Entelligence: The HTC HD2 and the future of Windows Mobile
By Michael Gartenberg 
posted Oct 6th 2009 7:30PM
posted Oct 6th 2009 7:30PM
Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he'll explore where our industry is and where it's going -- on both micro and macro levels -- with the unique wit and insight only he can provide.
Despite Steve Ballmer himself apologizing for the delay of Window Mobile 7 a few days ago, there's a lot in WinMo 6.5 that Microsoft should be proud of. Overall the OS itself has been tweaked a lot for performance -- I've tried devices that were running WM 6.1 and were upgraded to 6.5 and there's a dramatic difference in speed. Microsoft has also worked hard to make the new OS much more finger friendly, with UI elements that really required a stylus in the past much more usable with a finger instead. There's also some nice integration with new services such at the marketplace for mobile applications and MyPhone synchronization.
That's all well and good, but it's one device that I've had the chance to use for just a few minutes that's really affirmed my view of Windows Mobile viability, and it has me very excited about the platform. It's the new standard for Windows Phones and it's pretty much the device that every other Windows-powered phone is going to need to live up to. It's called the HTC HD2 (code named Leo) and it's a game changer in my opinion.
What makes the HD2 special? Two things: a capacitive screen, which is new on a Windows Mobile device, and the new 1GHz Snapdragon processor under the hood. The HD2 is a slate machine, with a large and gorgeous capacitive 4.3-inch touchscreen that's meant
If you're dismissive of Windows Phones and Windows Mobile 6.5, you're not looking at the whole picture, and you're certainly not looking at the HTC HD2. |
I only used a pre-production device for a few minutes but I was blown away. Everything about this device was fast, smooth, and fluid. Moving from photo to photo was as seamless as any device I've used and HTC also tossed in multitouch to zoom and in out. The onscreen keyboard is an HTC design and I had no problems typing quickly and accurately. I don't mean this as a full review but it does show what the OS is capable of in the right hands.
What does this all mean? Well, despite apologies from Microsoft's executives, there's a lot of viability in this platform. Features ranging from Exchange integration to media support and services can appeal to both business users and consumers. That's important in an age where users have needs in both of those worlds and want to move seamlessly between them, especially when they're mobile. Second. It's not about Windows Mobile 7 or whatever Microsoft decides to call the next version of their mobile OS platform. It's about what vendors are capable of doing with the current OS to create powerful and relevant phones for today's market. Bottom line? If you're dismissive of Windows Phones and Windows Mobile 6.5, you're not looking at the whole picture, and you're certainly not looking at the HD2.
Michael Gartenberg is vice president of strategy and analysis at Interpret, LLC. His weblog can be found at gartenblog.net, and he can be emailed at gartenberg AT gmail DOT com. Views expressed here are his own.
wow, this thing is very nice. it makes we want to see winmo 7 now. and also own it.
I don't think anyone is dismissing windows mobile. But the thing is, it takes flash and pizzaz to capture the buyer's attention. Now that buyers are more educated on porducts than ever before, we don't get hyped about stuff as easily. if Windows mobile had better features than iPhone and people really want it, then it will outsell iPhone. That's the free market right?
Problem is, Apple is making a mockery of the other cellular phones and no other cellularphone company is seeing major gains cause iPhone damn near cornered the market globally.
i know i'm gonna get downranked, but I'm not pushing the iPhone. I'm just sayint that we should let the free market and the invisible hand do its thing. And in this case, the invisible hand has multitouch.
Quantumphysics@
I'd say WinMo is much worse than Palm OS if you ask me. The only reason WinMo hasn't faded
away as fast as Palm OS is because WinMo is from Microsoft. Sure MS will try to improve WinMo
but there is one thing the author has failed to mention - that is the competitors aren't standing still.
MS moves one step and the competitors move two steps so people can see what the crystal ball
looks like going forward. Yes, people are looking at the WHOLE picture which includes the
competitors.
"Now that buyers are more educated on porducts than ever before, we don't get hyped about stuff as easily."
I doubt this very much. Tech blog readers might do research and ignore (some) hype, but tech blog readers are not most people.
I agree with pyrthas. Educated buyers would ignore the flare and the pizzaz. It's about what Apple has been trying to sell for years, that it just works. For me, that works, is not the i-thing everyone talks about. Sorry, there's something about not having a keyboard that really irks me. I guess I could get used to it, but whereas I could hit a key and know I hit the right one and move on--even if I do end up typing faster than the phones can keep up--I don't have that kind of trust with a slate. The move to a capacitive is a definite good move, but I'm still waiting for a multitouch resistive (though it'll cost me an arm and a leg). And educated people wouldn't buy a phone purely because they can buy an app where you shake a phone for restaurants (okay, I lie that's a huge selling point to me).
