Those little animations for weather, messages and the like, keep advancing too and now look virtually 3D on the big screen. You can use the menu bar to find apps or you can brush the screen sideways to move between contacts, messages, mail, browser, calendar, stocks info, gallery, music, weather, Twitter, Footprints (HTC's geotagging photo function) and settings.
The usual suspects litter the homepage
There's also a trio of shortcuts on the homepage, which you can assign to programs, documents or individual contacts – including quick access to their phone or email. Flick the screen up and you get a new page where you can expand the number of shortcuts to nine. It seems a world away from the scrappy old Windows Mobile interface, and we never at any point felt the need for a stylus.
Lip service has been paid to social networking with onboard apps for Twitter and Facebook, though only Twitter is featured in the menu bar. It's not as advanced as recent options we've seen from the likes of the Motorola Dext, which offers networking updates on your home screen, but by adding shortcuts to each to your homepage it becomes easy to keep up with your posts and followers.
The Facebook app is the same as the one available in Windows Marketplace and it's good as it goes, but it would be even better if it would automatically integrate your Facebook friends into your contacts book, as it does on Android handsets.
Old-school email messaging is easy to set up with most major accounts requiring just an address and password, plus there's support for MS Exchange. The four-line onscreen keyboard is a breeze to use too, whether you're in portrait or landscape mode, with haptic feedback and auto spelling.
Both Opera and Internet Explorer are offered for browsing
Web browsing is also easy, especially with the ability to zoom by pinching or double tapping. Opera is loaded on-board, although Internet Explorer is also present should you feel the need. The accelerometer will flip it into landscape mode and it renders most web pages very well. It's nice and fast too, with HSDPA 3G network connection or Wi-Fi for broadband access. There's no Flash support, although there is a YouTube app for video viewing.
COMMENTS
Dub thee "king of the geek hill"
For the proverbial 15 minutes, this device is king of the hill. Got everything and some.
Currently happy on WM (a lowly and tiny HTC Diamond I), long time Palm user, dabbled in iphone and nokia s60. But willing to ditch WM for the next one, never loyal to any platform. It's useability and capability and tweakability that's important to this geek.
WM may need some tweaking upon occasion, but works for me. It's the only platform to have decent desktop sync (PIM as well as generic files). Would try Android, intrigued by WebOS, but no decent (and configurable) out-of-the-box desktop sync, no go. Cloud can take a hike for all I care. Nice to have, but too paranoid of me, I guess.
Other than that, all modern mobile OS'es can do to web/mail/music/gps stuff in some fashion. iphone is lovely - cool games, nice hardware. But too hobbled and crippled to live with, sorry to say: no bt/wifi/usb file transfer? No multitasking? What gives?
The HD2 is the closest thing to the killer device for me: add a keyboard too, my credit card is yours. Or just add some more RAM, bolt the CPU and the capacitative screen on the Pro2. I can always get the new TF3D=Sense from xda-dev.
Spreading more FUD
@IT Specialist
Where's this long list of problems you speak of? Seems the pink aura problem only occurs on some devices and there is a software fix on the way. No biggy.
The fact is you can get this phone for 40 pound more than a 3GS and it has way bigger screen (4.3" vs 3.7"), better resolution, faster processor (1GHz vs 600Hz), sd expansion, replaceable battery, better camera (5mp, LED flash vs 3mp, no flash), completely open software market, etc.
Regardless of the FUD spread buy WinMo hating trolls, this is THE best phone you can buy at the moment. period.
Would love to see Android on this hardware, just have to wait until someone over at xda does a port ;)
One more fault... a defective camera
Just one more fault to add to the long list. The HTC HD2 has a defective camera. The problem causes a pink aura over the centre of every photo.
But you don't have to believe me. Just Google the following words:
HTC HD2 camera pink
You'll find many accounts of this defect in the HD2.
I wouldn't think that Microsoft would do something so low as to pay HTC to keep the Snapdragon processor away from Android. Would The Borg do such a thing? Besides, the next HTC phone, called the HTC Passion, will be out soon. It's got the Snapdragon. And it's running Android. Hurray!!!
WinMo Apologists crawl
... out of the woodwork.
When a phone appears with ground breaking hardware and ball breaking software, its not difficult to see the missed opportunity. Pretending that WinMo is anything but the final throws of Microsoft's mobile strategy is bit like saying Bing will kill Google Search.
When Microsoft have to (allegedly) pay HTC to keep the lovely snapdragon processor away from those nasty android people, you know things are getting pretty bad. When android devices running said processor mysteriously disappear from trade shows overnight in order to better showcase WinMo you understand the beast is back.
The most glaring shame about the whole HTC HD2/WinMo circus is that if the device ran Android, it would sell like hot cakes on a frosty morning, and peace and love would fill the airwaves.
Been using WinMo for years ... Soon no more!
I just bought a TomTom, that's my first step in moving away from WinMo (I used TomTom for WinMo with a Bluetooth GPS receiver). I got tired of the constant Bluetooth problems and not being able to use my SW when I need it most.
WinMo used to be the most advanced Mobile OS out there. Slick, with more functionalities (remember the clunky but stable Palm OS?). Well, no more. Now it's a relic of how bad Micro$oft manages the maturing of its software. There are now plenty of other OSes to choose from.
Ultimately I am going to be waiting for this HW to be available on Android.
