Every time I see the Touch Pro 2, it seems to get better and better. I finally got my hands on it for real yesterday and, well, it's a solid, incredible piece of hardware. Every time HTC iterates their slider design I always think to myself "Well, they've pretty much perfected this form factor" and every time a new one comes out I realize they're better at design than I am. Ahem.
The Touch Pro 2 feels great in the hand and though it's a tad hefty, it's a good kind of heft. The tilting slider hinge is back and feels solid. You may not actually want to tilt it all the way up during normal use as it does block the number row (yes, a full number row) of the keyboard.
More thoughts and -- of course -- more photos after the break!
Speaking of that keyboard, it's incredibly good and HTC says that this demo unit's keyboard is actually not all that great shakes compared to what the production units will have. All I know is there's good key travel and wide key separation, the keys are large and easy to see -- I'd almost be tempted to say it took its inspiration from recent MacBook keyboards, but that'd be heresy.
TouchFlo 3D was very very snappy and has all of the improvement from the Touch HD -- including Stocks and the ability to reorder or hide tabs. The other nice new thing: it's fully there in landscape mode. Actually the clever bit is that in landscape mode the tabs auto-hide, you tap on the left to bring them up and slide over to the one that you want to use. Very intelligent use of space.
Lastly -- I'm told the speakphone is just flat-out stupendous. It's loud, clear, and the noise cancellation is good enough that HTC employees actually use it by just slapping it down on the passenger seat as they drive. This thing means business.
I know it's only February and there's plenty of 2009 left, but everybody (including HTC) is going to have their work cut out for them trying to top the Touch Pro 2.
