HTC HD2 user impressions
November 8th, 2009 | 
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A few lucky souls have their hands on HTC HD2s, and fortunately for us some have shared their impressions with us.
If you are still rearing to read every word available about the device this 18 page thread on XDA-Developers seems to be the best spot, and from there is this above video, in which the author tried to make the HTC HD2 “go crazy” or crash by running as many applications as possible as fast as possible, including launching a GPS navigation app and playing a video, and the device does not skip a beat at all.
Also from the thread is this battery run down test by Xmoo, also the author of the video above:
Battery
Tested the battery today (07-11-2009 from 08:00 till 18:00)
Setup
*Active Sync enabled all day;
*3G only, no switching to H;
*Weather, Twitter, Stocks auto download every 1 hour;
*3,5 Hours of browsing with Opera;
*11 Calls, total of 34min talk;
*19 SMS got, 15 SMS sent;
*Formatted a 4GB SD card;
*15mins MSN;
*30mins playing with the phone (Showing it to my boss);
*Vibrate only;
*8 E-mails got, 2 E-mails sent;
From 100% to 61%, so in 10 hours use, battery dropped 39%
Benjiro wrote about the GPS performance, saying:
Originally Posted by xmoo
GPS is amazing, Installed TomTom7 and in 4sec 9 satellite fix in door!!!
To add to this discussion, i tested iGo8 on the HD2:
* Satellites indoor
HD2: 6 to 7.
BT GPS receiver ( Sirf I if i remember correctly, yes its old. i know ): 0
* Outside
HD2: 10 a 11
BT GPS Receiver: 6
* Behind Car Window ( note: This is anti heat glass crap, that interferes with GPS signals ).
HD2: 9 a 10
BT GPS Receiver: 5 a 6 ( but, only on "sweet" spots, if the receiver moves during driving, it will totally drop to 0 satellites ).
* Middle of the Car:
HD: 9 a 10 still
Did not test the BT Receiver in the middle of the Car
* Route calculation ( 180km route )
x50v: Several Seconds
HD2: Instant! No joke… Surprised the crap out off my father
* Letting iGo8 run in fast demo drive mode ( at 1080km/h *lol*, no joke ).
HD2: Switching to task manager: 55 a 60% CPU usage when switching to it for a second, and then 2 a 3% CPU usage. Switching front & back shows the exact same pattern, and iGo8 was still "driving" or "flying" along without any problem. Did the correct distance relative to the time needed to switch.
Xmoo however complains the GPS lag is still present, despite the incredibly fast lock rates.
Read the full thread here.
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What does he mean by GPS lag? as in the displayed speed lagging behind reality or slow position refresh rate? the first is the fault of physics and the other the fault of the GPS software.
[Reply]
rad Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 1:53 am
It's the same type of GPS lag (position refresh) issue as in all current HTC devices (which use the Qualcomm chipset's built-in GPS)– happens regardless of what GPS software you use. Search online and you'll find more details.
[Reply]
Foamy Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 2:04 am
not sure what you mean. I don't get any lag on my gps software as it estimates ahead. also, as far as I'm aware the GPS outputs at baud 4800 which is fast enough for smooth tracking.
[Reply]
rad Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 2:14 am
It's a well-known issue on many WM (particularly HTC Qualcomm) devices, from the TP/TD/TP2/TD2 to the HD, Imagio, etc. and now HD2 it seems. If you drive at, say, highway speeds (50-60 mph or higher), and carry an iPhone or, more clearly, a standalone GPS unit, you'll probably notice a 2-5 second lag on the HTC device, which is enough to make the GPS useless in many cases.
There are some replacement driver projects and such that attempt to compensate in various ways, like: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=...
[Reply]
Foamy Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 2:21 am
I shall have to test this next time i go on the motorway. I haven't noticed the speed lagging anymore than before though. For the record I'm using a kaiser with a 6.5 ROM.
Very impressed by the battery life… 1 day and a half of life including sleep is amazing for a smartphone.
[Reply]
This is probably the first WM phone that can actually productively multi-task. Try running even a couple of apps (Opera Mobile + Word, for example, let alone adding media playback or Bluetooth-type connections to the mix), and the HTC MSM72xx phones (TP2/TD2/etc.), and even faster phones like the Omnia II, start lagging and freezing.
Now what's needed is a UI to properly manage multitasking. Most multitasking in WM happens inadvertently due to apps that you meant to close but didn't, and while HTC has its drop-down task manager, it's still not a very friendly system. On my TP2, for example, the menu often takes a while to open, which is highly disruptive when you're trying to switch between things.
The iPhone, while quite a solid multitasker (for Apple apps if stock, or any app if jailbroken), lacks a proper UI for multitasking as well (though granted, it was specifically designed to avoid the pitfalls of WM multitasking).
Something along the lines of Palm WebOS' context-switching would be good– a UI paradigm to more productive multi-tasking possible on WM.
[Reply]
BEAST! So thats what a 1GHZ processor should be running like >x]
Now imagine that phone running Titanium UI >x] i'd be scared for any and every proud iphone user that's ever talked shxt about windows mobile to me. I'd just start opening a shxt load of apps in their face.
But to the person who posted this, check back to us in a week to let us know how its running. With my experience with phones the experience you get with the phone the first 2 days isn't anything compared to the results you will get after a week of non-stop use. But then again I rarely turn my phones off for more than half an hour at a time. x___________________x oh well. i'm a busy man x]
[Reply]
I have an HD2 an it’s a great device but the battery isn’t as great as described above.. with just like 15min. of calling and active sync on send like 4 emails and received 30, send 3 sms and received 2 and max 10 minutes of web browsing with opera i’m already down in 4.5 hours from 100% to 68.. and i’m updateding the weather just every 3 hours so what is described above is simply impossible…
[Reply]