Official HTC Thread Vol. Scribe, Thunderbolt 4G, Evo Shift 4G, Inspire 4G for AT&T

All I'm asking for AT&T is a damn US release date for the Desire and Legend. I can't deal with this BB 8310 any longer!
 
[h1]Release Date and Prices for HTC HD Mini, Desire, and Legend[/h1]
File under: News

By: Brandon Miniman | Date: 7-Mar-10 | 9 Comments

you.jpg

HTC's trio of new devices (that's the Legend and Desire on Android and the HD Mini on WinMo 6.5.3) will be available for sale in about a month. Our friends at Clove have all devices listed as shipping out on April 7. For our US readers, these devices won't do 3G in the US in this first round of release. It's likely that we'll see some of these deices come to the US (namely the Legend and HD Mini) later this year. You can preorder them now, and here are the prices converted to USD:

HD Mini: £284 ($430)
Legend: £329 ($498)
Desire: £339 ($513)
 
I WANT!
[h1]HTC Legend Review: Frankly, It Feels Expensive[/h1]
500x_legend-lead_01.jpg
With HTC's upcoming crop of Androids, you'll be able to separate people into two distinct groups: those who spring for the brainier, better-specced Desire, and those who get bowled over by the beautiful, yet lesser-specced Legend.

The Desire (or Nexus One) is the final word in the Androidsphere—it's a mark of someone who knows what they're doing, who wants to show people they NEED that extra computing power. If you compare it to the Legend, you could be justified in saying Legend-salivators are more shallow, ignoring the might of a Snapdragon processor in lieu of a unibody aluminum shell and slim build.

You'd be wrong, however.
[h1]I Mean, It Is Just a Sequel[/h1]
The internal upgrades are minor, when you consider it next to the HTC Hero, but like the Empire That Strikes Back, sometimes sequels are far better than the original. While we found the Hero "tragically flawed" in its slugginess, the Legend's slightly more powerful 600MHz processor behaved—well, like a legend. The 3.2-inch screen has the same amount of pixels as the Hero, but swaps the HVGA for a more superior AMOLED. The 5.0-megapixel camera is still the same quality, but has the much-welcomed addition of a flash. You get the picture—the Legend is building on the Hero's quality in incremental upgrades, but every change, however minor, radicalizes the experience of using the Legend.

It's running Android 2.1, which as any Hero owner knows should be released as an over-the-air update soon. One day. The jump from 1.6 to 2.1 is impressive—it's a lot faster, the multitouch is better, there's greater integration of social networking profiles with contacts, and HTML5 support, amongst other—admittedly small—changes.
[h2]Design Works[/h2]
Plain and simple—the Legend is the most well-built phone I've ever had in my hand. You just know when you feel the weight of it, the cool curved exterior of the unibody aluminum shell, and touch the ultra-responsive touchscreen. It's that sensation when you first tenderly held the original iPhone, which has been long-missing in the market.

The bottom and top of the back is actually made from rubberized plastic though, so there are no issues with wireless signals—unlike the first generation of the iPhone. Removing part of the case reveals a very thin battery and a touch-sensitive catch which keeps the SIM and microSD cards encased. It's a small point, but it's also the most polished example of a phone's innards that I've ever seen.

500x_legend-backcover2_01.jpg


Just like BlackBerry, HTC is migrating its trackballs to optical trackpads. This is a relief, but in actual fact I barely had to use the trackpad—only when having to make an edit when typing out messages or emails. The screen is just so responsive, with nary a wrongly-actioned command made, that you can imagine HTC forgoing the trackpad altogether at a later date.

500x_legend-optical-trackpad_01.jpg


Only eight buttons reside on the Legend's body. The on/off button up top, the two volume controls on the top left, and then on the lower face, home, menu, back and search. They all worked well, though the home, menu, back and search keys did feel a bit cheap in comparison to the high-end feeling of the rest of the handset.
[h2]Same Old Camera?[/h2]
HTC's used the same 5.0-megapixel camera as we saw on the Hero, but the addition of a flash is a new and exciting step for them—strange as that sounds. As you can see from the two photos below, the flash is very strong—too strong, I'd say. However, the quality is decent in lowlight conditions—noisy for sure, but I've seen worse.

