It’s my first time to write a review. So bear with me as I share with you my personal experience with the HTC Legend. Been playing around with this Taiwanese brand smartphone and what I can say is ““ it’s sexy and fast!
Before we go down further, here are the quick specs of the phone first:
- Qualcomm MSM 7227 600 MHz CPU, 384 MB RAM
- Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
- 3G with HSDPA 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA 2Mbps
- Android OS v2.1 with latest Sense UI
- 3.2″ capacitive AMOLED touchscreen
- 5MP camera with autofocus feature and flash / VGA@30fps video recording
- Multi-touch function
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g and GPS receiver
- Stereo Bluetooth (A2DP); File transfer over Bluetooth
- Standard microUSB port for charging and data connection
- Standard 3.5mm audio jack
- FM Radio with RDS
- microSD card slot with support for up to 32GB
Design and Feel
To me it has an executive, costly look. The aluminum casing creates an expensive impression on the phone, yet it is equipped with simple not-annoying buttons around it. The size fits just fine on an Asian-sized palm, good enough for the Philippine market. Though it’s a touchscreen phone, it has an optical trackball just below the four-key menu that also functions as the camera’s shutter button.
The phone has these buttons in front: Home, Menu, Back and Search. The power button is located on the top right of the phone which can easily be reached by your right index finger. The same button is also used to lock and unlock the screen. The volume control which is located on the left side of the phone can be alternately accessed by either the index or middle finger.
The phone is lightweight weighing only 126 grams. The only negative comment I have for this phone is that it can easily slip your hand so better prepare some cash to buy a casing which will serve as additional protection for the phone.
The Interface
Like writing a review for the first time, it’s also my first time using an Android-powered phone and I was fairly impressed on how the HTC Sense UI made the experience very pleasant. The phone runs on Android 2.1 and response is quite fast and will not disappoint you.
The phone comes with few pre-installed apps including HTC’s social networking app, Friendstream, which streams both Twitter and Facebook’s stats. It also has your usual Youtube app, Photoviewer, and some standard apps like Calculator, Camera, Clock, Calendar, etc. Anything you can’t find is done a la carte via the Android Market which lets you connect first to your Google account before you can start downloading a lot of apps including FREE ones like iPhone’s SMS-like app called Handcent, Gmail, FileManager, Bible, PDF Viewer, OfficeViewer and a lot more.
Other Features
On customizing the interface.The HTC Legend is very customizable thanks to the HTC Sense UI. It provides a total of seven (7) screens which you can put whatever Widgets, Shortcuts, or Programs you like. You can move from different screens by swiping your fingers, or you can also use the trackball.
Pressing the Home key brings you the Home screen which has the default “œAll Programs” button, “œPhone” button and the “œAdd” (displayed as + ) button for customization purpose. Pressing and holding any icon in the screen will enable you to move it or remove it from the screen. A “œremove” link below the screen will appear once you press and hold an icon.
On texting and calling. If you are used to standard mobile phones with keypads, it will take you a while to be comfortable typing messages with this phone. I swear, after almost a week of using the Legend, I am still comfortable texting using my Samsung C5212 dual-sim phone. The good thing with the Legend is, the phone’s dictionary saves your commonly used local words, so next time you use them, the dictionary will auto-suggest it. Calling is easier than texting since you will have to call the on-screen keypad and most of the time.
The Phonebook is also cool! Once you log in to your Google account, or to Facebook, or Twitter or to your office email, the phone automatically pulls all your contacts and stores it on the phone. This makes all contact details from your email, social networking sites easily available whenever you need to call or text them.
The 5 megapixel camera provides decent pictures. I remember the first digital camera I own which was a Canon A70, and it has only 3.2 megapixel resolution. I took some sample photos and a video using the HTC Legend which you can browse on my blog.
On the Wi-fi experience, a few people told me that it disconnects most of the time from a wireless network unless you are very near the router. As for me, I have not experienced this problem maybe because I’m always beside my SmartBro ShareIt.
Battery Life
Using almost all features of the phone, with Wi-fi on, FM radio, SMS messaging and typical calls, the phone’s battery lasted only for a day. But if you will be using it only for calling and texting, it will give you almost three days battery life. Of course, you probably won’t stick to simple functions with a smartphone such as the Legend.
Conclusion
In the category of smartphones powered by Android OS and its SRP of Php31,500, I think the HTC Legend is a good buy You will be equipped with all the connectivity you need ““ your office email, personal email, your favorite Social Networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. What’s great is, you only have to log in once. Every time you go online it will automatically update your inbox and you can browse your messages even if you are already offline. I tried accessing our Outlook Web Access and it went fine. But again, I only find it hard typing because I’m not used to a touchscreen phone.