Attention, possessors of the European HTC Legend! Have you noticed a handful of missing apps in the Android Market, namely Twidroid, Layar, MySpace Mobile, Barcode Scanner, Google Goggles, FxCamera, and so forth? Today, the brilliantly quiet HTC has finally come to light with the bizarre offending bug — camera incompatibility. Oopsie! Any moment now your metallic slab should receive the OTA update to patch things up, and hopefully the Droid Incredible will get the same fix even sooner. Crisis averted.
Last time we saw Android running on a previously Windows Mobile device, it was the HTC Touch Pro2 and the Android 2.1 ROM from the Google Nexus One. This time around it’s the turn of the HTC Touch Diamond2, and the Android 2.1 ROM from the HTC Legend, which means as well as all that Google goodness there are lashings of HTC Sense, too.
It’s a pretty polished ROM, too, with all but the GPS and camera working (though there are a few reported Bluetooth glitches that should be easy to work around). Obviously in the process of installing you do run the risk of bricking your smartphone, but plenty of people have gone the distance and ended up with a handset showing a new lease of life.
Compared to some gadgets, a two-week waiting period is only as painful as a mere mosquito bite, but we’re pretty sure that British fans of the HTC Legend would strongly disagree. Thankfully, our friends over at TechRadar ended this torture today with the news that Vodafone UK finally has a date for its exclusive Legend — “arriving on 2 April.” This presumably refers to stock availability in retail stores, since Vodafone’s still honoring its website’s April 6th date for its pre-order deliveries due to the Easter weekend. As for the Desire, Vodafone’s still pointing at the April window, which provides plenty of time to choose between the various UK carriers. Oh, so many decisions!
Vodafone has today announced that it will be the exclusive UK carrier of that aluminum-clad successor to the Hero: the HTC Legend. Advance registration pages for it and its family mate, the Desire, have gone live today and indicate an April launch date — something we’d already expected thanks to Amazon’s delivery estimates for unlocked handsets. The two HTC devices are flanked by Sony Ericsson’s long awaited X10 and the Nexus One, with the latter lacking a release date. It’s interesting that as things stand the Desire (HTC’s own-branded Nexus One) will beat its precursor to the UK market. Same could be true of Spain, where Engadget Spanish notes that Vodafone has confirmed an April arrival for HTC’s full family of new phones, including the HD Mini.
Vodafone UK have announced that they will be offering HTC’s two newest Android smartphones, the HTC Desire and – exclusive to the network – the HTC Legend which we reviewed last week. Both smartphones – each of which run Android 2.1 – will arrive sometime in April 2010.
Pricing and exact plan details are yet to be confirmed, but we’re assuming Vodafone UK will be offering each handset “free” on at least one or two high-end monthly tariffs. It’s also unclear as to how long Vodafone’s exclusivity agreement with HTC will last over the Legend; still, those who want to use the device on other networks should be able to find it unlocked.
Each smartphone runs the latest version of HTC Sense and has an AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with multitouch support: 3.2-inches and HVGA resolution on the Legend and 3.7-inches and WVGA resolution on the Desire. We’re still waiting on HTC Desire review units to come through, but are chasing HTC about it now.
After four three flavors of the HTC Hero, the Taiwanese mobile giant has finally brought back the chin with an additional lick of aluminum and a similarly quirky name — the Legend. If this alone isn’t of much interest to you yet, just bear in mind that this is HTC’s first Android 2.1 device with Sense UI. It didn’t take much for us to fall in love with this Android phone at MWC — HTC convinced us of its unibody toughness by banging it against the wall, and needless to say, the vibrant AMOLED screen caught our eyes, too. However, there are still some questions to be answered before we can decide whether the Legend lives up to its name, especially on battery life, wireless reception, camera quality and software performance. Unless there have been major tweaks, we’ll try not to bore you with features already seen on the Hero — so please, won’t you join us?
We did little to disguise how impressed we were with the HTC Hero when we reviewed it all the way back in July 2009. At the time we suggested it was the device with which Android came of age; since then, of course, we’ve seen a huge growth both in the number of manufacturers and devices available, and in Android itself. Into that fray wades the HTC Legend, undoubtedly one of the stand-out devices from MWC 2010 in February and packing the latest versions not only of Android but of HTC’s Sense, which rather fittingly debuted with the Hero. Can HTC history repeat itself? Check out the full SlashGear review after the cut.