500x_camera-3d-glasses.jpg

Lowlight in a cinema before Alice In Wonderland 3D

In daytime I had a lot more luck. Testing it out on some cakes in my kitchen in the late afternoon sun retained the nice rays of sun across the cakes, with the yellow of the flowers showing up bright. But even at 5MP, the general image performance isn't enough to ditch your point and shoot just yet.

500x_camera-kitchen-vertical.jpg

Testing indoors with daylight

500x_legend-camera-on_01.jpg

[h2]More Sense Than HTC Sense[/h2]
Most manufacturers are skinning Android with their own proprietary interfaces...MOTOBLUR, Mediascape, S-Class, they're ok, but I'd almost rather use Android in its natural flavor than have to put up with some of their issues.

There just ain't no Android phone like a HTC Sense Android phone. It's simply the best skin an Android could ask for, even without the minor improvements seen in the Legend. By far the pick of the bunch is the new "Leap" view—or "Helicopter view" as it was known in-house when designed. It works much like Mac OS X's Exposé function, bringing all seven homescreens up as thumbnails. The feature is very useful, particularly if you just can't remember which screen your mail, or the weather widget, is listed on. The pinch command takes some getting used to, but once you've got the gesture down-pat, it's a godsend.

500x_legend-helicopter_01.jpg

Leap—or helicopter—view

But with ever feature that will be used often comes one with no point at all. FriendStream is a nice enough widget, which collates all your friends' updates from Twitter, Facebook and Flickr into one feed, but for anyone who's a purist and likes to see every form of update on each social networking site, it will be removed quickly from the homescreen. I preferred using HTC's own brilliant Twitter widget, Peep, for the full Twitter options, and the Facebook app to see every form of action. The Flickr integration is handy, being able to see when my contacts upload photos, but not necessary if you get email notifications already.

Plus, FriendStream just felt slow sometimes—in fact, on a very speedy phone, it felt incongruous in comparison to everything else, often updating with tweets quite a few minutes later than the Twitter widget did. It's not a big problem, but for someone who relies on Twitter heavily as a source of entertainment, it became a source of frustration.

500x_legend-friendstream_01.jpg

FriendStream
[h2]Respectable Battery Life[/h2]
The Legend ran 36 hours before it died on me. Not too bad, considering I had an hour-long call plus about five shorter ones, sent and received around 20 text messages, and spent almost a whole day browsing the web, checking Twitter, and showing it off to my friends. After the horror of seeing my G1's battery deplete in half a day when I first bought it, the Legend's 1300mAh battery ran to my satisfaction.
[h2]The Legend Is The Most Solid Android Phone I've Used[/h2]
True, other phones may be better specced, but with that premium build it's like comparing a Sony Vaio (not a bad laptop, sure) to a MacBook. Sometimes there's just no contest. While the extra horsepower and added touches of the Nexus One and Desire are nice, I found the Legend more than satisfactory.

It wasn't sluggish, certainly didn't have bugs or issues like the G1 and Hero, and while it'll inevitably slow down and have you cursing the fact you didn't spring for something with a Snapdragon chip, I'm going to award it possibly the highest accolade a reviewer can gift a device: I'm going to upgrade to one.

It's not the best Android phone. That badge still belongs to the Nexus One, or possibly the Desire, when we review it. But it's one of the best all-rounders, when you consider the hardware—and the feeling you're left with once it leaves your hand. I feel bereft without it.

gizplus.jpg
Superb hardware quality

gizplus.jpg
HTC Sense is better than ever

gizplus.jpg
Addition of camera flash

gizplus.jpg
Super-fast and responsive


gizminus.jpg
FriendStream could be faster

gizminus.jpg
Camera flash isn't perfect

The HTC Legend hasn't been announced for the US market yet, with the European launch sometime this month.

[h3]http://gizmodo.com/5488018/htc-legend-gallery/gallery/[/h3]

 
Originally Posted by holdenmichael

That's your lock screen (6.5 slide to unlock lock screen, not "old school") and programs list background.

