HTC Titan Review

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enmy name is Noah Kravitz and this is my favorite cell phone it's the HTC Titan all right so this is the HTC Titan uh this is the unlocked version thanks to the folks at HTC for Lending me this one uh there is also a version now on AT&T lock version in the US $199.99 on contract and uh you know the Titan so named for the giant display 4.7 in frankly I never thought I would like a phone with a display this big but I do and I attribute that to three things one the operating system itself I think Windows phone is custom made uh for a a screen this big and I would dare say that it works better Windows phone works better on a large display than Android was and I'll explain why in a second and it's a matter of personal preference in a lot of ways uh but basically I think that the huge Design Elements here the big tiles the uh if we go into one of the tiles here we'll go into me uh you know the big bold typography across the top all that kind of stuff uh the spacing I think it just really just feels nice and clean and simple and easy to easy to read easy to view nice to look at on a display this big and actually the low resolution I've jumped right and talking about the display but I think it's an important point A lot of people are saying well 4.7 in but it's only wvga it's it's 800x 480 what's the deal I want more pixels on on the screen I want higher density you know Android we've got HD displays now 1280 x 720 that aren't even quite this large and so Windows phone sucks I'm going to go the other way and I'm going to say because of the way the UI is designed because of the uh you know the the boldness of the UI and um or I go back to people here the boldness of the UI the way things are spaced out the big typography the beautiful fonts uh I think it really works well on this display and the low resolution generally speaking is not an issue for me at all uh second thing about this phone that makes me really like it is the thinness 9.9 mm thick it's not the absolute thinnest phone out there but it's thin enough that it offsets how big the display is doesn't make it feel so big and clunky and then the third thing is just the build quality uh little tiny bit of a creek in here just because of the way that the phone sits in the aluminum shell but in general this thing is built it's just it's solid it feels luxurious it feels classy the aluminum unibody construction is great the quality of the super LCD panel is topnotch you know extreme viewing angles on this thing um the uh the blacks are deep black the whites are nice and uniform if we switch here to I think Windows phone works really well with the dark background but if we switch to theme we go to the light background you can see the whites are nice and white and the phone you know it's still the screen screen still looks great with the light background um but again with the dark you know looks really nice there's also HTC took pains to make the bezel very thin on the sides which I think helps as well so all those things combin the quality of the build and the design elements uh you know have made me sort of honestly when I've tried 4.5 in and larger even 4.3 in displays and larger on Android phones kind of felt like there's just there's everything's just smaller and there's a lot of clutter and yak and stuff a bunch of widgets onto the home pages but I don't know I kind of want you know I'm kind of in a less as more phase I guess and um so having a less as more operating system just kind of suits me right now uh getting to the phone itself and the hardware itself you know my interest in Windows Phone 7 was sort of re-sparked um by the Nokia Lumia 800 which I still think is a great device um but using that and then using the Samsung Focus S also out an AT&T now we'll do a separate review of this one 4.3 in display also a very nice phone super lightweight plastic uh using that phone and then using the Titan you know really respark my interest in Windows Phone 7 mango one of the things about the Lumia that I did not like was no front-facing camera cuz I for one do use uh video chat and I use the front camera sometimes you know I like to I mean look at my look at my lock screen it's a picture of myself so you can tell you know I'm vain I want the front camera so HTC's got the front camera camera 1.3 megapixels on the back they've got an 8 megapix camera autofocus dual flash 720p video capture and then as all windows phone devices do you've got that dedicated Hardware button to go to the camera which I really like it works from lock screen as well the camera uh has taken quality photos I'm impressed with the camera the 8 megapixel sensor is good the um the auto focus works well get a picture here of this box uh just the quality of the images have been really good uh the 720p video capture is good little bit of motion blur it's not quite as shaky in the hand I don't have the image stability problems that I've had with some other devices lately um but generally speaking you know the low light performance isn't the best you can see this phone was photo was taken in low light at kind of a weird angle and you get you know it's a little bit grainy but generally speaking the photo uh the