The HTC HD is one of the best known Windows Mobile phone and was the first to break the big screen phone barrier. The HTC Eris is one of the Droids that Verizon Wireless is offering, so a battle between the two is, I think, needed. I like to keep things short and sweet, so this will only touch on 3 rounds: hardware, software and user experience.

Hardware

The HTC HD was released over a year ago with the high end technology of its time. The Eris was recently released with the high end compressed technology of these times, but can the past beat the recent?

-Processor
Both devices sport the same timeless 528Mhz QUALCOMM processor, but the Droid feels a bit snappier than the HTC Touch HD.

 -Camera
Both devices have 5MP in the bank and they both use it very well. The HD has slightly older technology with no flash, but still looks good and take decent videos. The Eris is more recent and the software makes the hardware a lot better.

-Size
These two devices have a very nice and slim shell. The HD has a both slim and sexy long device with a huge screen in front of it. The Eris has a nice little slim design going for it and that is great for people that don’t have much pocket room to spare like me.

-Screen
The HD was one of the first devices to go over the 3.5" phone screen limit, but only with resistive, not capacitive. The Eris kept it simple with a nice and elegant 3.2" capacitive screen that does the job while still keeping it small.

-Fin
Both devices have great hardware going for it and this one is a tie because they have the same camera and their sizes are really similar, but the Eris uses its processor slightly better and the HD’s screen is bigger, not always better. HD-5, Eris-4.5

Software

The Droid Eris was released with the fastest growing and best looking OS Android. The HD was released last year with TF3D which is the best and most useful UI Windows Mobile phone’s have, mine is updated to Windows Mobile 6.5.1 with TF3D 2.5.

-User Interface
The Droid comes with HTC’s new sense UI that was made just for sexiness and usability. The HD that I am currently using has Windows Mobile’s version of sense UI called Manilla 2.5 that is made also very sexy, usable and is very informative. The Eris’s Sense has an added feature that allows you to switch settings from social to work and your own custom version. The Sense has everything you need from a twitter feed, message, weather and all the information you need. The Windows Mobile Sense version has everything the Android version has including all the settings. In the UI section the devices are fairly equal.

-Applications
This section of the review is a little hard to judge because even thought Android has more app available in their store, Windows Mobile has more available elsewhere. I will have to make this short- WM has 20K+ applications all spread around, Android has 10k+ in their app store.

-Fin
This section, I wanted to keep it short.  The Eris and the HD in terms of software, is pretty similar, but I would have to say this is also a tie. The HD gets 4.5, because even though the User Interface is not really as good compared to the Eris, it still has a huge community behind it and thousands of applications. The Eris also gets a 4.5 also because even thought its User Interface is stellar, it still does not have as much applications available at the moment, but that will change very soon.

User Experience

A phone is nothing without having a great user experience. The Eris has a nice and very consistent users experience, so you will not have a problem. The HD is also a very elegant device, but you will not always have a very constant experience.

-Out of the Box
The HD is well know for the software that HTC adds to it when it ships and that makes for a great out the box experience.  The phone when you receive it, you get everything you will need for a normal use, you also get their very famous TF3D.

The Eris also has a very good out the box experience. It comes with everything you need except some essential programs like file explorer and some other things that make installing your applications easy.

-Installation
This will be a very short comparison. The Eris is a lot easier experience to get applications and install them than the HD. The Android Application store is one of the easiest way of getting all your applications and installing them in good time. I took me about 30 seconds of searching for the exact application I needed and all I did then was press install then while on VZW’s 3G network it took 10seconds to download and 5 seconds to install. The HD was a little more complicated, I opened the application, then MS wanted me to install some update, then they asked me to sign into my live account and then I had to wait while it searched for the App I wanted then waited for it to load and finally install. The experience was clearly not as nice.

-Fin
The out of the Box experience has to go to the HD, because it has everything I need from file explore to Mobile Word and more. The Installation has to go to the Eris, because it does make downloading the application a pleasant and smooth process. HD-4 Eris-4

Conclude

This one was close going with what was mention in the comparison. There is a lot more I could have covered on this comparison, but I like things short. The HD has to win on this one, because it just has it all from sexiness to usability. The Eris is a really good device, I love the screen and how smooth it works, but it still has some things it needs to add before it can go against the HD, and next time it will be the HD2, so it really will not be fair.

Read my full review of the Eris at MobileOSNews

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