HTC Legend unboxing:
Specifications-wise, the Legend marks some key changes over the Hero and some points where we wish HTC had been a little more forthright. The Legend has a 3.2-inch HVGA display, like the Hero, but this time around it’s an AMOLED panel rather than LCD. Similarly, there’s a 5-megapixel autofocus camera, but now it has an LED flash. Where the Hero used a 528MHz chipset, the Legend gets Qualcomm’s 600MHz MSM7227; a speed increase, yes, but short of the 1GHz Snapdragon on the Google Nexus One and HTC’s own Desire.
In fact, there’s a feeling that HTC are pushing the Legend into the mid-range market, rather than aiming for the flagship status the Hero once occupied. We can’t argue the strategy – however much we generally prefer faster processors – and nor can we argue what the Legend brings to its new tier. Most notable is the construction: gone is the Hero’s Teflon-coated plastic, with a new, unibody aluminum casing taking its place. HTC describes their latest design focus as “hidden power”, but with the Legend it’s anything but disguised: by carving the phone’s casing out of a solid block of metal, they’ve been able to do away with a separate outer shell and thus make the whole thing smaller than the smartphone it replaces.
The only plastic to be found is the camera surround – punctuated with holes for the speaker grill – and the battery compartment door, which doubles as the antenna. The row of buttons under the display are also plastic, and they’re the sole point on the Legend where the quality doesn’t feel 100-percent; instead they’re a little too clicky, a little too plasticky. Everywhere else is soft-touch and sturdy, and the Legend feels great in the hand.
Gone, too, is the Hero’s trackball, replaced by an optical joystick. It takes a little getting used to – stroking it from side to side to navigate homescreens or tabs – but once you’re familiar it actually feels more accurate than the trackball ever did. That’s partly because there’s less chance of sideways-slip when you press in to select. As before there are seven homescreen panes and a variety of HTC’s own widgets to fill them with; you can also save various “Scenes”, with layouts and wallpapers suited to different times of day or activity. Not all of HTC’s widgets are loaded by default – there’s a “Get more” shortcut at the top of the list, with things like a tip calculator and a “Daily Challenge” – and we’re hoping that means the company are planning to push out new examples periodically. Panning between panes is swift and lag-free, even if they’re loaded up with widgets, and of course there’s the new – and incredibly addictive – “helicopter view”, which shows Exposé-style thumbnails of all seven panes when you pinch-zoom on the homescreen.
HTC Legend video demo:
Since the Legend runs Android 2.1 and the newest build of HTC Sense, there are several software changes to be discovered. That includes the newer version of the Android Market, complete with screenshot previews, something Hero owners are still waiting for. Still, the biggest improvements are HTC’s own. Unlike the partial Exchange support in Android 2.1, the Legend can sync not only Mail and Contacts but Calendar entries as well. HTC’s own Mail app has had a makeover and now has useful tabs to show not only messages and conversations, but pull out messages from your preset VIPs, unread-only, those flagged, meeting invitations and those with attachments. Where Nexus One owners looking to use Exchange have often had to resort to third-party apps from the Android Market, that’s unlikely to be the case with the HTC Legend.
HTC’s Calendar app has also been tweaked, with a new Agenda view that pulls appointments and reminders into a single list, rather than demanding you navigate by month or date. You can also put an Agenda widget on the homescreen. The other big change, however, comes in how HTC now manage social networks; while the first-gen of Sense added Facebook, Twitter and Flickr updates to individual contacts, there was no way of seeing all recent updates from everybody. Only HTC Peep – their own Twitter client – had such a view.
Now, though, there’s Friend Stream, which pulls together all three services into one view (and a homescreen widget too). As with MOTOBLUR you can update your Facebook status and Twitter from one single point; like the various tabs for drilling-down through messages in the Mail app, Friend Stream has separate tabs for viewing status updates only, just photos or just links. Of course you can still view each contact’s updates separately, or just use Peep for Twitter, but we’re glad to now have the choice. Still, it’d be great to see HTC commit to adding more social networks to their roster, like Motorola have been doing; there are still plenty of people wanting MySpace and LinkedIn, for instance.
There’s also a new copy/paste system which links in neatly to Wikipedia, Google Dictionary and Google Translate. Tapping and holding on a word calls up a small magnifier window and highlights that word; letting go allows you either to drag extender bars to enlarge the selection, or tap to copy it, share it via whatever methods are installed (Mail, Messages and Peep as default, with the Legend automatically URL shortening if necessary), or pushing it over to the look-up services. There, three tabs offer dictionary definitions, various language translations and Wikipedia’s mobile site. Our only one frustration is that, once you’re in the look-up pane, you can’t then tap-and-hold to search for a word in those three tabs; it only offers you the ability to copy that text.
