HTC announces Desire HD, Desire Z and HTCSense.com

[neiltc13]

New European Android phones were announced by HTC today.

HTC Desire HD:

The handset is made from a solid block of aluminum and comes packing a 1GHz 8255 Snapdragon processor, 8 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash and 720p video recording, Dolby Mobile, and HSPA+ data with 802.11n WiFi when it lands in Europe and Asia sometime in October.

HTC Desire Z:

HTC has just announced the Desire Z, an Android-friendly QWERTY slider. Like the T-Mobile G2, the Desire Z features a "pop-out" (don't call it a slider) QWERTY keyboard with user assigned keys and system-wide shortcuts that let you quickly launch your favorite apps. Around back you've got a 5 megapixel camera with flash that's HD video capable while an 800MHz Qualcomm MSM7230 processor pumps away efficiently inside with HSPA+ and 802.11n radios providing the data.

Also announced was HTCSense.com, a new online service for owners of the above phones and those released in future (apparently will NOT be available on existing handsets):

HTC's announcing more than hardware this morning, it's also announcing an enhanced HTC Sense experience. At heart is HTCSense.com, a series of dashboard-connected services for backup, security, and control of your HTC handset. A new locate feature triggers the handset to ring loudly (even when set to silent) while flagging its location on an online map. If the phone was lost or stolen, owners can remote lock and/or wipe the phone. Backups will automatically archive your contacts, text messages, call history, customizations and data. Sense is also adding advanced multimedia capabilities to help ease the way we capture, share, and upload our content. HTC's also added on-the-fly capture effects and filters to manipulate depth of field or for adding distortion and vintage effects.

Full details at Engadget

Very interesting announcements I think. Desire HD is really going to bring them on to a par with iPhone 4 and it looks like they are getting serious with the online services too. Interesting that it's HTC doing these things and not Google though.

 

[Dr McKay]

I saw them review this on the Gadget Show, the video quality was horrible, low FPS, washed out colours. The iPhone 4 edged it in all their stupid tests.

 

[Hellhammer]

Looks like all manufacturers are setting up their holiday lineups. Nokia came up with new phones and now HTC. I'm sure others have too or are going to. It will be a bloody fight for buyers

 

[neiltc13]

I saw them review this on the Gadget Show, the video quality was horrible, low FPS, washed out colours. The iPhone 4 edged it in all their stupid tests.

These phones were only just announced in the last couple of hours, are you sure that it was one of these you saw on TV?

 

[yg17]

I hope they release one of those unlocked with AT&T 3G bands.

 

[ChazUK]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2; en-gb; Nexus One Build/FRF91) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

I saw them review this on the Gadget Show, the video quality was horrible, low FPS, washed out colours. The iPhone 4 edged it in all their stupid tests.

These phones were only just announced in the last couple of hours, are you sure that it was one of these you saw on TV?

Neither of these phones have been on the gadget show.
He is posting crap.


EDIT:-----

Well, I've seen a few vids and posts about the handsets and I must say they do look impressive. HTC Sense is great (I loved it on the Hero) but the super slow update to my Hero with Android 2.1 has put me off of Sense based phones and was one of the reasons I bough the Nexus.

If HTC release the Desire Z with the same config as the U.S T-Mobile G2 and stock Android then I would be happier! I was going to get a Galaxy-S as my wife has one and it is fantastic (with some tweaks) but these new handsets have got me thinking.

Engadget's video of the Desire Z booting has impressed me immensly http://www.viddler.com/explore/engadget/videos/1830/

Pity we didn't see any Windows Phone 7 offerings today tho.

 

[0dev]

Seriously considering selling up my 3GS for a Desire HD. I've liked the Evo ever since it came out months ago and have been waiting for a Euro version.

I'll play with it when it comes out and make my mind up, I think. It'll depend on price, too.

 

[steve2112]

Neither of these phones have been on the gadget show.
He is posting crap.


EDIT:-----

Well, I've seen a few vids and posts about the handsets and I must say they do look impressive. HTC Sense is great (I loved it on the Hero) but the super slow update to my Hero with Android 2.1 has put me off of Sense based phones and was one of the reasons I bough the Nexus.

