Availability of the HTC HD2 (formerly known as the Leo) has already been confirmed for France. Today, sources have announced that the handset will be released in unlocked form in the UK beginning November 11 for £469, excluding VAT.
As HTC's most well-featured release to date, it's actually pretty surprising that carriers aren't angling for exclusive rights to the phone. Instead, it will hit Blighty streets with no carrier attachment, although both O2 and Orange are expected to offer it later in their roster as well.
If you're late to the news about the HD2, it's a feature-heavy smartphone running Windows Mobile 6.5 and HTC's Sense UI. That's right - the same eye-popping interface found on the Android-powered HTC Hero is now on their Windows devices, too. Even better, this version of the Sense features built-in integration with both Facebook and Twitter right out of the box.
Hardware details of the follow-up to 2008's HTC HD include a 4.3-inch WVGA touchscreen display, a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU, 448MB of RAM, 512MB of ROM, a 5.0 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, GPS, stereo Bluetooth and a 1,230mAh battery. It also boasts quad-band GSM and dual-band HSDPA/HSUPA connectivity.
Europe appears to be the planned destination for the HTC HD2, at least, for the last quarter of the year. No word on release schedule for other markets.
[via Unwired View]
Let's get the requisite comparison out of the way. The HTC Hero is no iPhone-killer, but it's definitely worthy of being considered as one. As of this point, though, Android still has some rough edges that needs polishing before a handset like this can topple the almighty smartphone leader.
As the first phone to sport HTC's Sense UI overlay for Android, it brings a fantastic amount of customization that iPhone users can only dream about (seven screens that you can basically fashion however you like in numerous iterations that you can all save). It does pay, however, in occasional sluggishness as a result of the update (largely because HTC just went ahead and used the same 528MHz processor from the Magic / MyTouch 3G). This sluggish behavior is even more notable because many of the widgets don't even try to update in the background.
Physically, the phone is a stunner, with the quarter-moon chin really not getting in the way of its aesthetic appeal. It feels incredibly good in the hand and looks sturdy from all angles. The touchscreen interface is so well-implemented that we ended up barely using the trackball, something we couldn't say for HTC's previous Android efforts.
Regular phone talents are very good, with excellent voice calls and a full set of advanced messaging options. Of particular note is the phone's address book, which automatically pulls details from your Facebook, Flickr and Gmail accounts, filling up the fields without requiring you to do any typing on your end. Not that entering text is any trouble at all, because this phone arguably offers the best typing experience among all Android models released so far.
This phone, however, is about features, of which it has plenty. It offers one of the best browser experiences around, with decent Flash support (not all videos handled very well, sad to say) and multi-touch zooming over fast 3G and Wi-Fi connections. I'm pretty sure it will get even better when we load Opera into the handset, so the phone's prospects as far as staying connected to the web are pretty great.
Other prominent features of the Hero include 5-megapixel optics (average photos) with video support, terrific music playback, GPS and a few other smartphone standards. We're quite disappointed, though, that the handset still doesn't come with its own syncing utility, leaving the transfer of files a backup-less drag and drop effort.
Given a choice between this and the relatively recent HTC Magic, the HTC Hero wins hands-down. While the Magic seems the more affable-looking fellow, the Hero bests it in almost every category, from UI to battery performance. There are many Android phones coming out this year and if they're hoping to excel, this handset, duly propped up by the excellent Sense UI, is easily the benchmark from which they'll be judged.
HTC just announced the debut of a customized user-interface designed to run over the sturdy Android OS. Called the HTC Sense, the new overlay will find its way on the upcoming Hero handset and all future Android phones from the manufacturer.
Based on the press release, the Sense sounds like a highly-customizable interface, with plenty of elbow room for personalizing various displays, well beyond what the typical widget-based home screens currently offer. A feature called "Scenes" is supposed to let you create numerous content profiles, allowing you to use your handset differently every time you need to. The UI also appears to borrow from the social networking aspects of webOS, offering a single view for all your contacts' pertinent sources. They also boast of a feature called "Perspectives," which supposedly creates a new method for managing connections between email, contacts, and social media automatically.
Crunch Gear gave their early review of the new overlay, based on the demos at HTC's event in London and had this to say: "Sense does everything WebOS can do but it uses Android, a platform that is already popular with the geekerati and has a great install base." Should Palm start worrying? Probably so.
As we've said, the UI will make its debut with the HTC Hero, a 3.2-inch touchscreen handset that's slated for a European release beginning in July and the US before the end of the year. Phone specs include a 528MHz processor, a 5.0 megapixel camera module, aGPS, digital compass, gravity-sensor, a 3.5mm audio port and microSD expansion. T-Mobile is probably fuming right now. Who will want to buy a MyTouch 3G now, with this thing coming stateside in a few months?
Photo Credit: Crunch Gear
