HTC Touch HD

Over the past few weeks, my colleague Matthew has been champing at the bit to get his hands on the new toy he’d ordered. It’s fair to say that despite his naturally reserved nature, he’s been as excited about it as I’d be if Sony Ericsson ever said to me, “Here, have a free X1 Xperia.” (I live in hope…)

Well, Matthew is now a happy bunny, because the HTC Touch HD he ordered from Mobiles.co.uk has arrived. And he is a very happy bunny indeed. Needless to say, the first thing I did when I saw him today was whinge at him until he gave in and let me have a play with it, since I’ve been waiting since it was announced to have a fiddle about with one.


But this isn’t a normal handset review, no sirree bobby. There are plenty of reviews of the HTC Touch HD out there that do that po-faced thing of describing all the features, and rationally looking at the benefits and merits of each individual component. This won’t be one of them.

It seems only fair to a mobile phone like the HTC Touch HD that I give you a rundown of how what I was actually thinking when I was fiddling about with it. And I won’t beat about the bush, I’ll tell you exactly what I think of the HTC Touch HD in one sentence:

Sweet lord jeebus, this thing is incredible!

Seriously, I expected it to be nice, but blimey, it even blew me away. Everything about it just oozes quality, and despite what some people are saying about Windows Mobile being rubbish and slow, and despite what some people have said about TouchFLO 3D not being a good interface, I can categorically state that they’re wrong. The HTC Touch HD is silky smooth to use, and thanks to that massive (in the flesh, it really is scarily big) screen, even standard Windows Mobile options are finger-pressable, so that you very rarely, if ever, have to resort to yanking the stylus out.

So, yes, I genuinely can’t see what people are on about when they say there are flaws with the interface. The HTC Touch HD is easily one of the nicest mobile phones I’ve ever had the honour of playing with. It does have some flaws, such as no flash on the camera, and the lack of a physical keyboard (although, it has to be said, I was shocked how easy to use the onscreen keyboard is), as well as the fact that the accelerometer doesn’t make the screen flip over on its side in the menus (which would’ve been nice), but in all honesty, the HTC Touch HD is simply one of the best mobile phones I’ve ever tried out, despite those. I still want the X1 Xperia (because I’m a Sony junkie), but crikey, this thing so very nearly made me change my mind…

Oh, and now that Matthew’s got his HTC Touch HD (from Mobiles.co.uk, seriously, they've got some cracking deals on it), then we have a treat on its way for you. I shall be playing with the HTC Touch HD this afternoon, and blagging Dan’s iPhone 3G off him, so later in the week, expect a proper, full-on, head-to-head shoot-out between these two touchscreen giants. And believe me, since they’re so evenly matched, this is going to be one hell of a fight.