HTC Touch HD

Full Review

HTC Touch HD has been in the market for quite a while now. But it’s still one of the costliest phones to ever make it into India. It also has one of the biggest screens we’ve seen on a mobile phone.

Features and Design

Boasting a 3.8-inch touch screen with a WVGA resolution (480X800), the Touch HD is a beautifully designed handset with a whole lot of features. The full black body has a glossy front with four touch sensitive keys arranged just below the beautiful touch screen. The back has a matte-Knish plastic battery cover with a 5MP camera with autofocus. The side is quite plain without many ports and buttons. On the left is the volume rocker, while the top has our favorite 3.5mm jack for headset. There is one miniUSB port at the bottom with the stylus slot on the right corner. HTC incorporated the much-loved HTC Touch 3D again running over the Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional here again. It came with Windows applications like Office Mobile suite, Windows Media Player, Messenger and PDF reader. HTC has also included the Opera browser. The phone is quite rich in connectivity as well. It has HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth with2DP and built-in GPS but no maps came preinstalled.

Performance

The HTC TouchFLO 3D aided in operating the phone with our fingers easily, especially while scrolling through lists, browsing and using most applications. Carrying out basic tasks like making calls, opening and switching applications was easy and quick. Messaging though, even with the HTC’s redesigned virtual keyboard still did not score over typing with the stylus. The virtual keys require accurate touch which our stubby fingers did not really get along with very well. Despite the big 3.8-inch screen, we still prefer using the stylus for text input. Setting up e-mail was easy and handling e-mail was as good as any other Windows mobile phones plus you got access to mail on the TouchFLO 3D Home screen without having to dig deep into the menu. Opera browser also enhanced the user experience with its many features and better performance. Call quality was clear and loud with a very good reception quality. From opening to switching to applications, the TouchHD handled things smoothly without much noticeable lags. Audio playback is very decent for a smartphone and still better, we could use our favorite in-ear headphones pair as well. Video looked super-sharp with very accurate colors. The 5MP camera with autofocus did not impress though. The focusing lock happened quite fast but the shutter delay resulted in blurry images which was annoying. The pictures were of subpar quality for a 5MP camera phone. They lacked sharpness and quite susceptible to noise. However,they would suffice for most casual shooting outdoors. The battery life is adequate that lasted us roughly around 2 days under normal usage while GPS and Wi-Fi usage changed that significantly.

Conclusion

The well designed HTC with its large and beautiful display was impressive. But, the hefty asking price was a bit of a deal-breaker.

Bottom Line

Sports an incredibly beautiful screen and offers respectable performance but is unreasonably overpriced.