Gadgetory

welcome back to part 2 of the ht2 review let's continue where we left off so the internet tab is also very functional under the browser icon you can find new finger-friendly Quick Links lots where you can add links to your favorite sites loading times on the Opera Mobile have been cut down by a little but browsing speed has been given a significant boost you can now scroll down the page with good haste with barely no lag and the hardware can now better keep up with all the content that's being streamed in the multi-touch feature can now be used for zooming in it's pretty basic stuff if you've ever seen an iPhone used soo mning in works well and with good speed and as you can see the massive hirez big screen makes web browsing that much better thanks to the 4.3 inch screen you barely ever need to zoom in and even the smallest of fonts are nice and readable screen rotation on the web pages is also very fast and the browser scales the pages appropriately Opera Mobile may still have some ways to go but the browsing experience on the HT - thanks to the big screen and speed is probably the best I've experienced on the mobile device the calendar tab is pretty much the same as on previous iterations but this time around you're not taking to the windows mobile interface when you fill out your calendar info you actually stay in HTC's custom user interface which is a nice touch the stocks tab is still a slightly depressing place to hang out the economy is still in the dumps but the stocks application itself is pretty good the photos and videos tab is almost unchanged from that full 3d but as you can see everything works a lot faster the screen rotation animation is pretty slick and the pictures themselves look excellent on the big high-res screen the HT 2 only supports 65,000 colors but if it looks this good not much more is needed and the multi-touch also works nicely when zooming in and out of photos the HT 2 has a 5 megapixel camera which takes pretty decent pictures it's not the best camera I've seen but it takes good pictures in high light situations and the dual LED flash on the back helps in low-light situations it won't do any miracles in big spaces but when you're taking pictures of close-up objects the dual LED flash does a good job I did get a pinkish tint on some of the photos I took but I heard a software update for this issue is on the way the camera may not be able to compete against dedicated cameras but for a mobile device it's very sufficient video quality is a bit mediocre but I personally never use my phone to record videos so that's not an issue for me the music tab has gone through some minor modifications but nothing drastic but again it simply works much faster than on earlier hardware the external speaker on the device is pretty small it can produce a high volume but quality isn't that great compared to for example the touch booth has forced more robust speaker set the headset included with the device plugs into the 3.5 millimeter headphone jack and the headset is not bad it has a nice dynamic range and it produces a sufficient amount of volume the weather tab has been given a graphical update and the animations are gorgeous you can add several occasions or you can adjust the phone to find weather info for your current location on the bottom of the tab you can see the weather forecast for several upcoming days as well alrighty to the new stuff it's great to see that HTC has noticed the importance of social media and networks the Twitter tab is a simple Twitter application that looks good and actually works very well tapping on a tweet will bring up new tabs with basic twittering or if you prefer tweeting functions you could reply or send direct messages and add favorites let's create a quick tweet to see how it works the meaning of this tweet will be revealed to you and there it is fast and easy tweeting off your phone the Twitter app works as a great addition to the interface included on the device are also a Facebook app and a YouTube app the footprints tab uses geo-tagging to stamp your pictures to a time in place using the built in GPS and it's actually a pretty cool feature especially if you suffer from short-term memory loss and speaking of GPS the device comes with a 15 day trial of the copilot navigation software I took to the road and tested out how it works in previous videos I've used TomTom navigation software which has been an ok navigation app excluding some minor bucks the copilot software worked without a hitch the GPS signal was constant and strong I never lost a signal and the software got me where I was going and if you thought my voice was robotic listen to this that's finished by the way copilot has a very simplified user interface that works great with a big capacitive screen and I can definitely recommend copilot as the navigation software and the hd2 as a navigation device ok before we get into the tests and benchmarks I'll quickly run you through the windows mobile 6.5 Start menu where you can access the majority of your programs the new windows mobile interface is actually pretty sweet it runs very smoothly in the icons are very finger friendly and accessing programs is very fast the device comes with office mobile and some other very useful applications new to windows mobile 6.5 is the marketplace that gives you fast access to software and entertainment some of the apps may be a bit overpriced in my opinion but there's a lot of interesting apps and content with reasonable pricing as well windows mobile 6.5 is definitely a step in the right direction it's no longer an eyesore and functionality is vastly improved alrighty time to put the hd2 through some tests first up is multitasking I'm gonna fire up a dozen programs in the background and see how it affects performance oK we've taken up most of the 448 megabytes of memory and as you can see the performance of the device is still smooth there are some slight signs of slowdown but I'm very impressed at how the hd2 handles multiple programs running in the background next up is gaming and I'll be running a game called extra as a gamer the gaming department is something I feel has been a bit lacking on the window mobile device arena but in a way I'm thankful because I'm not entirely sure that the mobile gaming we see for example on the iPhone is beneficial to the gaming industry in the long run a majority of the games on the iPhone are a step backwards into substandard novelty and if that's the quality the new generation of gamers come to expect as to quality they're gonna keep on getting but I do realize the mobile games aren't supposed to compete against their ps3 and xbox360 counterparts they're supposed to compete with boredom anyways as you can see the hc2 is running this game at is very stable framerate and the capacitive touch screen seems to work great there may not be a lot of new games coming on the windows mobile platform but you guys know that with a few emulators you can run your favorite LucasArts classics on your windows mobile device last but not least let's check out how the HT 2 can handle a few common video codecs at different bit rates I'll be using core player 1.3 2 which can be purchased online as the benchmark video i'll be using captured game footage from the God of War 3 which is extremely demanding because of its fast pace so it's an excellent video for benchmark I ran the video at 5 different bit rates and two different formats and the HT 2 fared extremely well I ran the same video as a comparison on the touch pro2 with older hardware and as you can see the new hardware makes all the difference the HC 2 is capable of handling bit rates up to 10 megabytes per second without skipping a beat I am very impressed by video playback performance and it's going to be tough to go back to my old touch pro2 after seeing the HT 2 in action because unfortunately they aren't letting me keep this review copy in conclusion the HC 2 brings much needed speed and fluidity to the windows mobile experience external features and build quality are excellent only a slight - for the awkwardly shaped camera lens the Sense UI is not a revolution it's more of an update and renaming of custom 3d and because I considered the old touchable 3d to be the best custom UI on the Windows Mobile operating system the Sense UI only strengthens that position the ideology behind sense with its tight integration with social media will be appreciated by users across globe and what better a flagship for the new interface and HD 2 LP from TechnoBuffalo signing up you