Either way, good things will come this way from MS. MS, for some reason, loves to fail with an offering before releasing something amazing (first Zune vs Zune HD, first XBox vs 360--yes even with the RRoD, and from Vista vs Windows 7). Others might see an MS failure as crap, I see it as technological fertilizer.
Anyways if consumers were that much more educated some of us wouldn't be raped by our horrible phone plans and subsidies.
An OS needs to appeal to two categories of people - user and the developer.
More importantly it the OS should satisfy the developer first, so that we can create good phones and associated apps for the user.
The core features provided by Windows Mobile OS are really good and much better in many aspects compared to competitive environments.
But when it comes to graphics, animation centric to building a good UI experience, Windows Mobile provides next to nothing to the developer. What HTC has done on windows mobile is really really mind blowing, but it doesn't provide anything to 3rd party developers. The 3rd party apps that will be put up on the Market-place for example will not benefit from HTC's modification. Every 3rd party developer will need to create their own rich-UI framework.
Whereas on competitive OS 3rd party developers are able to utilize the standard frameworks provided by Apple, google etc. to provide a consistent rich UI experience.
I am a windows mobile apps developer for last 3 years. From a developers stand point I see more returns to my efforts on iPhone or Android.
If this trend continues a lot of developers will shift their attentions towards other platforms, and a smart phone is defined by the kind of apps available on it.
@Quantumphysics.
The problem with comparing any phone to the iPhone is that there are multiple cell phone manufacturers worldwide making various types of phones for various types of people. Not everyone wants nor likes the big touchscreen that Apple or other form-alike phones offer. My wife for one. She hates both touch screens and big phones. Go figure. When people talk about an iPhone killer it makes no sense, because Apple has introduced an iconic product - which they're very good at, whether you like the product or features. There's no "flip" version of the iPhone - no "slider" - no "push to talk." While there are a couple of different levels of iPhone -- conceptually, there's only "iPhone." I don't think HTC or any other company will kill the iPhone (whatever definition of "kill" you have) because HTC and others are in the business of making phones. That means new designs, new products, smart phones, feature phones, etc. Globally, Apple is just a blip on the mobile phone radar. But it's a big blip because iPhone is iconic. I don't have numbers, but I imagine Motorola or HTC or Nokia or nearly any other maker sells more cell phones in various form factors than Apple could ever hope to.
Regionto, the problem is there are not many educated buyers. 90% (at least) of the cell phone buyers out there buy whatever is "cool." That is why any Apple product has a line out the door before anyone has read one review. The iPhone is "cool." Are there other phones that do things better? Sure, but they're not "cool." And when it comes down to it, most consumers will succumb to vanity. It's like a chick buying running shoes because they're cute instead of because of how they feel.
Well, I disagree with this article. HTC HD2 is so modified, it's no longer a Windows Mobile experience, it's a HTC experience. While this phone might be better at it's core functions than it's resistive/slow processor predecessors - it will never benefit from a modern OS kernel, app store, or accessory market. So in the near term, OEM's will drop WinMo 6.5 for Android (especially because it's free). The WinMo fanboys should acknowledge the huge mistake Microsoft made, and put all their eggs in the WinMo 7 basket. Every argument for WinMo compared to the iphone is null and void when compared to Android - so stop making this just an iPhone vs WinMo debate. I want someone to explain how WinMo 6.5 is better than Android (and worth $30 to the OEM)? Sense is much better than touchflow on the same hardware. If I got HD2, I would wipe it and install Android w/ Sense.
@Girish: Holy crap man you've hit the nail right on. It has taken inmense efforts for HTC to bring the sense UI to where they have it now and for the rest of developers - especially smaller ones - it must be a real challenge to match that. What that means I guess is that app variety may not be that good and many applications will show the ugly face of 6.5 :(
...On the other hands there are the rest of benefits for the user like multitasking, proper exchange support, not having to use crapTunes... ETC.
I don't care, I love this phone and I WILL buy it :)
@Dogtown: WinMo's biggest advantage is it's Windows and Exchange integration. Android might license EAS from Microsoft but that doesn't mean they do as good a job of the integration as Microsoft do. Interestingly, the closest that any Android phone comes to WinMo on this front is the HTC Hero and that's largely because of HTC's modifications rather than Google's.
Any word on this coming to Sprint? I would use Windows Mobile if it was running on this beast.
I don't understand how nice hardware can make a case for an OS... apples and oranges, anybody?!