camera has been impressive uh and the picture quality has been good um I also like with Windows Phone the way that social media is baked right into the device not going to get back into another uh you know a a review Redux if you will of mango but just it's easy to share uh your photos across you know really anything on the phone to share it across uh different social media fronts or across your email I've got you know my two email accounts personal in work I can share to Facebook Twitter Microsoft Sky Drive uh it's all very easy to do message me one thing about messaging is you cannot share video clips over messaging which is kind of odd to me most people seem to think it's not a big deal because the quality is better usually over email anyway because it supports larger files but there are a few people who uh I know who have smartphones who don't check email on their phones that much but do like getting messages so anyway uh the phone has a 1.5 GHz Snapdragon Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and this is the new generation the newer generation uh than the first batch of Windows phone devices like the CC hd7 performance has been great um things have been Snappy web browsing multiple you've got the um the Windows phone version of multitasking you can save your apps in the background there and go through them and choose the one you want I keep wanting to flick up apps to get rid of them uh like on the old Palm web OS I miss web OS but anyway uh performance on the device with the the single core 1.5 GHz chip has been just fine uh I have not felt like it's been laggy at all and the nice thing about uh the phone being single core is that you get better battery life and the battery life on this phone has been impressive to me especially uh for a phone with such a large screen you know that screen you would think would be eating up all of your power but I've been able to get through two full days using this phone on a single charge without any problem I probably don't text as much as you do um because for work I'm so often using the computer uh and on Wi-Fi but you know steady use throughout the day couple long phone calls web browsing lots of picture taking you know and then when the workday is over uh using it a fair amount in the evening for you know everything and um I got through two days and noticed I had about 27% charge left I think it was when I went to sleep so um you know definitely impressed with the battery uh for sure the size of the phone like I said I think the screen uh size and Windows Phone 7 really work well together for me I have I guess fairly large hands and so I don't really have a problem navigating the display uh with one finger when I type on a cell phone I generally type with two fingers anyway so I'll do something I like to type in widecreen mode so I'll turn the phone this way and then um you know type like this so for me the size of the device hasn't been an issue in terms of navigating um the display I know for some people it will be and that's why you've got you know that's why 4.7 is an is an enormous uh enormous size device but it it's been much easier to use than I thought it would being this big uh and again I don't know something about Windows phone uh and the larger screen just really are working for me so this phone has been my daily driver uh I really really like it there are some things about Windows phone I'd like to see changed I would love to see this phone come in uh cyan like the Lumi 800 does if this thing had a cyan blue polycarbonate um shell that would be awesome as it is you know the be black is uh you know it's not offensive it's not uh it doesn't say anything to me in terms of um looking awesome but it certainly isn't a detractor uh you take the shell off here and um you know you've got the unibody construction and everything uh big battery plenty of life you know what can I say Bluetooth Wi-Fi and you've got the 3G speeds uh V via HSPA plus you can see I've got HSPA plus going on again this is the unlocked version and the um the AT&T version of course also supports HSPA plus uh the live tiles going on you can see the Spotify tile is flipping around now to show me uh that I was listening to the roots uh you know the the the biggest things I would say about the device you know sort of pros and cons wise um Hardware wise again just have to do with the sheer size of the phone if you want something this big and and again I never thought I would like a phone with a screen this large but I really do maybe it yeah the design of it the OS etc etc the other stuff has to do with Windows phone itself not as many apps obviously in the Windows Phone Marketplace as you're going to find on IOS and Android uh but it is growing uh the number of quality apps is growing uh for me there's no Sonos app yet so I use Sonos a lot I'm kind of bummed out but they do have Spotify the social marketing uh social media is baked into the phone which I like but then you can get your Twitter and you just saw for square and there's a Facebook appap and all that stuff uh the other thing for me is that I want more control over customizing I think I mentioned this earlier I would love to be able to turn some of these tiles into like you know a folder of apps that I