htc

HTC Radar: Camera Quality Review

November 11, 2011 | By andrewbares

A red flower, looking slightly too pink

This is the third section of our thorough review of the HTC Radar for T-Mobile. Click here for the Hardware or Sound Quality reviews.

While everyone is raving about the Titan’s camera, little has been said about it’s smaller sibling, the HTC Radar. In short, the Radar has some great improvements over other HTC cameras, but falls short of the Titan likely due to its 5-megapixel sensor.

Colors in pictures are still not accurately represented, which always was a problem with HTC’s phones. The flower picture shown on the right is of a red flower, but the flower looks more pink through the Radar. However, the Radar does do a better job than the HD7, making it a slight improvement from before.

The Radar also handles over-saturation slightly better than the HD7 used to. When looking at pictures of flowers, the Radar kept the color saturation in control while the HD7 was over-saturated.

Indoor scenes show the best improvement, thanks to the new low light sensor included in the Radar. Pictures aren’t shaky and motion blurred anymore, and actually look decent.

The camera also features some new modes, like Panoramic and Burst mode, which are great additions. The panoramic shots usually stitch together quite well, but sometimes have random glitches in them. The burst mode is great for capturing a crazy stunt, but can become annoying because there’s no way to easily delete burst shots… take three of them, and you have 15 pictures on your phone in less than 10 seconds! Continue reading →

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T-Mobile HTC Radar Unboxing Video

November 2, 2011 | By andrewbares

Embedded above is an unboxing video of the new T-Mobile HTC Radar, released today. Some things to note are the lack of a headset and the sub-par quality of the camera in low-lighting scenerios compared to the original Samsung Focus.

A full review will follow in the next few weeks.

The HTC Radar is a new Windows Phone with a 3.8” S-LCD screen, HSPA+ data speeds, and a 1.0 GHz single-core processor. The phone has a new 5-megapixel rear camera, a front-facing camera, and 8 GB of storage. Full specs…

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T-Mobile HTC Radar for $49 from Wirefly

November 2, 2011 | By andrewbares

If you’re thinking about buying the HTC Radar from T-Mobile today, you might want to check the internet for some better prices first.

Wirefly.com has the HTC Radar for only $49.99 with a new or renewed 2-year contract from T-Mobile, and that includes free shipping!

Through T-Mobile, you would pay $149.99 with a 2-year contract, and then have to hassle with a $50 mail-in rebate which only brings the price down to $99.99. Frankly, $49.99 is the most I would pay for a phone with only 8 GB of storage space.

The HTC Radar is a new Windows Phone with a 3.8” S-LCD screen, HSPA+ data speeds, and a 1.0 GHz single-core processor. The phone has a new 5-megapixel rear camera and a front facing camera. Full specs…

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HTC starts AT&T HTC Titan marketing push with Jim Gaffigan video

October 28, 2011 | By Surur

Its hard to make spread sheets and pie charts interesting and funny, but having a comedian does help.

HTC has started promoting the HTC Titan on AT&T by highlighting one of its strengths – viewing and editing Office documents on its massive 4.7 incg screen. Using Jim Gaffigan actually makes it watchable, which hopefully means the video will spread wide beyond its target audience.

Thanks Robb for the tip.

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AT&T’s Fall Mango Lineup Pictured

October 20, 2011 | By KennyB123

The Windows Phone Blog just unveiled some official press photos of all three new phones being released on AT&T in the coming 1-2 months. These include the Samsung Focus S, the budget-minded Samsung Focus Flash, and the giant 4.7″ screened HTC Titan. Although pricing and official release dates are still unknown, let’s just let the photos speak for themselves. See the all of the photos after the break.

Continue reading →

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HTC buys Kids-friendly browser maker Inquisitive Minds

October 18, 2011 | By Surur

zoodles-22-520x354 HTC, who has been on a spending spree recently, has just purchased another odd-duck company.

