The HTC Titan II is a symbol for an excellent partnership. I love HTC hardware and I love Windows Phone. It should be a match made in heaven, but unfortunately it’s not.
John and I sat down in the studio yesterday with the giant 4.7-inch hunk of glass and plastic, and we came away with pretty negative sentiments toward the device.
John thinks it’s too big, which seems to be his usual complaint these days.
My argument is a bit more geeky. To start, the Titan II is made of soft-touch plastic, rather than the aluminum unibody frame we saw on the original Titan. This is actually not that big of a deal. Sure, I’d prefer aluminum, but HTC always finds a way to make sure its hardware feels premium, so that’s no biggie.
What I’m really perturbed by is the way that Windows Phone and HTC came together. First of all, Windows Phone requires its partners to build hardware with a 480×800 resolution. On the 4.3-inch Lumia 900, this is tolerable. On a 4.7-inch display like the Titan II, it’s not.
HTC busted out one of the first-ever double-digit MP phone cameras, at 16-megapixels. This is wonderful, and the camera works just fine, but I never found myself snapping a pic and saying, “Whoa!”. I had expected the doubling of our standard 8-megapixels to be immediately noticeable, but it wasn’t. Images didn’t look any crisper, and while the phone did a tad better in low-light settings, it simply didn’t live up to my expectations.
In short, we both give the Titan II a die.
Look for a full review later this week.
HTC Corp, (TAIEX: 2498) produces smartphones running the Android and Windows Phone 7 operating systems for themselves and as an OEM to other manufacturers. Since launching its own brand in late 2006, the company has introduced dozens of HTC-branded products around the world. The company recently introduced the HTC diamond to compete with Apple’s iPhone. Founded in 1997 by Cher Wang, Chairwoman, and H T Cho - former CEO who is a chairman now, HTC made its name as...
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