Phone OSes are often restricted to certain devices. Particularly iPhone OS, WebOS, and RimOS, as they are only available on devices from a specific manufacturer (WebOS has the possibility to break free). Symbian is not completely restricted to Nokia, but it might as well be. Windows Mobile and Android are the only two that really give a good, broad choice of manufacturers, although Android is currently a bit limited (but that is quickly changing).
Basically, the point is, your OS choice is going to limit your hardware choice. And that is where Windows Mobile can actually shine right now. It's pretty much agreed that it's the crappiest Phone OS for the average user (Proud TP2 owner here), but you have a much better choice of hardware available in different form factors. Want a slider Blackberry? iPhone with a keyboard? All touchscreen WebOS device? Windows Mobile has all those options...and that's just form factor.
*facepalm*
That's it, I'm done.
I'll go and like, get some nachos.
Kamokazi explained it well. Do you own a computer? Is it a PC? If it is a PC, did you just go out and buy the first one you saw with whatever OS you were looking for? Or did you look for a smaller/bigger one, one with a good battery, one that had more RAM, bigger processor, etc?
If it's a Mac, then it really doesn't matter because you only have a couple choices anyway. One of the main reasons I'm not interested in MacBooks is because they're too big. I love my 11.1" Vaio.
I think you are both missing the point:
Who cares if the OS is being "fast, smooth, and fluid" on a 1GHz processor? I do think one does have to make the distinction between OS and hardware - especially if the OS is NOT wed to the hardware, the phone ecosystem should only play a minor role in an article about the future of WinMobile as a whole. That's like me claiming to be an awesome football player because I bribe myself onto the Pittsburgh Steelers (or whatever other pro football team one may root for)... This is also the reason why your (Chris) example doesn't work. It's not Mac and Windows you need to compare but Linux and Windows, both of which are not married to their hardware. And I do think you made the choice (for whatever reason) of NOT installing Linux on your computer.
The thing is that the iPhone and the Pre are completely vertically integrated. Apple and Palm have the luxury of controlling their hardware AND their software to ensure a smooth experience. No one is really a fan of the iPhone OS, even though it is pretty fly. All the users are fans of the iPhone. The HD2 seems to show that WinMo doesn't have to suck. Would people feel differently about WinMo if no one else had ever released a shitty, slow implementation without a good user interface overlay and the HTC HD2 was WinMo the way the iPhone is the iPhone OS?
Both Android and Windows Mobile have been held back by underpowered hardware that results in a lackluster experience. As a result, especially for Windows Mobile, people have been dogging on the OS.
The way the hardware can make the case for an OS is because once the OS is paired with good enough hardware to make it shine, then it can allow one to make a fair evaluation of the OS.
Put another way, imagine it's 1995 again, only this time both Windows 95 and Windows 7 are being released that year. With the hardware that was available back then, Windows 95 would seem to have many advantages. Fast forward to the present, and Windows 7 wins in every category.
@meister
That's a poor analogy. You really don't have a choice to put a different OS on a phone in most cases (practically speaking, it's possible a lot of the time but usually the experience is poor). Hardware and OS are very closely tied as it stands now. You *should* include hardware when comparing OSes, as it is very much a part of it. It doesn't have to be, but it is. And not because Microsoft bribed their way through it, if that was what you were implying with that Steelers comment. That's a foolish idea and you should feel dumb for having it...it makes almost no sense for both companies to do that.
C'mon guys - you don't want to understand me. Windows mobile is far from being a windows7 in 1995. It's behind it's time if anything, even Steve Ballmer agrees with me here. And neither did I mean to say that Microsoft bribed anybody to get on the HTC HD2 - what I meant was that anybody can shine if they are in a fantastic environment. But it does not mean that they themselves are any good. And yet, that seems to be what the article is implying.
We understand you fine, in fact I said myself it was the crappiest smartphone OS.
What you don't understand is that you need to consider hardware as a part of the platform when looking at mobile phones. You can't install Android on a WinMo device like you can install Ubuntu on a computer. Until that time comes, the hardware needs to be considered. You could make the perfect OS, and then only make it available on a candybar with no touchscreen and numeric keypad, and it would be garbage.
Really that's the biggest complaint about WebOS right now...the keyboard on the Pre sucks, and the portrait slider isn't the greatest form factor in the world. And how many people bitch about the iPhone lacking a keyboard?
"The onscreen keyboard is an HTC design and I had no problems typing quickly and accurately...it does show what the OS is capable of in the right hands." The right hands being Michael's, of course.
I'd love the HD2, but the capacitive screen limits the kind of software I can run on it, as far as I understand. Too bad. OK, HTC, please bring out your stylus for capacitive screens!
You can buy a stylus for capacitive screens from ebay right now friend.