Optics have never been HTC’s strongest point, and the Legend’s camera isn’t a huge step up from that of the Hero. Daylight shots are actually pretty reasonable, with the autofocus quick to snap into order and pressing the optical joystick easier than trying to do the same with the Hero’s trackball. Less impressive, frankly, is the LED flash. HTC told us ahead of the Legend’s launch that they’re currently finding that LEDs can produce just as good results as Xenon flashes but, whether or not you believe that, like other LED-equipped phones we’ve tested it has a tendency either to wash out or under-illuminate the subject. There’s a definite sweet-spot, and it’s a narrow one; particularly frustrating are close-up shots and, as you can see from those in the gallery below, while the Legend was capable of producing a decent shot of a Nexus One while naturally lit, relying on the flash resulted in a seriously washed-out photo. To be fair this is something that affects most camera phones, so we can’t especially blame HTC.
Speaking of Flash, while we were led to believe that the Legend wouldn’t support Flash Lite – unlike the Hero – in actual fact the customized browser does indeed display Flash animations and games. There’s also multitouch support, for pinch-zoom (something not shared by Google Maps), and the usual tabbed browsing. Text-reflowing is impressively quick: a double-tap on a block of writing will automatically zoom in and instantly reflow the paragraph for single-screen reading. We’ve had no problems with flipping from portrait to landscape orientation, and complex websites have rendered with no errors as far as we can see. While the Legend’s display may not be as expansive as that of the Desire, the combination of reflowing, intuitive zooming and overall speed go a long way to overcoming that limitation.
In fact, speed is generally pretty impressive across the board. Our concerns at the relatively minor bump in chipset were founded on repeated complaints about the Hero suffering lag; that’s something HTC have obviously worked hard to code out of the Legend. There’s a little pause as you move between tabs in data-heavy apps like Mail – as the phone pulls out only those messages flagged, for instance, or with attachments – but otherwise it’s slick and smooth. Loaded up with push email, various social networking accounts and media, the Legend does an admirable job of keeping up, and that’s no small relief.
Call quality is good, though we miss the dual-microphone array found on the Google Nexus One. We had no trouble finding and sticking to an HSPA connection, either, with the Legend supporting up to 7.2Mbps downloads and 2Mbps uploads, network depending. Short-sighted, though, is HTC’s decision to limit HSPA/WCDMA support to the European/Asia Pacifit 900/2100MHz bands; while you’ll be able to use EDGE data in most places (the Legend is quadband GSM) you’ll have no luck, say, getting 3G in North America. We understand that’s probably to allow HTC to differentiate their global range, but it’s frustrating nonetheless. Of course, there’s also WiFi b/g (along with Bluetooth 2.1+EDR) for faster connections when you’re around a suitable hotspot.
Given our relatively limited time with the Legend, we haven’t had the opportunity to fully test out its power management. HTC quote up to 440 minutes WCMDA talktime or 490 minutes GSM talktime from the 1,300mAh battery, or up to 560hrs WCDMA standby or 440hrs GSM standby. From what time we’ve had, we’d expect this to be another case of a charge-nightly device, especially if you have push-email and social network updates turned on. One of HTC’s optional widgets is a 1×1 battery meter you can put on your desktop, which is a more telling way to gauge how much runtime you have left.
It’s saying a lot that, when we reviewed the Hero just eight months ago, we had to go pretty much back to basics to explain Android as a platform, but today there’s no such requirement. The standard music player is still uninspiring, and we’re hoping HTC turn their Sense amendments to that next, given Google themselves seem reluctant to do anything about it; still, we’ll take the FM radio they’ve added (which requires a wired headset in order to work) as a start. The jump from Android 1.5 on the Hero to Android 2.1 on the Legend is a sizeable one, though of course HTC are promising a reasonably imminent firmware update that should bring the Hero up to speed. That’s expected to include Android 2.1 Eclair together with many – but not all – of the new Sense functionality.
