it simply feels and looks ridiculously-brilliant!!!! The screen is slightly bigger than the iphones (while the product itself is the same size in dimension as the iphone) and as the name suggests,... it is HD,... meaning much much much clearer and better resolution than the iphone. The advantages of a windows based system is their ability (or shall i say flexibility?) to copy (install) other OS skins, so if you want the iphone look (and you are silly enough to get this product instead), you can always install a skin-theme that emulates it loosely.

If you love your music and are buying this phone as an MP3 as well, oi!! u are in for a delight! Although it comes with comes with really dissapointing headphones, if you invest in medium quality headphones, the iphone is no match (I have to say, the only thing that comes close are the sony MP3s (A, E, or even the S series). Synching your music to this player is a extremely easy and fast, simply use WMP and drag and drop the tunes you wish to transfer! I have not tried to use itunes yet.

In terms of speeed,... the iphone is slightly faster, the phone has the nack of getting stuck sometimes (again blame windows!), but this will not affect your enjoyement of the phone too much.

Basic technology over the iphones (ones I havent mentioned already and i think are basic in todays world of communication);

1) Two cameras. One at the front for video calls, and one at the back for normal use.

2) 5 meg pixels Camera

3) Bluetooth technology - not many people know that you cannot share files using Bluetooth on the Iphone!

Recomendations from experience;

Download a new alarm application, i dont think this product's one is good enough. I'm currently using PocketAlarm which is probably the best alarm application you could have on your phone.

Battery life,... the HTC has a slight advantage over the iphone because the battery is not in-built. what this means is that if you are smart enough to invest in a second battery, you can charge them both and carry a spare around with you. One HTC fully charged battery would last longer than an Iphones battery.

Experiment with different applications, and if you see an aplication on the iphone that you like - gurantee that you can get a better one on Windows (for free!), you just have to know where to look *wink wink*.

If there will be a competitor that stands above the rest against the Iphone - believe me this is where it begins. HTC (this model and others to come) will surpass Apple on the touch/smart-phone market.

Enjoy your phone (I cant help but...)

PEaCE!