Try the Pogo Stylus or Pogo Sketch. You can get it for $10 and it's made specifically to work with cap touch screens.
I would be sincerely interested in this (coming from a TP2 and Pre) if it weren't so huge... The thing makes the Iphone look relatively small.... and that's saying something.
What I really want to see is a "Zune Phone". Same dimensions as the ZuneHD (which is amazing btw) but in a phone version.
Err, I think the draw of this particular phone is the it IS so huge. There are many smaller ones. If it is the capacitive screen part, then I'm sure you'll see any number of 2.8, 3.2, and 3.6 inch slates coming in the near future. In the meantime, I for one am VERY excited to have an option with a screen this size.
hi man, i have an iphone with a protector case, and belive it or not the iphone with the case and this htc have the same size.
I still want a keyboard. I don't care how fast you are on the virt keyboard. I can still run rings around most people thumbing it on a physical one. And as for the complains about wahhhh its to thick. Sorry I don't care if my phone is two CD Jewel cases thick instead of one. Its still pretty damn thin and frankly phones have started to become too small. My hands aren't troll sized however they aren't tiny either. I want something substantial in my hand when I'm talking and typing. My G1 doesn't really feel solid and substantial enough IMHO. This thing or the rumored HTC Dragon most defiantly would.
"I don't care how fast you are on the virt keyboard. I can still run rings around most people thumbing it on a physical one."
mobiletypingtest.com Prove it!
33 WPM, 1 typo on my TP2.
20-24 on my Palm Pre (did it like 6 times to get the range). Not a very fast mobile typist.
The little things they have you type are pretty funny.
first try got 26 wpm with 3rd party SOFTWARE keyboard (touchpal) on touch diamond.
42 wpm on an iphone 3G in landscape, who needs a physical keyboard?
I'm shocked at the level of honesty on this site. I'd personally enjoy a youtube video of M.'s 42 wpm (using real words and real grammar). It'd be a shining beacon on how fast people can virtualtype without errors. Or, it'd be yet another reason why fanboi's are so tiresome.
Here's a screenshot of mu second attempt, I used the double spacebar tap do end the line with dot but it recognised it as an error. Second attempt 38 wpm on an iPhone 3G + I'm no fanboy I just like my iPhone.
http://twitpic.com/kjpve
48WPM on TouchPro / Opera9.5 (Perfectly, 8 words in 10.022sec). Odd it didn't give me a chance to enter high score though.
I'd assume the biggest difference between the physical / nonphysical keyboards in terms of speed will come out when you have to drop in special characters. How long does it take you to type:
"I bought my phone for $400.00, then got a F$%&N $200 rebate!!!"
I'm guessing physical keyboards, especially the 5-row ones with your special characters all where you expect them to be and shift keys that act like they do on a regular computer are gonna win that one hands down, especially against the tap-and-hold special characters (HTC On-screen keyboards, for example)
Also, I can touch type on a physical keyboard. I don't care how much practice you have, you'll never touchtype on an onscreen keyboard, you'll always have to stare at your thumbs and give up screen real estate to type.
36wpm on i8910 virtual keyboard. Typing is really not hard on a big capacitive screen.
First try on my pre, one mistake ("bet" instead of "best") and I got 45 wpm.
After 5 few tries (with 3 of the tries being some totally weird BS going on where it would type the first letter in the field and then suddenly decided I wanted to do a google search on what I was typing) I got this. And ironically, yes that was the sentence it gave me.
http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/2402/browser20090610202947.png
50 wpm.
@ Ben
I don't know what you're talking about. i touch type on my iPhone all the time.
sure i make mistakes but with the correction software on the iPhone and how trained it is as to how i type, it corrects everything to exactly how i want it.
so you sir, are wrong.
Maybe this will shut all the android and rachel fanboys up.
Nope still wish it ran Android :-)
Well it won't. Eat it =D
But the Dragon will.
Glad to see WinMo 6.5 is a decent improvement over 6.1. I wasn't a fan of 6.1. This phone looks awesome.
I just realised where your picture is from.
+1
Well, we finally have someone spilling golden beans this time around.
That's a good thing.
Windows mobile is trash. It took a 1GHz processor and HEAVY skinning to replicate on Windows Mobile what has been possible for a few years now on the alternatives.
The TouchPro2 should have had a snapdragon processor in it too. Im currently using one from sprint but this whole fiasco with 6.5 and the perpetual delays with wm7 just is so depressing. I bought the TP2 because by this time next year sprint will get around to releasing the next generation devices which may or may not have WM7.. if they dont, im abandoning WM for android.. but even that doesnt fill my needs. I would like a device like the Zune HD as my phone.. please whats wrong with that??
