HTC Radar – Hardware Review

November 9, 2011 | By andrewbares

This is the hardware and screen portion of our 4-part review on the HTC Radar from T-Mobile.

The build quality of the HTC Radar is superb. The phone feels fantastic in your hand. Unlike the HD7, the buttons on the phone feel solid and the entire phone feels sturdy. While the aluminum unibody makes the phone heavier and means you can’t remove the battery, it is completely worth it since the phone looks exceptional and feels like a BMW M3 rather than a Honda Civic.

It isn’t the thinnest phone, coming in at 0.43 inches, but it is thinner than the old HD7 which is a nice improvement.

One of the biggest disappointments aobut the Radar is the small 8 GB of storage space. When you first start the phone, you only have about 5.15 GB of useable space! And there’s no storage card slot, so you’re stuck with this ridiculous amount.

The “S-LCD” screen also isn’t that impressive. It’s hardly any brighter than a standard LCD display when in direct sunlight. The Super AMOLED display from last year’s Focus easily destorys this. The colors on the S-LCD compared to the normal LCD are slightly more vibrant, but are definitley not worth paying for.

Continuing with the disappointments, the phone lacks a gyroscope and also doesn’t include a wired headset for some reason. Also, the phone only has a single-core 1.0 GHz processor.

However, this processor isn’t the same one that’s in your old Windows Phones. This is the second generation Snapdragon, which also includes a new Adreno 205 graphics processor. These new components actually make the phone slightly more fluid when scrolling through certain apps. It also uses NAND storage memory instead of a SD card, which makes apps load a little faster.

Also, the 3.8” screen size is perfect for almost everything. Unlike those bigger screens, you can actually type one-handed with ease. Typing with both thumbs is also not a problem since the screen is still decently big.

Overall, the build quality of the phone is superb, but some of the specs are disappointing. Nevertheless, if you don’t need a lot of storage space, this phone is a great choice and is also pretty cheap. Keep watching WMPowerUser over the next week to catch the rest of our review on the HTC Radar.

About Andrew Bares

As an avid gamer, I see the Windows Phone as a solid platform for mobile gaming. I will review almost every WP7 game and give you an idea if it is worth your money or not! In addition to gaming, I have been using Windows Mobile since 2005, and understand just about everything there is to know about the Windows Phone platform. Xbox Gamertag: DirtSurfer07 (add me!)

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Tagged hardware, htc radar, review

http://twitter.com/Pieter_Kroon Pieter Kroon

I know this is completely off-topic but I don’t like his voice in these videos… it’s so… how do you call it? A little bit whining like… Besides that… nice hand-on
http://twitter.com/big_slim750 LaMar aka Big Slim

Hey Andrew,

That should be “1520 milliampere-hour” (mAh) battery, not “Mega-hertz”.

Nice review with the effects and all!
Anonymous

That’s a great review, Andrew! Excellent intro. Very professional looking.
Anonymous

Good Review, Andrew! Finally, someone who knows how to add a little ‘flare’ to the video reviews
Anonymous

HTC needs to do only 4 changes to cook up a kick-@$$, Nokia-beating phone: increase memory to 16 or even 32gb, give it an 8MP camera, AMOLED display and faster CPU. With the same design it will be one of the sweetest devices on the market, better than Focus S and Titan.

http://profiles.google.com/jdax3041 James Matthews

In other words give it the same specs at the focus and/or titan and it suddenly becomes better then those? Why, because of the smaller screen? smh

Anonymous

No, because it has better design than both, especially terribly cheap Samsung. It feels better in hand, has better buttons and has the right size to fit in any pocket. Overall, it feels like a high-end phone, while most other Win Phone devices, Nokia aside, feel cheap and flimsy.

http://profiles.google.com/jdax3041 James Matthews

Based on all the reviews I’ve seen there is nothing cheap or flumsy about the design of the Titan. Everything seems to point to the Titan as the best WP on the market.

Anonymous

I have to agree with you. everything that I’m reading and seeing of the Titian is point to it being The premier WP device on the market.

http://profiles.google.com/jdax3041 James Matthews

Andrew, so the Radar dosen’t have the same SLCD screen as the Titan?

http://www.thewingster.com andrewbares

I haven’t seen the Titan yet, but I’m assuming it doesn’t have the same quality screen, since reviews of the Titan claimed it was spectacular. The Radar’s isn’t the same is my guess.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1300735256 Andrew Bares

I assume it doesn’t, since the Titan’s is supposedly “brilliant” and even better than the Super AMOLED Plus screen. The Radar’s isn’t like that unfortunately

http://twitter.com/Pieter_Kroon Pieter Kroon

That is strange, since it does use SLCD, yet a different version? What a letdown

Anonymous

Missing headphones no big deal, they’re shit. In fact I doubt you could pay anyone to use HTC headphones, the ones from my Titan are still sealed in the bag.

http://www.thewingster.com andrewbares

I used mine. With the new voice texting features in Mango, it’s nice to be able to wall around campus and respond to texts without taking your phone out of your pocket. But each to their own of course!

Anonymous

andrew’, I don’t mean it in a bad way but why Do you always sound robotic when you do reviews? Why don’t you just talk natural instead of sounding like a programmed reviewer? I could tell by your eyes that you were reading something but may be just wing it and sound like a normal person.
Anonymous

Nicely done review Andrew! It sums up the good and the bad very well.
I might go a little easier on the music next time, but just a little bit. Overall I liked the cinematic touch in the beginning. Keep it up!
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_5ZUD73FFTF3JFLR64AD62R7Q6I Eric

Thanks Andrew for the review. Very objective.
Agree with you on the poor storage. This is a no go.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_5ZUD73FFTF3JFLR64AD62R7Q6I Eric

Note: if you cannot remove the battery how can you reboot your device when it bugs/freezes ?

My HTC Mozart freezes 3 or 4 times a week because of ZUNE. The only solution I found until now is to remove the battery which restarts the phone.

Anonymous

I have wondered the same thing. Have only had to remove my battery maybe 6-8 times in the past year, and most of the times it was because my phone refused to power on. So waiting for the battery to die would take weeks and is not an option.

justanothernick

Im rocking the radar right now and I haven’t had any rebooting/freezing problem knock on wood…2 weeks of owning it. It if ever does just by removing the back cover makes it reboot automatically.