Their most recent purchase is Inquisitive Minds, a California-based company which owns game app Zoodles, which is designed for children aged eight and younger, which HTC purchased for $13 million.

“Children interact with technology in a wonderfully natural way,” Mr Chou said. “It’s important that they are protected while exploring and learning. We want to create a wholesome, family-oriented environment for our HTC devices, which makes Zoodles a perfect fit.”

Presumably HTC is planning to launch a kind-friendly mode on their upcoming Android tablets, but with HTC also suspected to be looking into Windows 8 tablets this service may pop up in other places also.

HTC has also invested $40 million in OnLive, the streaming video game service, and appears to be slowly gathering a platform of services which, while not rivalling Apple or Microsoft in scope, certainly looks very interesting in breadth.

HTC Radar reviewed by CNET

October 4, 2011 | By andrewbares

CNET Asia already got their hands on the HTC Radar and just published their full review of the phone, giving it about 3.7 out of 5 stars, praising the design but not enjoying the 1.0 GHz single core processor or the non-upgradable 8 GB storage.

Design-wise, CNET appreciated the clean white look of the handset, and found the 3.8″ WVGA (480 x 800) LCD display to be an adequate size for their needs. They note that the capacitive buttons weren’t as annoying as the HTC Evo 3D, which is great. However, they point out that you can’t upgrade the existing 8 GB of NAND storage, and that the 1,520 mAh battery is non-removable.

In terms of features, CNET liked the included HTC apps, like Photo Enhancer and HTC Watch. They also note the handset has WiFi Internet Sharing enabled! They concluded that the camera is average, and has a nice quick shutter, and performed somewhat better in low-lighting shots thanks to the BSI sensor. Sounds like HTC still hasn’t perfected their cameras, but at least they are making improvements.

And finally, they talked about the performance of the device. They said that despite the old 1.0 GHz processor, the phone didn’t feel slow at all (which we all know, since current Windows Phones are snappy as ever!). They also noted that you’ll be charging this phone every night, but it should be able to last you through the day with about 15% left at night (typical for most smartphones).

Overall, CNET sounded pleased with the device, but nothing truly impressed them. The HTC Radar is HTC’s low-end WP7 device, so a review like this was to be expected. HTC also is releasing the Titan, which is their high-end 1.5 GHz, 4.7″ Windows Phone that aims to impress!

Visit CNET for the Full Review

The HTC Radar is coming to T-Mobile USA and will support T-Mobile’s 4G network with speeds of up to 14.4 Mbps. It is expected to be available in time for the holidays. No further release date info is known yet for the USA.

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HTC now Taiwan’s most valuable global brand

September 22, 2011 | By Surur

Interbrand have published their regular list of top Taiwanese global brands, and on this occasion it shows HTC passing Acer to take the top of the list with a brand value of US$3.605 billion.

While HTC is better known by the masses for their Android handsets, the company was synonymous with Windows Phones when it started its transition from ODM to brand 4 years ago with its iconic HTC Touch products. Hopefully the rise of Windows Phone 7 and its successors will make that so once again.

Confirmed: HTC Radar 4G Coming To T-Mobile

September 22, 2011 | By Pradeep

Just hours after the speculation of HTC Radar 4G, its now been confirmed that such device exists. HTC Radar 4G is coming to T-Mobile US. Tmonews has got some photos of the device as well showing T-Mobile branding, T-Mobile TV app,etc.

Hit the source links for more photos of this device.

Source: Tmonews

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HTC to use more plastic, less metal in their smartphones

September 19, 2011 | By Surur

Via Digitimes we hear that HTC is halving the number of smartphones constructed from a mental chassis from 60% to 30% in 2012.

HTC has been using smartphone chassis maker Catcher for the bulk of these components, and the company’s share price dropped 2.1% on the rumour.

The article is not accompanied by reasons for the move, and with metal unibodies being somewhat of a trademark of HTC the reception has been quite negative.