use a lot or that kind of stuff I like that you can pin web pages and individual people and uh you know all that kind of thing here so if I go to people and I go to all people and I search for John ringer I can pin him to start and so there he is I've got John on my home screen now and so I can boom I'll cover up his personal email but uh I can boom get right to John ringer and I can see you know his recent stuff and all that kind of thing and uh you know just very cool that you can get right in I use Facebook more on Windows Phone Windows Phone mango uh than I have in a long long time because I never go to Facebook but I have an account with lots of friends so I love that you can do that kind of thing I wish there's better control over apps I uh in terms of sorting and that sort of stuff I wish that I could have a folder and just have like the eight apps that I use the most or like you can on Android and iOS you know have a folder for games and a f folder for social media apps and that kind of stuff instead I can just pin individual apps and because I can't control the size of the tiles you know pretty quickly I'm going to get to doing a lot of scrolling uh so I can go to my apps list and again I wish I could reorder these to have the apps that I use the most up at the top or to have you know the way that when you long press you get a little drop- down menu maybe you know this could be a folder of social media apps and when I long press it I get all of the individual apps down there and then I can tap one to launch something like that would be very cool as it is I could scroll or you know I can search and I can get Spotify and there it is so you know the the platform is evolving and that's why it's not one of the big boys just yet but I think there's a ton of potential I love the way it looks and feels and I think it it's really well suited to a big device like this then again the lumio with its 3.7 in display I also really liked using Windows phone on that device so I think I just really like using Windows phone and uh that's why at least for the time being I've put the iPhone away and this is my daily driver and uh between that the big screen the uh HTML 5 support in the browser I didn't mention but that's there uh the good camera you know all these reasons uh I am really digging this phone right now so a big thumbs up it's my favorite phone for now it's the HTC Titan from HTC also available as a locked phone on AT&T in the US but this is the unlocked version watch a little video here so you can see it's good stuff I'm digging it thanks again to the folks at HTC for Lending me this one we'll have much much more on all of the uh all the new Windows phone devices coming out speaking of Lumia nokki and T-Mobile just uh announced an event New York City December mber 14th I'm imagining they're going to launch a Windows phone device of some sort perhaps the Lumia 800 whatever is announced there we'll bring it to you and then CES 2012 right around the corner all kinds of stuff coming at CES I'm sure and we will be there in full force to bring it to you as well till next time my name is Noah thanks for watching technobuffalo.com your source for the digital lifestyle check it out bye-byemy name is Noah Kravitz and this is my favorite cell phone it's the HTC Titan all right so this is the HTC Titan uh this is the unlocked version thanks to the folks at HTC for Lending me this one uh there is also a version now on AT&T lock version in the US $199.99 on contract and uh you know the Titan so named for the giant display 4.7 in frankly I never thought I would like a phone with a display this big but I do and I attribute that to three things one the operating system itself I think Windows phone is custom made uh for a a screen this big and I would dare say that it works better Windows phone works better on a large display than Android was and I'll explain why in a second and it's a matter of personal preference in a lot of ways uh but basically I think that the huge Design Elements here the big tiles the uh if we go into one of the tiles here we'll go into me uh you know the big bold typography across the top all that kind of stuff uh the spacing I think it just really just feels nice and clean and simple and easy to easy to read easy to view nice to look at on a display this big and actually the low resolution I've jumped right and talking about the display but I think it's an important point A lot of people are saying well 4.7 in but it's only wvga it's it's 800x 480 what's the deal I want more pixels on on the screen I want higher density you know Android we've got HD displays now 1280 x 720 that aren't even quite this large and so Windows phone sucks I'm going to go the other way and I'm going to say because of the way the UI is designed because of the uh you know the the boldness of the UI and um or I go back to people here the boldness of the UI the way things are spaced out the big typography the beautiful fonts uh I think it really works well on this display and the low resolution generally speaking is not an issue for me at all uh second thing about this phone that makes me really like it is the thinness 9.9 mm thick it's not the absolute thinnest phone out there but it's thin enough that it