Review: HTC Legend
The Android Eclair powered HTC Legend was released in Finland last week, and we got the chance to play around it for one night. The HTC Legends continues where the HTC Hero left. The phone also looks like an updated HTC Hero; the trackball has been replaced with an optical trackpad, the screen is a clear AMOLED capacitive touchscreen now, the bulky HTC extUSB connector has been replaced with a standard microUSB connector and the case is an unibody alloy casing that feels good in your palm.
- GSM bands: 850/900/1800/1900MHz (talk time: 7 h, standby: 23 d)
- 3G bands: 900/2100MHz (talk time: 6 h, standby: 18 d)
- CPU: Qualcomm MSM 7227 600 MHz
- OS: Google Android OS v2.1 (Eclair) with HTC Sense UI
- Screen: 3.2″ AMOLED capacitive touch screen, 320×480 resolution, 16M colors
- Camera: 5.0 megapixel (2592×1944), autofocus, LED-flash, Geo-Tagging, video
- Memory: 384 MB RAM / 512 MB ROM internal flash, microSD slot with support for 32GB cards
- Connections: GPRS, EDGE, 3G, HSDPA (7.2 Mbps), HSUPA (2.0 Mbps), WLAN (b/g), Bluetooth v2.1 with support for A2DP, microUSB v2.0
- Other: Internal GPS with support for A-GPS, digital compass, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, G-sensor, Google Search, Google Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Google Calendar, Google Talk, FM-radio with RDS support
- Battery: Li-Ion (1,300 mAh)
- Size: 112 x 56.3 x 11.5 mm, weight 126 g
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Hardware:
The HTC Legend comes with the basic smart phone features like a 5MP camera with autofocus, GPS, compass, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, accelerometer, Bluetooth, WiFi and the 3G radio.
What makes this phone special is the 600MHz CPU, 3.2″ AMOLED capacitive touch screen and the HTC design. The aluminum unibody design with the two black rubber elements on the back make this phone very appealing to the eye, and it also feels good in your hand.
As some of you might know, radio waves (GSM and 3G) cannot penetrate aluminum, and that is the reason HTC added the rubber lid on the back of the phone. The rubber lid is the only moving part on this phone, and behind it you can find the SIM-slot, microSD-slot and the 1,300 mAh battery. These are secured with a plastic holder, that locks them into their place and makes sure nothing moves when you close the lid. The only downside I could come up with is the placement of the microSD card, since you have to remove the battery to get access to the microSD card.
In the image above you can see the 5MP camera and the LED-flash. On their left is the mono-speaker, that produces a clear sound. When compared to the iPhone 3GS, the speaker on the Legend produces a more clear sound with less distortion. The volume both devices produce are roughly the same.
Below the screen you have 4 buttons in a row, and the fifth button being the optical trackpad that is also clickable. The buttons from left to right: Home, Menu, Back and Search.
Out of the 512MB flash ROM, only 160MB is available for application storage. Android 2.2 will fix this with the ability to install applications on the microSD card, and HTC has previously told that for instance the HTC Legend will see the update before the end of this year.
The following accessories are included in the sales package: 2GB microSD memory card, charger, stereo headphones with mic, and the microUSB cable for file transfer. A full user guide wasn’t included in the package, just some basic getting started guides. The full user guide can be downloaded from HTC Support.
Software:
HTC Sense on top of Android Eclair (v2.1) is beautiful. HTC has really nailed it with the Sense UI, and the added widgets and programs make the whole experience nice and easy.
Double-tapping the home button will bring you this exposé-like feature, which shows all of your 7 homescreens. Tapping it once will take you to the screen in the middle, which is the main homescreen. All of these homescreens are customizable with HTC’s or Google’s own widgets.
The main homescreen has the beautiful HTC clock with your local weather on top, and a few shortcuts at the bottom. Underneath these you have three softbuttons. Softbuttons from left to right: Arrow key that will open the basic OS menu, the phone button that will let you make phone calls, and a plus sign that will let you customize the homescreens and add new widgets, shortcuts or applications.
In the image above you can see the Add widget -menu that opens when you hit the plus sign button. By default there are widgets made by both Android (Google), and HTC. HTC’s widgets in general are more appealing to the eye.
Hitting the Menu button blow the screen will open up a menu as seen in the image above. The content of this menu depends on the application that you run when you hit the button, and the menu above comes when you hit the button while browsing the homescreens.
The default browser felt good to use, and every site that I tried rendered correctly. There is one minor bug in the tap-to-zoom gesture, since it couldn’t recognize every layout that I tried. It zoomed too close to the text on some sites. If this bugs you too much there are a few alternatives in the Android Market.
The Conclusion:
HTC has done a really good job on upgrading the HTC Hero, into this beautiful thing called HTC Legend. If you haven’t used a touch screen phone or Android before, then I’d recommend you a phone with HTC Sense, since it will make the whole experience lovely and easy. There wasn’t practically any learning-curve when using this device, it immediately felt easy to use.
The worst part of this phone is the 600MHz processor. But, what this phone loses in power it gains in power ;) A sacrifice in performance results in a longer battery life, and a standby time of up to 23 days is very admirable in todays smart phones.
All in all, I’d really recommend buying this phone. It is currently priced (in Finland) at around 380€ before taxes and subsidies.
More images: Pictures: HTC Legend