You will never get Wmo 7 on a touch pro 2.
According to Conflipper a well known wmo haxor
For CDMA Users it is fail time!
"any CDMA device that we have right now WILL NOT support WM7.
Needs to be Snapdragon chipset, or OMAP V3 or V4, no Qualcom chipset that is 7xxx series. they will not work with it at all.
Will they get hacked to work. NO
What will be needed? Bootloader, Kernal, XIP, everythingl. So that TP2 that you just bought last week. It will not run WM7 at all. and 6.5 End of Life is in February. So you have 5 months of upgrades on your new device"
"HTC Leo, HTC Qilin, Asus Galaxy can all run WM7 right now, they have the proper stuff from the manufactures to run and support it."
Source: http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showpost.php?p=1177823&postcount=8007
http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showpost.php?p=1186192&postcount=19
No.
Nonononononononono.
We live in the world of iPhone OS, Android, webOS, and (occasionally) a Blackberry (Bold and Tour are some examples).
NOT WinMo. WinMo is way behind in the race, like.. really behind. You know the Tortoise and Hare? Well, WinMo is the Tortoise, but it doesn't win.
Hate me if you're a WinMo person, but an OS that doesn't even have an okay browser is just a no go.
"Well, WinMo is the Tortoise, but it doesn't win. "
Um, you don't really get the point of that story, now do you?
"but an OS that doesn't even have an okay browser is just a no go."
Skyfire. Ever heard of it?
Thought so.
I guess you've never heard of OPERA
Not even an okay browser? I think you need to get your facts straight before you bash an OS based on the browser that is built-in. Last I checked I could run IE, Opera, Skyfire, Fennec, and more on a windows mobile phone, each with their own pros and cons. Skyfire even lets me view sites with flash content *gasp*.
Compare that to the coveted iphone. You get the choice of Safari or umm oh wait, you don't get a choice. Well at least it's the best, right. I mean you can zoom into a page as much as you want and the text auto-wraps, right? Oh, it doesn't? Ok well at least you can view sites with flash content, right? No dice there either? Hmm...
Let's recap, "an OS that doesn't even have an okay browser is just a no go". On that basis alone, which OS is the loser again?
"Skyfire even lets me view sites with flash content *gasp*."
lol. Not just Flash. Java, AJAX, Silverlight, even Quicktime!
"You know the Tortoise and Hare? Well, WinMo is the Tortoise, but it doesn't win."
Actually, you know the phrase "A Bird in the Hand is worth Two in the Bush"? Well WinMo is like a bush, except it doesn't have any leaves, and it's the wrong colour for a bush. Also it's shaped completely different to a bush. Actually, it's not like a bush at all. Perhaps it's more like a banana split. But instead of a banana, it's an operating system, and instead of icecream and syrup, it's made my Microsoft. And it's not split either. Actually, your skill at making analogies is like putting a frog in a blender. You know you've got the right ingredients but you have no idea how to put them together.
Lol, I can watch justin.tv with skyfire. TV on the go ftw. Suck on that, Apple, you aint got nothing on WinMo. (besides a bunch of fart applications.)
I totally agree that WM has much more choices in terms of browser - but frankly, none of them compares to the Safari on iphone or Andriod - and I mean it. I have been a WM users for long years and tried all the available browsers with a great variety of WM phones(Omnia2 being the latest), and I never feel mobile Internet browsing is practical from a smart phone - until iphone. In my first monthly with iphone, I did more mobile Internet browsing than I did in the past 5 years. And Andriod also appears to be doing a good job.
So yes, iphone sucks as a PIM, much as WM sucks as a Internet browsing machine. For anyone in doube, I strongly recommend that you take a iphone/Andriod device for a spin. Might change your point of view.
Until Microsoft managed to fix Windows Mobile, I doubt any magical hardware would help the Internet browsing experiences.
This is my next phone (to retire my iPhone).
I played with the HTC Pure today at AT&T. While it was "OK", it in no way made me want to get rid of my Apple umbilical cord (which I want to do so very badly). The lack of a headphone jack without having a dongle was another deal breaker.
But its getting close and I agree, the HD2 is going to be a game changer. If they (Microsoft & HTC) can work this though gracefully and Windows Mobile 7 is everything we all hope it will be, then we've got a game on our hands, and a lot of people are going to jump ship on the almighty iPhone.
@jondo
yeah, and im sure your iphone can do so much more.
Never thought that I would see the day that Engadget posted positive reviews on WinMo. Finally ....
Did you see this bit at the end: "Views expressed here are his own."
