HTC and Telstra launch HD2 smartphone
- — 20 January, 2010 11:30
HTC's HD2 smartphone is initially exclusive to Telstra in Australia.
HTC has launched its latest Windows Mobile smartphone in Australia, the HD2. Boasting one of the largest screens on a smartphone (4.3in), the HTC HD2 is the first Windows Mobile phone to feature a capacitive display and a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU.
"The HTC HD2 is one of the most advanced and intuitive phones HTC has ever created," said HTC's Anthony Petts. "The phone provides users with one of the largest, most visually stunning capacitive touch displays available on the market. Screen size is an important parameter for how good the keyboard is and the HD2 is just as good as a physical keyboard in this respect."
The HTC HD2 has a number of iPhone-like features, including full multitouch capabilities — enabling users to "pinch" the screen to zoom in on Web pages, photos and documents.
Billed as both a consumer and business device, the HTC HD2 smartphone offers conference calling with up to five parties as well as the ability to use the phone as either a tethered modem or a Wi-Fi router.
The HD2 uses HTC's Sense UI theme, incorporating three principles: "make it mine", "stay close" and "discover the unexpected". The Sense UI enables users to personalise their phone with glance-view widgets, integrating Facebook status and photo updates into a single address book view, and providing social-networking and multimedia functions on the home screen.
The HTC HD2 has a 5-megapixel camera with dual LED flash, GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, a digital compass and an accelerometer. A 16GB microSD card is included in the sales package
The HTC HD2 will be exclusive to Telstra in Australia until 31 March. It is available for $0 up front on an $80 plan over 24 months, or $829 outright. Interestingly, the phone is unlocked when purchased outright, so users are able to use any other Australian SIM with the smartphone.
Comments
Anonymous
1
Lots of hype, but not a very useful phone
The HTC HD2 has had a lot of hype around it, however the phone is not suitable for business users.
All those Windows Mobile business applications were designed to be used with a 'resistive' screen and a stylus pen. However, the HTC HD2 is has a 'capacitive' touch screen.
Some Windows Mobile apps are impossible to use with the capacitive touch screen of the HD2, including Microsoft's own Excel. In Excel, the finger touch doesn't let you work in the same way as the stylus. Eg, with a stylus phone you can select each cell in a row by swiping across them. Do that with your finger on the HD2 and the whole page scrolls, and you can't access the individual cells any more. It's just useless for business work.
It's fine for Telstra to advertise this as a business phone, but if you're going to have a capacitive touch screen, then you need all the apps to be designed for a capacitive touch screen also. Windows Mobile is currently in a limbo land between 2 interface types, touch and stylus, and it is not bridging between them very well.
There are also plentiful bugs in this phone, but you can search for the details on the internet (try 'htc hd2 bugs' as your search criteria).
One more thing... the declining market share of Windows Mobile is something to consider. Most business users have moved to BlackBerry, though iPhone is gaining ground in the enterprise. Consumers are flocking to the Android phone platform (backed by Google).
Anonymous
2
You must have VERY big fingers!
I'm a business user. I manage the IT for a multinational. We have been using HD2's for the past two months with our own inhouse WM apps (and 3rd party ones) that were designed year ago before "large" screens.
All of our sales reps LOVE the HD2 and they say the apps are EASIER to use - including Excel.
Declining marketshare is a funny term... something the MEDIA is to blame for as they've jumped on a bandwagon without looking at the actual FACTS.
Last year in the US - Apple only sold 9.5 million iPhones while there were 7.5 million Windows Phones sold. As a comparsion, again, in the US, there were ~20 million Blackberries sold and only those 9.5 million iPhones.
Worldwide; there were some 11 million iPhones and just under 30 million Windows Phones - with HTC alone accounting for 18 million of them.
Now... whats your definition of declining again?