HTC HD2 review

HTC's talent for creating touchscreen handsets has excelled greatly since Android gave the Taiwanese manufacturer the chance to easily implement capacitive screens.

The HTC HD2 is the first of its Windows-powered devices to include a capacitive screen, and how thankful we are for that.

It's not just the technology that makes the HD2's 4.3-inch screen so spectacular. It's large, clear and the icons are instantly accessible to fingertips, whatever the size. No stylus is included, but it's almost guaranteed you won't need to use one even when typing in portrait mode.

The size of the screen does come at a price though. The HTC HD2 is massive. If you thought the iPhone was big, you might want to steer clear of the HD2's 120.5x67x11mm stature. It doesn't make chatting on the phone simple at all, feeling like you have a remote control firmly lodged in your hand.

If you opt to use a handsfree earpiece, you'll have the same sort of problem - although you won't look silly with a large calculator-stye device stuck to your ear, you'll struggle to slide it into a jeans pocket. At least the HD2 has slimness on its side though.

Once you're over the size of the HD2, it's a top device.

HTC's Sense skin, up until now reserved for Google Android devices, is overlaid onto Windows 6.5. This has both advantages and disadvantages.

Once again, as we saw on the Acer beTouch Windows 6.5 device, HTC has disposed of the Windows live homescreen. This means you can't simply scroll down your homescreen options, viewing snippets of information including email subject lines, missed calls and new text messages.

Instead, HTC dumps widgets on the homescreen, leaving you spaces to add your favourites, split vertically over two screens.

Horizontally, you can scroll through the main app installed on the device, including stocks, photos, music, weather (which is already set as default on the homescreen anyway), Twitter, Footprints, and settings. You can also navigate quickly to these apps by tapping on the icon along the bottom of the screen.

Each of these screens opens up a larger pane that displays more information. For example, weather shows today's weather in all its glory at the top, with the following four days in smaller form along the bottom.

You can show and hide any of these apps, bar the homescreen.

Although HTC Sense is intuitive, it does get a little complicated, especially when you start adding your own widgets, which do essentially the same thing as the bottom scrollbar. We also found that it was far too easy to inadvertently launch an application instead of scrolling up and down.

If you want to view your widgets on the second homescreen, you'll have to put your finger in the middle of the display and sweep down. Doing this often launched messaging, which we had programmed in as the central widget.

We also had the same issues with the menu. Sweep your finger down and you'll launch an app unless you press so lightly you're hardly touching the screen.

What is pleasing though is the inclusion of the Windows 6.5 standby/lock screen. You can see instantly if you have missed calls or new texts, and access these straight away without entering the phone's menus. Just slide the icon to the left or right.

As you'd expect from a phone sporting a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, switching between and using apps simultaneously is a breeze. We had no issues running three apps at a time, or in fact doing anything. Even photos processed instantly which is one area where HTC handsets normally lag.

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