On the other hand, plastic phones will likely be lighter and have better signal reception, which may be behind the move, or it may be simply to cut costs and increase their capacity.

Are our readers concerned about HTC’s build quality going down-market as their volume of smartphones increase? Let us know below.

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HTC Titan And Radar Pricing And Availability

September 1, 2011 | By Pradeep

HTC Titan To Cost 599 euros (855 USD Approx) and HTC Radar 399 euros (569 USD Approx). The devices will go on sale from October –1.

Achim Berg, head of Windows Phone marketing have told Bloomberg that HTC and other partners will run advertisement campaigns for the Titan and Radar phones, and the company has joined Microsoft in training “hundreds” of salesmen worldwide to better demonstrate the product. He also said that Microsoft is planning to build the momentum on Windows Phones by targeting Young as well as female consumers.

He also added that it takes time for a platform to take off,

This is a completely new platform, it takes time,” said Berg. “It took time with Android, it took time with Apple. We have to show that we’re very capable and that we have the fastest and easiest phone.”

more at Bloomberg.

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Custom HTC WP7 ROM’s Iminent?

August 1, 2011 | By KennyB123

Windows Phone Hacker have just reported that the Dark Forces Team (DFT) have successfully created an RSPL / HSPL solution for a majority of HTC’s Windows Phones. This of course comes our way via XDA-Developers. If you are unfamiliar, HSPL is the bootloader that allows for custom ROM’s to be loaded onto phones. Chefs on XDA-Developers have done an amazing job releasing custom Windows Mobile 6.x ROM’s for the past few years. In fact, this was normally the only way you could get WM6.5 on your device, because software updates were very inconsistent between phone manufacturers.

With Microsoft’s new update approach for all devices, will HSPL be necessary for Windows Phone 7? There are a couple scenarios I can personally think of. First, there has been a lot of “hackery” lately to allow for Mango beta versions to be installed onto non-developer phones. With HSPL, you could theoretically flash a Mango build in minutes, and flash back to a NoDo build just as quickly, once your device has the official Mango version update available. This avoids the need for making a backup before flashing.

Another scenario would be truly customized ROM’s. How about a completely jailbroken Mango build? Chefs could cook amazing homebrew apps and custom settings directly into the ROM. Custom tile colors, backgrounds and additional ringtones are possible.

As of now, the DTF release does not include the Verizon HTC Trophy or the Sprint HTC Arrive, but only because they don’t have their hands on these phones yet. Expect more devices to be supported soon.

Many would argue that Windows Phone 7 doesn’t need tweaking like Windows Mobile did. Let’s wait and see what the creative community comes up with! What custom features would you like built into a specially-crafted ROM?

Source: XDA-Developers

Via: Windows Phone Hacker

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Text Messages Not Sending After NoDo on HD7

May 3, 2011 | By andrewbares

HTC HD7 users running NoDo have been encountering some issues relating to sending text messages, and the correlation seems to point to the NoDo update as the cause. Users of the HD7 on various different carriers (including Bell, T-Mobile, O2, and Telus) have been reporting the SMS issues on an XDA-Developers thread:

…before the NoDo update I never had a problem with it, but ever since then, I keep
getting a lot of error messages for text messages saying the message wasn’t sent.

Frustration erupts when text messages aren't sent

I too have been encountering this problem, and it has been happening quite frequently in the last few weeks, like at least once a day. In my case, pressing the “Try Again” button usually doesn’t even work, and the message continues to not send.

Some other HD7 users on the thread suggested turning off 3G and hypothesised that a low 3G signal could be preventing the text messages from being sent. Another forum member suggested that you should wait on the text message screen after pressing send, because returning to the homescreen too quickly can interrupt the sending process. I’ve tested the second theory and concluded that leaving the text messaging screen as soon as you click send has no impact on if the text message sends or fails.

If you’re having this problem too, tell us about it in the comments. Include your carrier, device, and if you’re running NoDo or pre-NoDo.

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