[sc:mobile-category ]Last week we finally saw the first new Windows Phone hardware since the launch of WP7 almost a year ago (ok, technically the Japan only phone that was launched a few weeks ago was the first, but I don’t live in Japan, so it doesn’t really count 
).
HTC announced the Radar and Titan, both running Mango (looks like they’re calling it Windows Phone 7.5). The Radar is a pretty ordinary phone, so I won’t talk about it, but the Titan? That’s a whole different story.
As the name infers, the Titan is one majorly large phone, with a 4.7″ screen, it has one of the largest displays ever packed in to a commercial handset (Dell had a 5″ tablet they called a phone, but no one bought it).
I wanted to know exactly how big the Titan is, so I thought I’d compare it to something I already have, my HD7. Oh and some other phone I hear is kind of popular:
|
HD7 |
Titan |
iPhone 4 |
|
| Height (mm) |
122 |
131.5 |
111.2 |
| Width (mm) |
68 |
70.7 |
58.6 |
| Depth (mm) |
11.2 |
9.9 |
9.3 |
| Weight (g) |
162 |
160 |
137 |
| Display Size (I) |
4.3 |
4.7 |
3.5 |
So a little bit taller than the HD7 (9mm), just a hair wider (2.7mm) and thinner by 1.3mm. That’s quite impressive and it’s actually lighter as well.
In fact when you do the math, the titan takes up less volume then the HD7 (92cm2 vs 92.9cm2).
In comparison to that “other” phone, the Titan is larger (20.3×12.1×0.6) and takes up about 1/3 more volume, but you get over 50% more screen real estate. Not a bad trade off I think.
One item that many in the press have noticed is that the Titan still has the 800×480 resolution that all the other WP7 phones have. While I don’t think this is a huge problem (we’re looking at a phone, not hanging it on the wall as art) it does concern me that MS hasn’t yet moved beyond this single resolution or form factor.
One of the grips I had in my HD7 review was the back plate of the phone was not as good as the rest of the phone. The Titan takes care of this by have a aluminum uni-body construction for the back of the phone, which seems like a really nice improvement.
The other big piece of news on the Titan is the front facing camera. Skype and other video conferencing services will use this, but I have to admit I think it’s mostly used by vain people. Really, who wants to see everyone else’s ugly mug on their phone while they talk to them. The last decade of cell phones have show us that text messaging is immensely popular and you don’t even have to talk to the person let alone see them .
Will the Titan be my next phone? Probably not. I’m looking for two things that it doesn’t have:
- Wireless charging
- Removable storage with SDXC support (SD cards with more than 32g of space)
Since I’ve had the TouchPad, wireless charging has become a significant addition to my feature list on any portable device I buy. It’s just so convenient to just drop the device on the dock and walk away.
SDXC support should be standard in everything by now, their no excuse for limiting the storage to 32g.
But if I had to buy a new phone for some reason, the Titan would certainly be the front runner.