It’s a long-overdue release, and something Hero owners have been anticipating for some time; it’s also a moderate cause for concern for those considering the HTC Legend. As we’ve increasingly seen with manufacturer-modified Android devices – not just from HTC, but other companies as well – there’s a potential for delay involved when you start modifying the core OS. The Hero has been left languishing with Android 1.5 because of the effort its taken bringing Sense up to speed with newer versions of the platform, something initially tipped to be ready late last year.
HTC Legend durability test:
Now, as we’d say with any device, you should always choose a new gadget because it satisfies your needs now, today, out of the box, rather than because it may get some new feature however many months down the line. Still, one of the attractions of Android is undoubtedly its potential for upgrade and the relative speed at which Google are pushing out new iterations. HTC have again pledged to support the Legend with new firmware as and when possible, but it’s up to the would-be buyer to decide whether they’re willing to take the risk of possible delays.
Nonetheless, even if it remained as it is today, the HTC Legend is an impressive device. It no longer occupies the top-spot in HTC’s Android range – the imminent Desire will take that position – but it’s arguably more attractive and pocket-friendly than its sibling. HTC have made some clever, thoughtful enhancements with Sense – Friend Stream and the look-up functionality come particularly to mind – and in doing so they’ve improved on a core platform that already feels reasonably mature. Held up to the mid-range devices it’s being positioned against, the Legend feels a step up in build quality and design; enough, even, that we could well see it tempting some of the geeks who might automatically have plumped for the Desire or Nexus One. The Android landscape may have changed significantly in the months between now and the Hero’s launch, but with the Legend HTC have shown they still have what it takes to stand apart.
Slowly but surely, HTC’s latest trifecta of handsets is making its way westwards. After appearing on Amazon’s Deutsche hub with a pre-order value of €519 ($707), the Desire has now reached the UK with an even steeper £528 ($795) price and an estimated arrival time of April 1. Let’s just hope this pattern doesn’t continue or we’ll be looking at a four-figure sticker when this thing comes all the way Stateside. The HTC Legend is also slated for an April 1 delivery and carries a price of £400 ($602), while the HD Mini will straggle a tiny bit with an April 14 launch and a palatable £369 ($556) price. All are without contractual obligations, so it’ll be interesting to see what incentives carriers can come up with to get us to jump on board.
The HTC Legend has landed, and you know we’ve wasted no time in putting the new Android 2.1 smartphone in front of a camera for a video unboxing. Announced last month at Mobile World Congress 2010, and set to hit shelves across Europe sometime next month, the Legend is the spiritual successor to the much-loved HTC Hero but with a new, unibody twist. Check out our hands-on shots, first-impressions and unboxing video after the cut.
Updated with first-boot hands-on video!
As you can see from the video, in the box there’s the Legend itself, the battery, an A/C adapter, USB to microUSB cable and a wired hands-free headset. Our particular review unit didn’t come with a microSD card, but we imagine retail boxes will do. Whereas the entire rear panel of the Hero detached in order to fit the battery, on the Legend the soft-touch plastic bottom panel slides off to reveal a slot into which the battery fits. There are also slots for the SIM and microSD card.
HTC Legend unboxing:
It’s a noticeably thinner handset than the Hero, helped by the incredibly tactile brushed aluminum finish. HTC create the body by carving away from the single block of metal, and the end result is something naturally soft-touch but sturdy as well. Since the casing is also the chassis, you have a thinner device too. Our only mild disappointment is the row of buttons under the display – Home, Menu, Back and Search – which feel a little clicky and slightly cheap.
First impressions of the OS is that it’s all very similar to what we’re used to from the Hero, and other HTC Sense devices. They’ve sensibly added some helpful tips that hover over the homescreen and flag up features – such as the “helicopter view” Exposé-style overview of the seven panes, triggered either by a pinch-zoom gesture or by tapping the Home button – which should get new users up to speed sooner. Meanwhile there are a few new HTC widgets, and the company have mixed up their own and Google’s into the same list rather than segregating them as on the Hero.
With the slight processor boost – Qualcomm’s MSM7227 600MHz versus the Hero’s 528MHz chipset – we’re not expecting the Legend to be a speed demon, and we’ll be seeing how well it multitasks over the course of our review. The onscreen QWERTY keyboard feels responsive, though, and we’ve always been fans of HTC’s auto-correction and predictive text functionality. The AMOLED display, meanwhile, is bright and color-saturated, though a little less wowing than the larger panel on the Nexus One (and HTC Desire).
So far, so good then; a phone that feels like a real premium step up from the Hero, but that’s still pocketable and user-friendly. We’re off to put the HTC Legend through its paces, so until our full review check out the unboxing video and initial demo video below!