What version of Windows Mobile are you running (6.1, 6.5, 6.5.3)? I'm not even sure that it makes a difference. I always remember seeing a setting on the settings tab to change my wallpaper.

Are you running a custom ROM? Again, I don't know that it should make a difference.

Maybe it's the version of TouchFlo3D you're running. I'm currently using Manila 2.1 (.19203317.0).

To find out Settings Tab > All Settings > Device Information > Software Information.
I'm using the stock rom that came with the Tilt 2. I haven't changed anything. Don't know how to do the custom ROM thing but I wanna learn. It says ROM version 1.59.502.3 (67150) WWE  Is there a way to update that? BTW, using Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional..
 
quick question. is there gonna be a qwerty one for tmo and on android os soon? my g1 is crapping out on me always force closing and battery life sucks.
 
Originally Posted by dont be a menace

quick question. is there gonna be a qwerty one for tmo and on android os soon? my g1 is crapping out on me always force closing and battery life sucks.

Not sure when but eventually.
 
Originally Posted by Chico Cummings

Originally Posted by holdenmichael

That's your lock screen (6.5 slide to unlock lock screen, not "old school") and programs list background.
I'm using the stock rom that came with the Tilt 2. I haven't changed anything. Don't know how to do the custom ROM thing but I wanna learn. It says ROM version 1.59.502.3 (67150) WWE  Is there a way to update that? BTW, using Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional..
This what I have on my Settings Tab:

80a256358d68c32e74206b87b88dab2efb95e90.jpg


Do you not have the Wallpaper setting that you see above?

What do you see when you select 'All Settings' at the lower left?  Do you see a 'Personal' tab?  If so, you may find the option to change your home tab's wallpaper there.
 
Nah, my screen looks like this. It would look like yours with TouchFlo3d turned off I think...


45d15ce74de06744ec6ed82dc1c0204f75d175b.jpg


After I go to settings...

9e92550ea449fe986f14d3f0117087d6e651d8a.jpg


The wallpaper you see above is what I wanna put on my home screen but it still stays to this pic for some reason...

f9835a7ae17b4916e1e46ddf46e61d5b456913e.jpg

 
Originally Posted by Chungsta

WP7 ON HTC HD2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Victorious.
I thought the same thing too but it looks like a theme someone made, not the actual W7.
 
GOD IM ABOUT TO THROW THIS TP2 OUT THE $$%%#+% WINDOW!

SAME @*!$, NEW PHONE.

I HATE HTC AND WINDOW PHONES!!!


I NEED A $$%%#+% DROID NOW!!!


sorry had to vent..



before i post this @#%+#@ tp2 on ebay.... any ROM suggestions i can try...
 
Yo...

Lost my TP1 on Friday at work...

Thought that I was going to get lucky and Asurion would replace it with a TP2...

Guess not...

Thinking about just selling this TP1 and using the money and some to just go ahead and get a TP2...

But...

After seeing memphisboi's post I'm beginning to reconsider and hold off until something better comes along because I remember people saying that the TP2 is the same thing as TP1, but they just put it together differently or something...

I need a phone with QWERTY though so!
 
TP and TP2 have similar specs but they are just put together differently.
Reconsider getting a Droid, VZW is dropping newer androids soon, Nexus One should be out this month.
 
Nah, my screen looks like this. It would look like yours with TouchFlo3d turned off I think...
Nope.  That's TouchFlo3D you see there.  Note the slider at the bottom.

Just swipe your screen from left to right once or twice and you should see the same settings tab.  You can also place your finger on the home icon and slide it to the right to get to the settings tab.

The "Settings" icon you see and posted a screen shot of is Windows Mobile 6.5 settings on the 6.5 Start Menu.


^^^^how do i get my phone to look like that??
Like what?


before i post this @#%+#@ tp2 on ebay.... any ROM suggestions i can try...
Well, what are your complaints about it?


Thinking about just selling this TP1 and using the money and some to just go ahead and get a TP2...

But...
Depends on how much you'd wing up paying for a TP2 and whether or not you'd be using your upgrade eligibility.  Aren't you on SERO too?  If you're on SERO and you don't spend much more than $100-150, this is the only option.
 