It's interesting to see the haters/trolls bash WinMo. Competition is good, and leads to innovation. There are benefits and drawbacks to every device/software. STFU and learn to respect all of the choices we have/will have in the coming future. 10 years ago we had absolutely shit in the mobile domain. The under 30s are friggin spoiled!
Some mistakes can't be fixed because ignorant fools at some Fruit company I won't name believes simplicity is better than performance.
Why group 40 of them together when you can pick them apart one.. by one.. by one... then go back to the first and make sure you picked them apart properly, by one.. by one... multitasking. Who the hell needs it?
Wow, you are SUCH a fanboy. I pity you, just because YOU don't have it doesn't make it awesome. Looks at OSX, Windows, Linux, they ALL multitask, for what reason? Productivity. Soon this feature will be in ALL smartphones, it's inevitable...
So your point, Kamokazi, is that there are a lot of phones out there right now. However, I think there is something to be said for the fact that the OS is being "fast, smooth, and fluid" on a 1GHz processor (full disclosure: being an Anroidboy myself, I am of course jealous of any Snapdragon phone). But I do think one does have to make the distinction between OS and hardware - especially if the OS is NOT wed to the hardware, the phone ecosystem should only play a minor role in an article about the future of WinMobile as a whole. That's like me claiming to be an awesome football player because I bribe myself onto the Pittsburgh Steelers (or whatever other pro football team one may root for)...
Engadget, fix your video section and make so that we look for videos by name or something, nothing works there.
windows mobile is just slow has a snail, and ballmer is blind as a bat.
This is the shit Gartenberg is talking about. Quit being a short-sided douche..
I look at the big picture.
In today's world it's sales volume profit
Will this htc seriously have a shot to beat iPhone sales.
Hint to all cell manufacturers.
Masses will start to buy your smartphones once allow them to be docked.
Think about it most successful phone us the best musi player. Widescreen video iPod.
Iphne 3g $49 in USA.
So it's like this:
You would base the purchase of the product on sales and history. Which makes sense. If a product is selling good, it must be doing something good, and hey, masses of people want to write Microsoft off. But you would throw sensibility, features, positives out the window for something that other people want? Keeping up with the Jones' so to speak?
I look at it this way
If I'm getting my money's worth, if I could work and or upgrade it
If I'm paying for the reliability, and not the brand
If I can customize it in any way to better fit my experiences
Regardless of company history, if it provide EVERYTHING I would want
You should know what my decision will be..
no doubt virtual typed on your "Iphne." Not being an investor or software writer, my big picture is what phone will work best for me, based on where I live and my needs. I so do hope it's the top seller-I'd like to have the same cachet a driver of a 2009 Ford F-150 has.
Slap a physical keyboard on that bad boy and I'd shell out a fat lump of cash for it.
Wow that thing is sexyliscous
Is it me or does HTC come out with a phone every week? Can't they just make a few that have maybe the different form factors that people like (slider, all screen,) Then put all the nice hardware in these devices. They have all these slightly different phones with different carriers. Why not just have the same phone but one with CDMA and one with GMS to cut production costs? Then give the user the options of Andoid or WinMo(of course we can do that ourselves but make it an official choice) then you can manufacture about 8 phones instead of 20. Then you could afford to ditch that 500mghz processor that makes the hero i played with slower than dried dog doody!
I have used older versions of winmo and was never impressed, but this one looks like a winner, i hope it is not locked to one carrier, then it can have a chance of actually making it.
Is it me or does HTC come out with a phone every week?
Yes, but we hear about international releases as well as US releases. If we only heard about US releases, you wouldn't say that.
Can't they just make a few that have maybe the different form factors that people like
(slider, all screen,) HTC Touch Pro 2//HTC HD
Then put all the nice hardware in these devices.
Their hardware currently meets or beats almost everything in the market.
They have all these slightly different phones with different carriers. Why not just have the same phone but one with CDMA and one with GMS to cut production costs?
You mean like the Verizon Touch Pro and the AT&T Touch Pro?
Then give the user the options of Andoid or WinMo(of course we can do that ourselves but make it an official choice) then you can manufacture about 8 phones instead of 20.
Often exclusivity contracts prevent different OS's from going on the same phone. Again, they offer 20 phones because they serve A TON of different international providers.
Then you could afford to ditch that 500mghz processor that makes the hero i played with slower than dried dog doody!
Snapdragon JUST came out, do you think they wave a magic wand to make these things?
I have used older versions of winmo and was never impressed, but this one looks like a winner, i hope it is not locked to one carrier, then it can have a chance of actually making it.
Again - the Touch Diamond, Touch 2, Touch Pro and Touch Pro 2 came out on several major US, European and Asian providers. The Touch Pros are excellent phones.
