Notice the "loudly" replacement of "quietly" in the title? The London HTC event was sure enough a night club with some phones displayed. Three hours later and my ears are still ringing the bells louder than ever, but was it a well worth visit? Absolutely. I was joined by Jay Bennett (our app developer) along with two strays we found on the street, Alex Dobie and Richard Devine from Android Central.
While merely being about two upcoming Windows Phone Mango devices, the HTC Titan and Radar, the event was full of enthusiasm, music, free drink and a cracking presentation. Overall it was a superb evening where we conversed with Microsoft and HTC employees, experienced the new handsets for ourselves and began to get drunk in the process for free. Head on past the break for the round-up.
Unfortunately, the venue was in the basement of the Victoria House and thus was extremely tight and compact. We were told in a presentation that HTC has sold 21.8 million handsets, that the company respected customers and that they had a massive surprise for the audience.
Multiple units of both the HTC Titan and Radar were on display throughout the venue. Although we had to fight hundreds of people, we did manage to barge our way through and get some hands-on with both devices (videos will come after this post).
We were able to confirm tethering support being present in the builds loaded on the demo handsets, but as we mentioned previously this will more-than-likely be up to carriers. Everything you'd expect is present with Twitter (both devices) and LinkedIn integration as well as all the other Mango goodies. Since the event was surrounding these two handsets, let's crack into a quick run through.
Let's start with the HTC Titan, which is an absolute beast. It's great to see HTC really starting to pump up the hardware with a massive LCD screen, great camera and more. Advertising the HTC Titan as the "Windows Phone powerhouse" will surely attract the attention of users on other platforms with its unique style and quality.
The back cover of the device actually removes entirely from the screen, it's as though they simply cut it in half straight down the middle, and it's thin - very thin (just under 1cm). We compared the brightness and sharpness of the super LCD screen against our Samsung Omnia 7 handsets, which left us in shock and awe as the Super AMOLED looked dull and bland compared to the bright 4.7" monster.
A reminder of the Titan's specifications:
- 1.5 GHz processor
- 4.7" screen
- 16GB storage
- 512 RAM
- Gyro sensor
- 8 megapixel camera with F2.2 lens, dual LED flash, and BSI sensor
- Front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera
The HTC Radar is a lower spec choice for users with a more affordable price tag. While this may put some potential buyers off, don't be fooled - it's not a cheap phone by any means. A unibody encases the feature rich Mango handset, which sports a 3.8" screen with a 1Ghz processor. Again, like the Titan, the quality of the screen is incredible, especially when comparing with 1st generation devices.
Specifications of the Radar:
- 1 GHz processor
- 3.8" screen
- unibody design
- 8GB storage
- 512 RAM
- 5 megapixel camera with F2.2 lens, single LED flash, and BSI sensor
- Front-facing VGA megapixel camera
So, let's pass it over to you guys. What do you make of the two new handsets? Keep an eye out for our hands-on videos coming up shortly.
Thanks goes out to Alex Dobie for helping us with these pics!