You could well argue that the HTC Hero was the Android smartphone of 2009. While Motorola’s DROID brought with it a larger display, newer version of the OS and arguably more functional hardware keyboard, HTC led the pack months in advance. Multitouch-capable, distinctly designed and outfitted with a genuinely compelling UI in the shape of HTC Sense, the Hero fast became the poster-child of Android. Now, the company are hoping to follow that success with the HTC Legend, a slick Hero update with a tactile unibody aluminum shell. Is it a worthy sequel or has the HTC Desire stolen the Legend’s flagship thunder; more importantly, is it sufficiently different from the smartphone it replaces?
It’s hard to argue with the aesthetics. HTC have taken a solid block of aluminum and carved out a soft-touch, MacBook Pro-like shell; into that they’ve squeezed a 3.2-inch HVGA AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display, dualband HSPA, quadband GSM, WiFi and Bluetooth, along with GPS, a digital compass and accelerometer. Like the Hero before it, the Legend supports multitouch gestures, but hardware controls have been pared down a little: the function keys are a minimal strip underneath the display, and the trackball has been replaced with an arguably more reliable optical joystick.
HTC Legend hands-on:
Inside, though, there’s not the significant chipset update many hoped for (especially bearing in mind that HTC have used Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon in the Desire); the Hero used Qualcomm’s 528MHz MSM7200A, while the Legend gets a slight speed boost in the shape of the 600MHz MSM7227. In a mobile device it’s true that every little helps, but in terms of what rivals are offering it does push the Legend more into the mid-range rather than the flagship position the Hero once occupied. We’ll have to wait until the first review units with production software arrive to see if 600MHz is enough for Android 2.1 and the newest Sense build; our hands-on time at MWC 2010 seemed to suggest it was all reasonably slick, but that’s a long way away from daily use when loaded up with apps.
Of course, we’ve also seen the inherent drawback involved when you start to modify your core platform. HTC Sense, though receiving of excellent reviews – and, arguably, doing more to drive Google’s own Android UI development than anyone else – has left the company on the back foot when it comes to rolling out OS updates to those devices equipped with it. Other company’s Android phones may be less compelling than HTC’s, but users have grown to be cautious of devices with the potential for long upgrade delays.
Ironically, then, it may be HTC’s own software update schedule that presents the biggest challenge to the Legend. At roughly the same time the new smartphone goes on sale, HTC Hero owners should receive the long-awaited Android 2.1 firmware complete with much of the latest Sense functionality. HTC haven’t exactly defined which Sense attributes will be present and which will be missing on the Hero – all they’ve told us is that Hero owners shouldn’t expect to get all of the new tweaks seen on the Legend – but with the devices so similarly specified once you get past the unibody style, it may be enough of a compromise to leave users content with their older phones.
It’s tough to create a compelling, well-received smartphone that balances a generally-available OS with distinctive, home-grown customizations. It’s perhaps equally tough to then create a follow-up that manages to be sufficiently reminiscent of its successful predecessor, but suitably distinct in its own right to encourage upgrades.
Tempted by the HTC Legend? Planning to upgrade your HTC Hero to the new unibody phone? Or is the promise of Android 2.1 and a Sense update enough? Let me know in the comments.
There’s also a new copy/paste system which links in neatly to Wikipedia, Google Dictionary and Google Translate. Tapping and holding on a word calls up a small magnifier window and highlights that word; letting go allows you either to drag extender bars to enlarge the selection, or tap to copy it, share it via whatever methods are installed (Mail, Messages and Peep as default, with the Legend automatically URL shortening if necessary), or pushing it over to the look-up services. There, three tabs offer dictionary definitions, various language translations and Wikipedia’s mobile site. Our only one frustration is that, once you’re in the look-up pane, you can’t then tap-and-hold to search for a word in those three tabs; it only offers you the ability to copy that text.
In fact, speed is generally pretty impressive across the board. Our concerns at the relatively minor bump in chipset were founded on repeated complaints about the Hero suffering lag; that’s something HTC have obviously worked hard to code out of the Legend. There’s a little pause as you move between tabs in data-heavy apps like Mail – as the phone pulls out only those messages flagged, for instance, or with attachments – but otherwise it’s slick and smooth. Loaded up with push email, various social networking accounts and media, the Legend does an admirable job of keeping up, and that’s no small relief.
