HTC 6800 / Titan hands-on

We got a chance to play around with a Telus-branded HTC 6800 tonight -- we are in love. Significantly thinner and lighter than the TyTn and 6700, the 6800 has a spring-assisted slide and a keyboard with a slightly rubbery soft-touch finish that's probably the best we've ever seen on a portable device. This is the new handset to beat -- we can't wait to see the GSM version.

P.S. -We saw the 6800 on Sprint, but the executive who left it out snatched it out of our hands before we could take shots of it. Like you're so surprised it's coming.

Gallery: HTC 6800 hands-on

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[jrw @ Mar 27th 2007 12:24AM]

Hallelujah! Now when is it coming to Verizon?

[Johnny @ Mar 27th 2007 5:29PM]

I know exactly how you feel man. I've been waiting months for this thing to come to Verizon. Now we know its just around the corner. :D CMON XV6800!!

[Gaines @ Jun 28th 2007 6:27AM]

You might find the information you're looking for at http://www.SprintMogul.net

[akijikan @ Mar 27th 2007 12:25AM]

GSM VERSION? lol, that's CDMA version of the TyTN,

[Oniel @ Mar 27th 2007 12:50AM]

Any word on Wifi?

[wako @ Mar 27th 2007 1:12AM]

HAWT!


Hopefully that phone will be replacing the MDA on Tmobile's end. But I guess I should be hoping it will be coming to the GSM networks first :(

[Shawn @ Mar 27th 2007 1:30AM]

Specs??

[saq @ Mar 27th 2007 1:39AM]

Jesus christ HTC, how many engineers do you employ and do they get to leave work? It seems like as time goes on they are making more handsets per quarter (some kind of accelerated HTC-esque Moores law?) and each one gets better and better.

[GoldenTiger @ Mar 27th 2007 3:44AM]

Need a Verizon version, STAT! I'm looking toward buying within the next few weeks, so I doubt I'll get one in time =( /cry! CMON Verizon XV6800!

[ZSX @ Mar 27th 2007 3:54AM]

Style wise it resembles the "non-keyboarded" shots of the HTC Panda, especially the directional pad.

http://msmobiles.com/news.php/6195.html

[3rdsun @ Mar 27th 2007 6:32AM]

HTC is claiming the smartphone crown hands down

[3rdsun @ Mar 27th 2007 6:35AM]

HTC is claiming the smartphone crown hands down. Samsung, Motorola, Apple and the rest just retire

[kadajawi @ Mar 27th 2007 7:10AM]

Best keyboard on a mobile device? *cough* Psion Series 5. I doubt you can touch type with this thing, can you? See, the Psion Series 5 is better.

[The Schizo @ Mar 27th 2007 8:52AM]

@ Oniel

Wifi? To even match the 6800, it'd have to support Wifi, 1X, EVDO, WirelessModem, Bluetooth, USB, and infrared connections.

If you want to know what the 6800 brings to the table, you have to ask more advanced questions like:

Will there be a built-in GPS (not that stupid phone locator thingy for e911) receiver?
Has the RAM size and Processor speed increased?
Resolution?
Power consumption and battery life?

These are all the things that the 6700 power users will want to know plus a plethora of other dreams sparked by extensive use of the 6700.

Personally, I'd like to be able to shut the thing COMPLETLY OFF without popping the battery.

[boe @ Mar 27th 2007 11:11AM]

HTC can pump out the phones every quarter because they've been using the same cookie cutter for the last 2 years. IMATE and ETEN are now pushing out 6 new models - SLIMMER than the 6800 but with VGA resolution - FOUR times the resolution of the 6800. If anyone here is looking forward to WM6 - the reason most want it over WM5 is the advanced HTML mail features - guess what - if you used your 6700 to browse the web, the 6800 will suck just as bad as it is only QVGA resolution. Same goes for HTML mail - the low resolution is horrible for web browsing, HTML mail, word, excel, powerpoint and adobe documents.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/15/e-tens-glofiish-x800-everything-but-the-qwerty/

http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/12/i-mate-goes-deep-with-ultimate-line-five-models-promised/

[Wolverine @ May 24th 2007 8:38PM]

Yes the VGA display is 4 times the resolution of QVGA, but also probably 4 times less battery life. There are reasons most handhelds still use QVGA and one of them is more efficient power consumption.

