HTC to launch WinMo phone with Android-oriented UI
HD2 official debut this week
HTC will formally launch its Windows Mobile - not Android, alas - HD2 smartphone in Taipei on Wednesday, the company said today.
Why WM not Android? HTC needs to "take care" of the Microsoft OS, HTC CEO Peter Chou said last week.
Maybe, but that hasn't stopped the company burying the WM 6.5 user interface - which hasn't changed all that much since the PocketPC days - with its own UI, Sense.
Sense debut on the Android-based HTC Hero.
HTC's HD2: the first WinMo phone with a UI developed for Android
The follow-up to the Touch HD, the HD2 sports a 4.3in, 480 x 800 display, the HD2 has a 1GHz Qualcomm processor and runs Windows Mobile 6.5 – previewed here. It also includes a 5Mp camera, 7.2Mb/s HSDPA 3G support and 802.11b/g Wi-Fi.
It's expected to arrive over here just over a week's time. ®
COMMENTS
err..
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/10/30/hd2_android_denial/
Trivial surely,
to get Android on this phone. The hardware and Android must have been designed with each other in mind anyway, even if the final choice was to go with Windows Phone.
The UI?
Interersting to see winmob looking almost nothing like windows at all. I thought that was supposed to be the key point for msft - user familiarity!
Sense vs TF3D
As far as I remember from the Hero launch, Sense is more than just the UI. It relates to all the "deeper" changes that they have made, particularly the bringing together of all information related to a contact, whether it be Outlook, messaging, call history & social networking info.
So the UI itself is an updated TF3D, but they are now referring to Sense on this device as they have created the same integration of contact data as they did on the Hero.
TBH I wasn't taken with Android at all until I saw the Hero. So that has me thinking why change from WM when all I like about Android is the same UI tweaks that I already have on my WM device? I certainly don't see myself moving away from HTC as a brand anytime soon though.
Sense UI
"Maybe, but that hasn't stopped the company burying the WM 6.5 user interface with its own UI, Sense."
HTC also "buries" Android with their Sense UI too. All phone manufacturers will continue to build their own interfaces like HTC's TouchFLO/Sense, Samsung's TouchWiz, etc on top of WM/Android etc in order to differentiate themselves from each other and to give customers a different choice of user interface for commonly used functions. I don't see a problem with that.