Originally Posted by Chico Cummings

Nah, my screen looks like this. It would look like yours with TouchFlo3d turned off I think...


45d15ce74de06744ec6ed82dc1c0204f75d175b.jpg


After I go to settings...

9e92550ea449fe986f14d3f0117087d6e651d8a.jpg


The wallpaper you see above is what I wanna put on my home screen but it still stays to this pic for some reason...

f9835a7ae17b4916e1e46ddf46e61d5b456913e.jpg



like this. i have a sprint tp2 unlocked for tmobile
 
[h4]HTC Legend review[/h4]
By Richard Lai posted Mar 10th 2010 1:20PM

Review

post_icon_photo.gif


post_icon_video.gif


htclegendhed03082010-1268065280.jpg

After four three flavors of the HTC Hero, the Taiwanese mobile giant has finally brought back the chin with an additional lick of aluminum and a similarly quirky name -- the Legend. If this alone isn't of much interest to you yet, just bear in mind that this is HTC's first Android 2.1 device with Sense UI. It didn't take much for us to fall in love with this Android phone at MWC -- HTC convinced us of its unibody toughness by banging it against the wall, and needless to say, the vibrant AMOLED screen caught our eyes, too. However, there are still some questions to be answered before we can decide whether the Legend lives up to its name, especially on battery life, wireless reception, camera quality and software performance. Unless there have been major tweaks, we'll try not to bore you with features already seen on the Hero -- so please, won't you join us?

HTC Legend review











[h6]Features and build quality[/h6]
Those who've used the Hero for some time will spot many similarities on the slimmer Legend. The phone's general anatomy on the front and sides remains unchanged, except for the keys below the screen -- the Search and Back buttons have pushed the entire row to the left, thus killing the pick-up-call key and flicking the power button to the top of the phone (near the 3.5mm headphone jack). Naturally, some may miss the ability to jump straight to the dialer, and the keys' occasional stickiness on our unit don't help, either, although this might be an isolated issue. The volume buttons -- now in the form of a thin silver bar that sticks out slightly -- have been moved up from the slope underneath to the straight side, making them more reachable and less prone to accidental presses. On the contrary, we found the new earpiece to be a tad higher than where we'd like it to be, so we often had to deliberately hold the phone lower on our ear to hear the call. The speaker on the back was amazingly loud, so good thing that we can quickly mute the ringer by placing the Legend face down (courtesy of the G-sensor, of course).


htclegendhed203082010.jpg

Now, we can't speak on behalf of everyone here regarding the trackball being replaced by an optical trackpad -- in the long run, yes, the latter should in theory last much longer than the trackball, but there's no doubt that some prefer stroking the little ball to the trackpad that provides no tactile feedback. We lived happily with both, anyway, although the flat trackpad button was easier to push. Like the Nexus One, the connector below is now a micro-USB port instead of ExtUSB as found on the Hero -- welcome to the party, HTC!

Moving on to the backside: due to the aluminum unibody construction, we no longer have a big battery cover that required some skillful hands and long nails to pry open on the Hero; instead, we access the battery, SIM card and microSDHC card (spring-loaded slot) under a smaller rubber cover at bottom, while the camera, LED flash and speaker near the top are padded with some rubber. Here's an advanced warning, though: the battery cover is actually part of the cellular radio antenna, so removing it while your phone's still on means you'll be temporarily out of reach. Obviously, letting the kids or the dogs get near your rubber cover may render your Legend useless. Flipping open the inner cover underneath will also loosen the battery thus killing the power. Naturally, this slide-in design for the battery bay means third-party manufacturers will struggle to produce batteries of larger capacity. As for the general feel of the Legend's metallic body, it wasn't as slippery as we had initially expected, but understandably the Hero's back has better grip and provides a warmer touch.