I think I'm done here.
It's not you, and its not HTC either. What happens is every time an HTC phone comes to the states, its gets rebranded for every carrier it goes to. So my HTC Diamond's got like 10 different versions (seriously) and sometimes not only the OS changes but the design changes too depending on if its Sprint or AT&T.
Funny, my team and I decided to code for WinMo today because we didn't want to deal with the apple app store approval process. So this article is really good news for me and makes me quite happy.
Why couldn't the Touch Pro 2 have a 1GHz processor, 448MB of RAM, a 5MP Camera, and a capacitive touch screen? :( It would be really hard not to dump my iPhone for it. Though it's gonna be really hard not to dump it for this thing. I just wish the edges had a bit more curve to them and the buttons at the bottom were part of the screen like the Storm 2, or at least looked better. Why are the Windows and Back buttons merged together and not even in the middle? That just bothers me having one big button on the side, not matching the other side.
within 3 months, HD2 will get the hardware keyboard. defo!
Its funny that after all the doom and gloom articles about windows mobile, and the hype train of the iphone, windows mobile still has a larger marketshare. Wait until wm 7 comes out, then it's lights out crapple.
Aren't the minimum specs of Windows 7 Mobile at 1 gig for flash ram.
Memory: 256MB+ DRAM, 1G+ Flash
The HD2 has only 512 flash ram
WM7 Chassis 1 Specification
Core requirements:
Processor: ARM v6+, L2 Cache, VFP, Open GL ES 2.0 graphics HW (QCOM 8k, Nvidia AP15/16* and TI 3430 all meet spec)
Memory: 256MB+ DRAM, 1G+ Flash (at least 512MB fast flash – 5MB/s unbuffered read @4K block size)
Display: WVGA (800×480) or FWVGA (854×480) 3.5” or greater diagonal
Touch: Multi-touch required
Battery: Sufficient to meet Days of Use LTK requirements.
Controls: Start, Back, Send and End are required (soft controls allowed as long as they are always present).
Well.... I really want to purchase the touch pro 2 for verizon as my contract is up and it is time for an upgrade, at first I was going to wait for the Pre to come out but.... then I saw the TP2...it has gotten great reviews and I really want a smartphone with a great keyboard and essentially that's what the TP2 is with other features... is it really worth it to wait for a different phone such as the Motorola Sholes? Is windows mobile 6.5 to 7 going to be THAT drastic of a change... one waiting 5 monts or more for? 6.1 to 6.5 is nice but not world changing... no.... the phones OS really makes the difference IMO... I think I should go for the TP2...opinions?
I think going from 6.1 to 6.5 you wont notice too much especially with touchflo 3d 2.1 but the jump from 6.5 to 7 is going to be big, the TP2 will no be able to handle 7. You can get 6.5 on you phone really easily. I think you're probably already chomping at the bit to get a new phone so you might as well get the TP2 but I wouldn't pay the 350 that Sprint is asking, Also keep in mind that the Hero is coming out for sprint soon too.
OsoOto and Portugal are stop-on but have the lowest marks. A lot of people are drinking the Microsoft Koolaid! However, that same group must not be reading the news and keeping their ear to the ground. Microsoft is bleeding market share and this sad attempt at an upgrade is not going to help. I have been using Windows Mobile since before the phone was a part of the package and I still have to support the OS. It is sad at best and way behind "modern" smartphone OS's. Mark you calendar kids, Microsoft will continue to lose market share in spite of this and other updates to their tired OS! As if they matter any more anyway. Many of the wireless provides are choosing to reduce or eliminate the OS from their new lineup and that will continue in spite of Ballmer's efforts to buy their way in.
Bright side of this is that, even you who want to shoot yourself in the foot with this OS, you will have less of an opportunity to do so.
Joe
Wish it was android
As long as I can get █▓▒░ skype ░▒▓█ on it, i'm a happy camper!
this and SO many other WM phones sold in europe are so different [vs us offerings], so beautiful and high end, and yet most consumers will never hear of them. why? US carriers just hate subsidizing more than a few WM handsets, and usually just one or two per 'type'
Rubbish, Rubbish, Rubbish. We all know the crap microsoft slygs at us about how good their OS's really are. In fact, the're terrible!!
Why have HTC done a MW device, so they can't be labled as only subjective to cirtain markets, lebeling them dicriminatory of windows freaks.
I've had the horror of owning 2 winodws mobile devices, both of them were terrible compared to even symbian devices and now with android, It's gonna get hotter and hotter.
Yes, android has it's issues, mainly becuase of lack decent hardware. If this HD2 had gone the android way, i'm sure people all over would snap it up withut a doubt, me included.