[boe @ Mar 27th 2007 11:18AM]

The Schizo,

Current specs don't look like it will have a GPS like the x800
There is debate over the processor speed being faster
The resolution is still only 240x320
The memory has increased from 128 to 256 - still not enough for a power user but enough for basic users.
Rumor has it they are still using lithium batteries while others have moved forward to Lithium Polymer batteries - but it is still more than a month away so maybe they'll change that.

[MasterCKO @ Mar 28th 2007 1:25PM]

oh man, it's got little Caps and Fn indicator lights on the keyboard. Such a small thing, but that just made my day. I can't wait to own this phone. Come on May! hurry up and come already! Best birthday present to myself ever! 8^D

Still no built in GPS is a bummer, but other than that, it improves on all the things that I personally felt needed improvement on the 6700. Screen rez would have been nice, but is hardly necessary (to me).

Boe, btw, did you notice that the IMATE phones were rendered examples? they're still not even in physical form yet. They look nice, sure, but wanna bet that the one that most closely resembles this form factor isn't actually any slimmer? And again, they don't even have a physical form yet. Also, the E-TEN one is slimmer, but this is probably due to the fact that it doesn't have a separate sliding or folding keyboard mechanism (which btw has become a deal breaker for me ever since I first used a Sony Clie all those years ago).

I don't know, pushing HTC to make better products is great, but getting that bent out of shape because of its use of QVGA (which, btw, most PDAs still use) seems like a waste of energy.

[boe @ Mar 28th 2007 5:40PM]

MasterCKO - so far I've seen actual photogographs of 2 ultimate models - the other 3 so far have been prototypes and photoshop mockups. I've had the 6700 for nearly 2 years and I have almost never needed the keyboard so for me it is not biggie - if it had one great but I can live without it.

[MasterCKO @ Mar 28th 2007 7:06PM]

@boe: out of curiosity, where did you find the photos? was there a specific blog or something you checked, or just a google search? I'm interested in seeing them. And which of the five models were they?

Fair enough about the keyboard thing. It's definitely a very personal preference.

[boe @ Mar 28th 2007 7:19PM]

CKO,

I would imagine I saw the actual in hand photos on engadget, gizmodo, mobile news, the register or some other place - those are some places I frequent. I believe the photos were taken at 3gsm conference, CTIA or cebit. The other units that they had photos of were just prototypes from their appearance. So of the 5 I've only seen 2 that match the photoshop jobs. They might have been links in threads on pdaphonehome.com - sorry I can't remember the two they showed were the one with the slide up numeric keyboard and the one without the slideup. There may be others but so far these are the only two I've seen. I'm curious to see some final product for the one with the keyboard as supposedly it has a really nice vga screen on one side and a status display on the others.

I agree about the keyboard being preference.

[boe @ Mar 28th 2007 11:45PM]

CKO - I just did a quick search - I've only seen pictures of people holding the various ultimates - now I've seen more models but not the small flip model yet. Here is some video - horrible video - long boring, uninformative and presented by someone who doesn't even know about the products he sells but he does show one of the units briefly -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP0aSvqwwmI&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Epocketnow%2Ecom%2F

[Shammy @ Mar 31st 2007 12:51PM]

when is this coming??

[boe @ May 24th 2007 8:52PM]

I'm guessing you've never used one. I've used the HTC VGA model and the battery life wasn't that much worse than my 6700. I'm not saying it was equal but not that much less - not half as long and certainly not a quarter as long. The battery was about the same size.