I’m looking to buy a new phone, my first smart phone. Anyone have anything to say about the HTC Desire Z over the Desire HD? The pop-out keyboard seems like a great feature to have, but as I’ve not owned a smart phone before I know know if I really need it or not.
No you don’t need the pop out. Try going to the store and typing in landscape mode (turn the phone sideways when the keyboard is up). You’ll be faster on the touch screen if you keep this principle in mind: it’s a touch, not pressure screen. Light tap with no pressure means you can move your thumbs very quickly. Also “just trust it”. The autocorrect is pretty good these days.
If after this you still feel the need for a physical keyboard, then go for it.
Some people have strong preference for real keyboards, like many Blackberry users I know. I was concerned at first whether I’d adjust to a touch screen, but my experience was pretty much as mabagal described. It’s quite fast when you get used to it and the autocorrect is pretty accurate, although I’d still recommend a quick proof read before you hit send.
The other reason I opted against a slide-out keyboard is because I feel the more moving parts there are, the more things there are to get broken.
Sounds good guys. Thanks for the suggestions/opinions.
I went to Far Eastone yesterday to see about plans/deals, etc. The new HTC Desire (no pop out keyboard) is out in the next month or so, apparently, so I’ll likely just wait until then. They didn’t have any original HTC Desires left, they are already considered old apparently. The Desire HD is too big, the screen is nice, but I don’t want a phone/screen that big. Sucks battery power like crazy too apparently.
I bought the Desire HD and am very happy with it.
It sucks power like nothing else though. Looking at what eats the battery “display” is always the big winner. Keeping it down to “auto” or lower brightness helps a bit. Using a custom ROM I managed to get about 24hours out of the phone with display on about 2-3hours of those 24.
I bought one of those portable power unites that allows me to recharge twice through USB on the road.
The Desire and Desire Z are old. I would not buy those unless they are cheap second hand. I heard HTC just announced a bunch of new models including the successor for the regular Desire.
The Desire S (Just announced at the MWC) is hardly an upgrade over the original desire. Slightly more battery, a tad faster, and a bit more storage. HTC is getting lazy.
That said, I plan on turning in my aging Touch Pro for a Desire HD soon.
I went down to the HTC store at the Gwang-Hua market yesterday. The 2011 Desire, or whatever it’s going to be called, isn’t likely out until May. That bites, I don’t want to wait that long. I don’t want the Desire Z with the keyboard, and I’m still leery of the Desire HD with that big screen. Looks great, but the battery drain factor is for real. They didn’t really tip toe around the question when I asked them about it.
[quote=“MPenguin”]The Desire S (Just announced at the MWC) is hardly an upgrade over the original desire. Slightly more battery, a tad faster, and a bit more storage. HTC is getting lazy.
[/quote]
Lazy? Maybe, maybe not. There’s not a lot to improve on with the original Desire. It was one of the top 3 smart phones of 2010. If they made it faster, with more battery capacity, and more storage, I certainly wouldn’t complain.
My battery of my Desire HD last 2 to 3 days, with 3G activated all the time.
But I have a modified system (Rom) which drain less battery. (I like the LeeDroid HD rom, available on the XDA forum)
Desire HD, best mobile I’ve tried so far. Better than iphone4 IMO, but the Desire HD is quite expensive…more expensive than the Iphone4…
Just a heads up: There are some new HTC phones coming out soon.
htc.com/www/product/incredib … ation.html
engadget.com/2011/02/15/htc- … -hands-on/
[quote=“k.k.”][quote=“MPenguin”]The Desire S (Just announced at the MWC) is hardly an upgrade over the original desire. Slightly more battery, a tad faster, and a bit more storage. HTC is getting lazy.
[/quote]
Lazy? Maybe, maybe not. There’s not a lot to improve on with the original Desire. It was one of the top 3 smart phones of 2010. If they made it faster, with more battery capacity, and more storage, I certainly wouldn’t complain.[/quote]
There is a lot to improve on. They could have upped the resolution, allowed HD video shooting, gone dual processors, etc.
HTC could be steaming ahead of Apple right now if they wanted to be (they are ahead, in my opinion, but only slightly. I’m still waiting for the HTC Pyramid to be announced to see if they’ll actually get to dual cores), but they seem to be dragging ass. The newly announced phones aren’t exactly huge upgrades over their predecessors. They could have/should have done better.