HTC, Shame on you. And i thought you were staying loyal to android!!
"Shame on HTC?" They were mainly a WinMo shop at first. Why shame on them? They support WinMo AND Android. What more can you ask? You don't think they're working on a Snapdragon Android phone? It's coming. I'm willing to put money on it.
Look we can all agree that WinMo DRASTICALLY needs a refresh, which is being worked on. Heck, I hate(d) WinMo6 and very much wished for an Android phone (but wound up getting a Pre because the Sprint CEO said a few months ago that he was not a fan of Android so I figured Sprint wouldn't get Android for a long time, but then they announced the Hero like 3 months after I got my Pre. Sigh). But I say right now that I wouldn't mind getting the HD2 at all over Android or the Pre (or even the iPhone) if they were all offered on Sprint (or a carrier with decent coverage and decent prices).
The reason this phone is a "game changer" for WinMo is because people can actually SEE the potential for WinMo now. Before you knew your WinMo phones had a ceiling. They were resistive. They'd never be multitouch. They were unable to be upgraded past WinMo6. So there was a clear ceiling to ALL other WinMo phones. But this phone... this phone's potential is sky high.
Why are Android and webOS desirable at all? Potential. It's not what they have right this minute. What they both have now is nice and usable, but still lacking. But what they CAN be is... incredible. You see how they're progressing already and you can imagine... "wow, these can be great." The HD2 also has very clear potential to be great. ANY weaknesses it has compared to the iPhone or any other smart phone can easily (and probably will be) be wiped away with the coming of WinMo7. That's not something you can say about any other WinMo phone since they can't be upgraded to WM7. And the kicker is: while you wait for WinMo7 to solve all your frustrations, the phone is still a very nice, beautiful phone (which is important because who knows how WM7 is going to turn out or when it's going to be finished).
Oh, how the mighty have fallen!
Basically, what the article is saying is that we really shouldn't dismiss WinMo (as many of us have for the last couple years) because 6.5 has closed many of the feature gaps the iphone introduced 2+ years ago?! (and then only when the OS is "in the right hands")
Is this the battle cry of 6.5: "I can do what an iphone can!"
I certainly wouldn't call that a game-changer. I would call it a stop-gap. Which is what Ballmer called it. Which is what it is. Which is why he apologized.
The world's largest software company has spend the last couple of years playing catch-up (with vista to 7 and now with winmo 6.5). Being caught up is certainly better than being behind, but when you've been watching your market share decrease on all fronts, I'm sure MS is very eager to strike back. I'll give winmo 6.5 a curious glance in case it fall into "the right hands" and someone does something game-changing with it. Otherwise I'm pretty "eh" about the whole thing.
I eagerly await to see what winmo 7 will be like.
I still wants a stylus....does WM6.5 still have a graffiti option?
I hope my phone can play facebook's flash games, like "Happy Havest", "Pet Social" ... etc
Can HD2 do it? or can do it in near future (ie: until Flash 10.x relase for WinMo 6.5) ?
maybe one day we can see windows 7 in mobile edition for smartphones, combining art and technology ..just a simple idea, but who knows it might can happen someday?
I wonder if the author of this article has read this yet: http://newton.am/b
Probly not I reckon.
Grawl!x
I wouldn't buy this phone for the software, but I will for the hardware.
Windows ain't that bad on these types of phones, just download a better browser (like Skyfire) and a couple of other apps and it is quite useful. However, Microsoft is doing a shitty job at maintaining this OS (why do I almost never get any Windows updates on my HTC TyTN2?) and part of it is very old and little or no progress seems to have been made in years.
Anyway, I will buy a HD2, but if it supported Android I would likely buy at least two.
By the way, if it wasn't for HTC then I fear the platform would be close to extinct....
So basicly he is saying that WinMo is crap, but HTC makes good.
The thing is: I agree. HTC makes a genius job but HTC is NOT Windows Mobile. I would only buy a WinMo Phone if it was from HTC. But the truth is there are a whole of other manufactures that make Windows Mobile Phones and there are just crap.
Samsung + Windows Mobile = TouchWiz UI. TouchWiz is crap.
LG + Windows Mobile = S Class UI. S Class UI is crap.
ONLY HTC can make good and usable WinMo Phones.
HTC is the only reason why WinMo is still alive.
There is no future for WinMo.
first non pro-apple thread from entelligence?!
crazyy
Give to daddy.
I really wish these phone companies would get down to offering unlocked versions on their websites. I don't want to wait around to see if this is ever going to show up in the US. Just put it on the HTC site and lemme buy it already!