HTC Titan has definitely been named aptly as the 4.7 inch display onboard this beast is truly of a size that is fit only for titans. HTC has had some success with previous phones that run on Microsoft’s Windows Phone like the HTC Trophy and HTC Surround and with the HTC Titan they look to add another phone to that list. This smartphone runs on the Windows Phone Mango and looks set to be a phone that would be remembered by many. However will it be remembered for being a great phone or otherwise? Let’s find out.
Features Design
The HTC Titan measures in at 5.18 x 2.78 x 0.39 inches which is some huge numbers especially in terms of its width. So one look at this phone and you are definitely to be intimidated and also left wondering how on earth you are going to hold it in your hands. However, pick it up and worry no more. It’s really slim and thanks to its sturdy metallic casing it feels solid in your hands too. Of course you might say that the metallic shell gives the phone a little bit more weight, but given the protection you get in return, we say it’s worth every pound. It was not too long ago that we thought smartphones wouldn’t go much larger than 4.3 inch screens but that was probably a prediction we made too soon.
Now we have a phone in our hands that sports a 4.7 inch WVGA S-LCD screen that has a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels. Surprisingly, even though the screen was already pretty huge, we would think that HTC would try to cramp everything else on the front. However, that is not the case here and you actually get a good amount of space between the screen and the capacitive buttons underneath. This is great as you don’t make any accidental presses. Above the screen, you will find the narrow earpiece as well as the front facing 1.3MP camera. On the right side of the HTC Titan you will find a two-level shutter key for you camera together with the volume rocker. On the top are your power button and the standard audio jack. Meanwhile on the left sits the microUSB port. Flip the phone and on the back you will find your 8MP auto-focus camera which also comes with a dual-LED flash.
So what is it that powers this smartphone? The CPU that has the task of powering the HTC Titan is a third generation Quallcomm Snapdragon processor, the single-core Qualcomm MSM8255 CPU which clocks in at 1.5GHz. Not only that, the phone is also blessed with a 512MB RAM. If these specs don’t get you excited, you have to try the phone and it will prove you wrong. This is because the HTC Titan runs ever so smoothly be it when opening apps or doing anything else for that matter.
The HTC Titan runs on the same OS as the HTC Radar, that is the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango and as expected they are pretty much the same. It also sports the latest version of HTC Hub so that you still get the Sense UI feel that is what everyone loves most on a HTC phone. This OS adds some visual improvements and at the same time better functions too. Just like previous phones, you get two main screens one being your homescreen and the other one for your apps. It still has the live tiles on the homescreen that work as either a shortcut or a notification based on how you set them. On the other screen you are presented with the list of apps found on the phone. You can pin them to the start menu with a long press too. Windows Phone has been able to dish out some amazing messaging experiences previously and with the HTC Titan it gets supersized thanks to the supersized screen. The extra large screen gives us a keyboard that is spacious and put that together with the responsiveness the phone has to offer, the messaging experience on this phone is just out of this world. Windows Phone 7.5 Mango also provides a better email experience as well as it is not only more refined with the universal inbox system it is also extremely easy to set up.
The highlight of this phone has to be the 4.7 inch WVGA S-LCD screen which takes up almost the whole front side of the HTC Titan. For such a huge screen, the resolution does not cut it which shows when you are trying to view small text. However, all is not lost as you still get amazing colors, good viewing angles as well as a very bright screen.
On this phone, you find an 8MP auto-focus camera that looks built to take great pictures just like other HTC phones of late. It also comes with dual-LED flash, wide angle F2.2 lens as well as backside illumination. The photos taken on this camera are not the best, but they are pretty good. We get good details on pictures that are taken both outdoors and indoors. Color reproduction could have been better but it isn’t exactly bad out of the box. The camcorder records at 720p but it doesn’t do very good. This is because it lacks detail causing some very muddy playback.
There are many reasons to like the web browsing experience on the HTC Titan that you tend to forget that there is no Flash support. We loved how smooth the whole browsing experience was especially when we were navigating through pages. It also offers HSPA+ speeds to top it all off. Since this a GSM phone, you could use it anywhere in the world. The HTC Titan also comes with the usual connectivity options like aGPS, Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR as well as Wi-Fi with the mobile hotspot feature.
In terms of how the phone performs with call quality, it was a downer. This was because voices on both ends sounded hollow. Nevertheless things change when you turn on the speakerphone as it offers good volume output. The 1600mAh battery does a good job as you can get a day out of it with every charge.
Pros and Cons
The HTC Titan is built to last and we definitely like that solid feeling. The screen offers some vivid colors. For a phone powered by a single-core processor, it is super responsive too.
HTC Titan could definitely use a much better resolution as it only churns out 200 ppi with its present resolution. Video recording was also not up to our standards.
Conclusion
HTC Titan is a good Windows Phone and its huge screen will definitely win over a lot of people. At $200 on contract, it is definitely a great offering.