People who get overly excited about mobile phones annoy me.
Maybe it’s because I don’t like iPhones. Maybe it’s because I’m a hardcore Blackberry user. Or maybe it’s just because I don’t find phones nearly as exciting as swish laptops or pocket-sized HD video cameras.
Or maybe it’s because I’d never used a HTC handset before now.
I’ve used a handful of Droid phones, including the Motorola Dext and Milestone. I’ve been impressed with both handsets and seen why people get aroused even the softest whisper of Androids. (Sweet, sweet Androids.) However, I never was willing to recommend that someone who is as dependent on email as I am branch out and get one.
But after using an HTC Legend for just three days, I am in love. LOVE I TELL YOU.
I could hold my HTC Legend for hours. It sleeps next to me, gently charging, every night. It goes with me wherever I go. I’m starting to think my Blackberry suspects something, but I tell it not to worry. Nothing can replace its superior email capabilities.
However, my HTC Legend is approximately 10 times more fun than my Blackberry Curve 8900.
Obviously, this is for a handful of reasons. The first being my Curve is over a year old, and I’m patiently awaiting my upgrade so I can get my mitts on the new, white Bold 9700. The next being that as T-mobile doesn’t support EDGE, so I’m stuck on GPRS, which means using Ubertwitter and Web ‘n Walk is so slow, I might as well be using dial-up.
So, the HTC Legend has an unfair advantage on my current phone. But that’s not its fault now is it?
I know the Internet is currently freaking out over the new HTC Wildfire and even the HTC Desire, still. So I can understand if you’re a hardcore mobile geek, you might think me swooning over an “old” phone might seem a bit stupid.
But, to the regular masses of people who don’t go out and purchase a new handset the minute it goes on sale, the Legend is probably still something of a mystery.
Why it’s Awesome
This phone is, basically, awesome.
To get the techy stuff out of the way, it has multitouch, built-in GPS, a 5mpx camera, and is built on Android Technology - which means awesome Android apps as well as all of your Google accounts syncing together like magic. (As trust me, even using Google Sync on a Blackberry doesn’t mean that everything works together perfectly.)
The interface consists of seven home screens, which you can flick back and forward between, and each screen can be organized to have either shortcuts to applications, or feature widgets that can show you the time and weather in faraway lands such as Honolulu and Rome. Or, you can set up your Facebook and Twitter accounts so that they’re just one touch away at all times.
However, the only wonky thing I noticed with this phone is that the accelerometer’s sensitivity is, well, rather insensitive. Sometimes when I hold my Legend horizontally, it takes just a moment too long for the screen to adjust and reposition itself. However, this is nothing a little wiggle can’t fix.
Screen Play
As the Legend is purely touch screen, I was concerned that my uncoordinated sausage fingers would cause problems when I came to Tweet or send an email. However, the keyboard – when used in both the “portrait” and “landscape” positions - is quite accurate and responsive.
Plus, it does a slight vibration whenever you touch a key, which is nice. What I also really like when typing a message is that the Legend uses suggestive text rather than predictive text. It gives you words it thinks you’re typing just above your message, giving you the option to choose a word it suggests, without just going, “You’re typing ‘th’ so I am just going to say you typed ‘theatre’.”
Photos
The camera on the Legend is particularly brilliant, and as soon as you’ve taken a photo, you have the immediate option to share it via email, or social network. Plus, if you take the photo and want to share it with Twitter, it puts the shortened URL for Tweetphoto (or TwitPic depending on the settings you’ve chosen) right into the body of your Tweet.
(Again, I’m sure you longtime Droid or even iPhone users have had this option on your phones for a long time, but being new to apps and Droids and a long-time Blackberry user, I find all these things amaaazing.)
In Sync
Another nifty feature I love is how Android Technology has all of its applications and programs communicate. For example, on my Blackberry, if I’m in Google Calendar and I want to locate where my meeting is at 2pm on Google Maps, I have to copy and paste the address in to Google Maps and then run a search for it.
On the Legend, if I have my calendar open, the address of an event or meeting automatically becomes a link, which I can click, and it takes me directly to the address on Google Maps.
I nearly wet my pants when I saw this.
Email
If you, like me, find getting your emails quickly and immediately after they've been sent – without waiting for the usual “push email” lag time – using anything other than Blackberry can be incredibly concerning. However, I can vouch that while my Blackberry is still quicker at pulling in my emails from Googlemail, the Legend isn’t far behind. At all.
My main challenge with using my email via the Legend has been using a touch screen keyboard, rather than a full QWERTY keyboard to fire off emails – but I’m sure this will improve with practise.
Get One!
Overall, the HTC Legend is brilliant to use. It’s a fun phone. I had fun organizing my different home screens and setting up widgets and downloading Seesmic from the Android Market. I feel like that handset is mine, because it’s all personalized. Everything on that phone is how I want it to be, with all of the websites and applications and networks that are important to me, just a click away.
But more importantly, I can still get my work done and stay on top of my emails, so the HTC Legend really is the best of both worlds.
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