If HTC release the Desire Z with the same config as the U.S T-Mobile G2 and stock Android then I would be happier! I was going to get a Galaxy-S as my wife has one and it is fantastic (with some tweaks) but these new handsets have got me thinking.

Engadget's video of the Desire Z booting has impressed me immensly http://www.viddler.com/explore/engadget/videos/1830/

Pity we didn't see any Windows Phone 7 offerings today tho.

Yeah, it got really annoying waiting for the upgrade for my Hero. My carrier kept saying that they were forced to wait on Google and HTC to get it working on the Hero. It sucks that my carrier didn't have the Desire when I got this Hero, because I'm getting tired of it. And I still have over a year on this contract. Stupid contracts.

 

[0dev]

Yeah, it got really annoying waiting for the upgrade for my Hero. My carrier kept saying that they were forced to wait on Google and HTC to get it working on the Hero. It sucks that my carrier didn't have the Desire when I got this Hero, because I'm getting tired of it. And I still have over a year on this contract. Stupid contracts.

Can't you root it and hack Froyo onto it? If the official release ever does happen and you'd prefer to be on it, you can flash back to stock firmwares.

 

[steve2112]

Can't you root it and hack Froyo onto it? If the official release ever does happen and you'd prefer to be on it, you can flash back to stock firmwares.

Well, they finally did release 2.1 for the Hero, but it took several months after Google officially released it. HTC and my carrier kept pointing fingers at each other. I was about to do just that, but they released the official version. I've heard the Hero may not be getting 2.2 because of hardware limitations, but I don't know if that is true or not.

 

[0dev]

Well, they finally did release 2.1 for the Hero, but it took several months after Google officially released it. HTC and my carrier kept pointing fingers at each other. I was about to do just that, but they released the official version. I've heard the Hero may not be getting 2.2 because of hardware limitations, but I don't know if that is true or not.

If they blame hardware limitations, that's a very bad excuse - 2.2 has actually been ported to the HTC Dream unofficially, so there's no way the Hero is unable to run it.

If I was in your position, I'd be running an unofficial port. HTC are just being lazy with updates.

 

[steve2112]

If they blame hardware limitations, that's a very bad excuse - 2.2 has actually been ported to the HTC Dream unofficially, so there's no way the Hero is unable to run it.

If I was in your position, I'd be running an unofficial port. HTC are just being lazy with updates.

I have just seen various discussions about 2.2 on the Hero on various Android forums. There doesn't seem to be any consensus on it. Honestly, though, I haven't kept up with it too much since I got 2.1. Is there a really big difference between 2.1 and 2.2? I know there was a huge jump between 1.6 and 2.1.

 

[0dev]

I have just seen various discussions about 2.2 on the Hero on various Android forums. There doesn't seem to be any consensus on it. Honestly, though, I haven't kept up with it too much since I got 2.1. Is there a really big difference between 2.1 and 2.2? I know there was a huge jump between 1.6 and 2.1.

I don't think it's a massive jump, but there's a few useful additions (saving apps on SD card, better Exchange support, portable hotspot, and it's meant to be significantly faster).

 

[ChazUK]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.1-update1; en-gb; Dell Streak Build/ERE27) AppleWebKit/530.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/530.17)

Well, this looks like it will be my next handset.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjCYNznMvE8

HTC seem to have done well with the Desire HD.

 

[chrmjenkins]

Desire HD is really just a Evo with a prettier body. It's a shame HTC didn't unleash a new chipset this year, even if it is an overclocked snapdragon. It's sad that it seems like LG will ship the only A9 hardware this year.

 

[Nabooly]

Why don't they work on battery life before they keep unnecessarily upgrading phones? Every android phone (including my hero) ive come across has horrible battery life. Im going to switch back to blackberry until then.

 

[0dev]

Why don't they work on battery life before they keep unnecessarily upgrading phones? Every android phone (including my hero) ive come across has horrible battery life. Im going to switch back to blackberry until then.

I must admit, my BlackBerry has a much better battery life than my iPhone.

 

[kdarling]

Blackberrys always have great battery life, due in part to having real push.

For all other smartphones, I _always_ buy a larger capacity battery right away, even if it's only 20% more.

Getting another gives you a handy spare as well.