HTC Sense Event
Sep 15, 2010, 9:03 AM by Philip Berne
The HTC Desire Z will soon come to the States as the T-Mobile G2. Check out our hands-on look from HTC's launch event in London.
At the HTC event in London today, the company showed off the new HTC Desire Z, which will come to the U.S. next month as the T-Mobile G2. Though T-Mobile has been teasing the G2 for a while now, this was my first time to get a hands-on look at the device. In pictures, I was not impressed with the simple-looking QWERTY slider. The design seemed rather bland and the keyboard seemed a bit narrow. But in person, the phone is a whole new animal. The build quality is fantastic.
The keyboard opens with a smooth, gentle slide, like taking a BMW into a corner on a winding road. It's easy to open with one hand and snaps into place reassuringly. The keyboard it reveals feels great for typing. I spent a few minutes hammering away and enjoyed every keystroke. It isn't quite as bouncy as I like, but the keys are easy to find without looking too hard, and the long width from Q to P leaves plenty of room for each key.
The phone has an understated style. In pictures it seems simple, but the shell uses so many stiff metals and other fine materials that it feels solid in the hand without feeling too heavy. The optical trackpad at the bottom also worked fine in my tests, though Android hardly needs any assistance from a joystick.
The most impressive thing I saw from the HTC Desire Z is the fast power on capability. From a powered-down state, the phone sprang to life in about 6 seconds. I've seen many modern smartphones that can't wake up in less than a minute, so the fast startup on the Desire Z is truly impressive. At the press event, HTC CMO John Wang talked about this feature as a part of the new Sense UI. With rumors that the T-Mobile G2 will use a stock build of Android 2.2, and not HTC Sense, I hope that this is a feature of the hardware so U.S. buyers can also benefit.
We'll have a hands-on video tour of the new HTC Desire Z uploaded soon, so check back this afternoon for a longer look, included a demonstration of that fast boot-up.
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Comments
Thinking of getting android soon HELP
Will the G2 have Sense?
Is that important?
Does the fact that the G2 is supposed to be the 2nd Google phone mean that it is a "pure" Android phone, thus precluding Sense?
I now have a Memoir phone and I pay the full price for Internet access but I get very few of the full Internet services. I thought that this was a older Samsung thing but today I saw a co worker's phone with the same widget bar but much more ability to customize. He has ATT.
I have kept up on the latest technology but I have barely seen Android in action. No one I know uses any of the "fancy" smartphones so I play with ...
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Sense is an overlay to...
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What.....?
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"Like taking a BMW Into a Corner"
Although it's not an unpleasant phone to hold (admittedly I've only held a prototype G2) , it's about on par with the Nexus One, which is to say nicer than the junky feel of Motorola and Samsung's smartphones, but below the iPhone 4.
And memo to Mr. Berne: a metal appliqué is not the same as a structural stainless steel frame.
HTC Desire Z vs Nexus One features?
HTC seems to put the back cover with a small speaker hole cut out, which might be the reason for the low volume.