htclegendhed503082010.jpg

[h6]Software[/h6]
As we've seen at MWC, HTC's made some pretty neat changes to the Sense UI for Android 2.1, and we're not just talking about those fancy colors and icons. First is the handy Leap feature that lets you view all seven homescreens in one go (similar idea to the XPERIA X1's panel interface), and this can be triggered by pinch-zooming any of the homescreens or by pressing the Home button when you're on the main screen. Leap's been responding pretty well all this time with both input methods, but we've noticed that the panels are actually just stills of each homescreen as last viewed -- it would be nice if HTC can make them all live, or at least auto-update the panels every now and then. Next up is Friend Stream -- an aggregator app (with widget) essentially for stalking people by the means of Facebook statuses, Flickr and Twitter (which launches Peep when you click on a tweet). While this isn't exactly a breakthrough feature -- Motoblur already does this with its Happenings app -- it's no doubt a welcomed addition to HTC fans.


htclegendhed403082010.jpg

A more useful update is the text highlighting tool -- on the Hero we've had to guess where we were highlighting due to the lack of a magnifying glass and start-end pointers, but thankfully HTC's figured that one out and stuck both features onto the Legend, and garnishing them with a small shortcut bar for copying, searching and sharing. On a similar subject, the keyboard is still as usable as the one found on the Hero -- we didn't notice any changes. Another tweak that deserves massive props is the menu for widgets and shortcuts, where you can now dive straight into the Program list instead of having to go into Shortcut first, and additionally, "HTC Widget" and "Android Widget" are now united under "Widget." Someone in HTC's office deserves a big hug and some chocolate for these fixes, but there are bonus candies if they can also fix Adobe Flash on the Legend -- the videos that we managed to play came out with pretty low frame rates (and needless to say games were not playable at all, if anyone cares), so we'll have to make do with YouTube and our own videos (3GP, 3G2, MP4 and WMV supported) for now.


htclegendhed603082010.jpg


The Legend spoils us with way more choices than the Hero did when it comes to audio entertainment -- not only does it support a wider range of formats (AAC, AMR, OGG, M4A, MID, MP3, WAV and WMA), but HTC's also thrown in FM radio along with a nicely designed app that auto-scans for channels upon first boot. Like other phones, you'll need a wired pair of headphones for the FM reception, although HTC ran out of handsfree headsets so your guess is as good as ours regarding their headphones' audio quality (and yes, the pair pictured above are our own Sony earphones). We never got around to testing the stereo Bluetooth feature on the Legend, but we'd be surprised if it's buggy at this stage.

[h6]General performance[/h6]
Even though the Legend (Qualcomm MSM7227 at 600MHz) is clocked at just 72MHz more than the Hero (MSM7200A at 528MHz), we thought it'd be interesting to compare boot-up times, and behold: the Legend only needed about 20 seconds, whereas the Hero took almost twice as long. Nice work, Qualcomm! We then decided to test the Legend's battery and camera by treating it to a rare sunny trip around London. As fun as it sounds, the reflective nature of the AMOLED screen meant we had to keep web surfing to the minimal while out in the open -- perhaps some Super AMOLED could fix this.


htclegendhed703082010.jpg

The Legend was our main phone throughout our five-day trial with it, and each day we listened to music pretty much non-stop (plus a bit of FM radio every so often), took the occasional photos and videos, and stayed connected to the web via 3G (with Google Mail notifications and a Twitter app's automatic update enabled). After all that, the 1,300mAh battery lasted us for around six hours only -- definitely not enough for those on a constant move or even the average gadget consumer these days, and other reviewers have reported similar battery issues. This is pretty much the major drawback on the Legend, and we hope HTC will have a solution for this -- a software fix or even bundling a spare battery will keep us happy. Other than that, we were pretty happy with how the Legend had managed to stay snappy most of the time, and more importantly, call quality was good on both ends even when used on the busy London roads.

We've also spent a few nights with the Legend in bed. First thing we noticed was that with the brightness turned down to minimal level, the AMOLED screen was suddenly given a brown tint and some noise pixels. Again, this could be just the general disadvantage of AMOLED that could be fixed by coping with one or two brightness levels up. A more pressing matter that we discovered on the Legend was the weaker WiFi (802.11 b/g) reception compared to the Hero and many other phones -- in the same spot, the Hero managed two bars while the Legend struggled with one or none at all, which ruined our bedtime web surfing routine. That said, there's always the good old 3G if you're on an unlimited data plan.


htclegendhed303082010.jpg

[h6]Camera[/h6]
It isn't a nice thing to say, but we do have just a bit more hate than love for the Legend's camera. The 5 megapixel pictures taken during the day turned out pretty good, but night shots were hard to focus and some were terribly noisy -- it's what you get with small sensors anyway so we'll leave it there. However, the 640 x 480 videos were just choppy in general, and they became much worse when filmed in the dark. We've seen better filming performance on other smartphones so there's clearly some work to be done. To cheer things up a bit, the LED flash may be small but it did its job well with objects within two meters. You can see all the camera's good and bad below.

Video filmed during the day:


Video filmed at night:


HTC Legend -- camera photos











[h6]Wrap-up[/h6]
It's safe to say that HTC's broken yet another mold with the Legend, stunning the world with both its hardware and software design. There's no question about the unibody's toughness, and many other features we've seen here are of significant improvements over the Hero, namely the AMOLED screen (in general), FM radio, optical trackpad (debatable), still camera and the new goodies plus performance boost in Sense UI. Sure, there are major flaws in the battery life and video recording performance, but the positive mind in us are hoping that these can be fixed via a software upgrade, if they weren't of hardware glitches. Some may have hoped for some 720p video capture capability, but hey, isn't that what the Desire's for? We hope so. Anyway, we'll know which one's of the best value when both phones are available in European shops.
http://www.engadget.com/2...03/10/htc-legend-review/
 
like this. i have a sprint tp2 unlocked for tmobile


Well, you can change the wallpaper on your lock screen and start menu by:

Start (or flag) > Settings > Home > tap "Use this picture as the background" > Browse > find your image

or

Start > Pictures & Videos > find your picture > Menu > Set as Home Background


You can change the wallpaper on your home tab by sliding over to the Settings Tab.
 
[h4]HTC Incredible out in the wild once more, Verizon color scheme alive and well[/h4]
By Chris Ziegler posted Mar 11th 2010 1:41PM


Android Forums is alight today with fresh HTC Incredible chatter -- a phone every Android fan on Verizon is desperately waiting for -- and we've managed to glean a few more pictures and possible specs out of the mess. It looks like we can expect a half gig of RAM with about 320MB available (roughly the same as what you find on the Nexus One) and an 8 megapixel cam, but interestingly, the phone's Snapdragon core is apparently underclocked to 768MHz, almost certainly a battery-saving measure on HTC's part; fortunately, the Sense-powered Android 2.1 firmware is still said to be "blazing fast." It measures 117.5 x 58.5 x 11.9mm -- just a hair narrower, shorter, and thicker than its Nexus One doppelganger, small enough of a difference so that we think it'll be virtually indistinguishable in person. As shots go, we're seeing now that HTC has moved from the brightly-colored glossy shell to a soft-touch black one while keeping the strange contours; we think there's at least a chance that this is final ID, too, since the Verizon logo is silkscreened at the bottom. Inside, the entire thing (including the battery itself) is a shockingly loud shade of red, mirroring an odd design trend first seen on the HD mini. We definitely dig it. If the stats over on the forum hold up, the Incredible's on track for a launch in April or May, so it's still a few weeks off -- in the meanwhile, we encourage you to check out more of the new shots after the break.

[Thanks, Matt and EBBY]


htc-incredible-itw-0311-3.jpg

htc-incredible-itw-0311-2.jpg

htc-incredible-itw-0311-4.jpg


[table][tr][td]
post_label_source.gif
Android Forums
[/td][/tr][/table]

121

post_icon_comment_tail.gif


Leave A Comment

Facebook

Digg

Google Buzz

Twitter
 
Im slowly falling in love with the HD2........i also like the price of $199.99 instead of $300 plus like it was for the tp2.

Ill see how much i can sell my g1 for on ebay........also gonna sell my girls broken g1 on ebay and see how much i can get for it.
 
I called Tmobile and the lady told me my 2 year contracted ended on Feb 20th and I'm eligible for up to 75% off discount on the HD2 since I've been with them since 2003. I'm sooo tired of my damn iPhone, I hate it. 12 more days.
 
Back
Top Bottom