offsets how big the display is doesn't make it feel so big and clunky and then the third thing is just the build quality uh little tiny bit of a creek in here just because of the way that the phone sits in the aluminum shell but in general this thing is built it's just it's solid it feels luxurious it feels classy the aluminum unibody construction is great the quality of the super LCD panel is topnotch you know extreme viewing angles on this thing um the uh the blacks are deep black the whites are nice and uniform if we switch here to I think Windows phone works really well with the dark background but if we switch to theme we go to the light background you can see the whites are nice and white and the phone you know it's still the screen screen still looks great with the light background um but again with the dark you know looks really nice there's also HTC took pains to make the bezel very thin on the sides which I think helps as well so all those things combin the quality of the build and the design elements uh you know have made me sort of honestly when I've tried 4.5 in and larger even 4.3 in displays and larger on Android phones kind of felt like there's just there's everything's just smaller and there's a lot of clutter and yak and stuff a bunch of widgets onto the home pages but I don't know I kind of want you know I'm kind of in a less as more phase I guess and um so having a less as more operating system just kind of suits me right now uh getting to the phone itself and the hardware itself you know my interest in Windows Phone 7 was sort of re-sparked um by the Nokia Lumia 800 which I still think is a great device um but using that and then using the Samsung Focus S also out an AT&T now we'll do a separate review of this one 4.3 in display also a very nice phone super lightweight plastic uh using that phone and then using the Titan you know really respark my interest in Windows Phone 7 mango one of the things about the Lumia that I did not like was no front-facing camera cuz I for one do use uh video chat and I use the front camera sometimes you know I like to I mean look at my look at my lock screen it's a picture of myself so you can tell you know I'm vain I want the front camera so HTC's got the front camera camera 1.3 megapixels on the back they've got an 8 megapix camera autofocus dual flash 720p video capture and then as all windows phone devices do you've got that dedicated Hardware button to go to the camera which I really like it works from lock screen as well the camera uh has taken quality photos I'm impressed with the camera the 8 megapixel sensor is good the um the auto focus works well get a picture here of this box uh just the quality of the images have been really good uh the 720p video capture is good little bit of motion blur it's not quite as shaky in the hand I don't have the image stability problems that I've had with some other devices lately um but generally speaking you know the low light performance isn't the best you can see this phone was photo was taken in low light at kind of a weird angle and you get you know it's a little bit grainy but generally speaking the photo uh the camera has been impressive uh and the picture quality has been good um I also like with Windows Phone the way that social media is baked right into the device not going to get back into another uh you know a a review Redux if you will of mango but just it's easy to share uh your photos across you know really anything on the phone to share it across uh different social media fronts or across your email I've got you know my two email accounts personal in work I can share to Facebook Twitter Microsoft Sky Drive uh it's all very easy to do message me one thing about messaging is you cannot share video clips over messaging which is kind of odd to me most people seem to think it's not a big deal because the quality is better usually over email anyway because it supports larger files but there are a few people who uh I know who have smartphones who don't check email on their phones that much but do like getting messages so anyway uh the phone has a 1.5 GHz Snapdragon Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and this is the new generation the newer generation uh than the first batch of Windows phone devices like the CC hd7 performance has been great um things have been Snappy web browsing multiple you've got the um the Windows phone version of multitasking you can save your apps in the background there and go through them and choose the one you want I keep wanting to flick up apps to get rid of them uh like on the old Palm web OS I miss web OS but anyway uh performance on the device with the the single core 1.5 GHz chip has been just fine uh I have not felt like it's been laggy at all and the nice thing about uh the phone being single core is that you get better battery life and the battery life on this phone has been impressive to me especially uh for a phone with such a large screen you know that screen you would think would be eating up all of your power but I've been able to get through two full days using this phone on a single charge without any problem I probably don't text as much as you do um because for work I'm so often using the computer uh and on Wi-Fi but you know steady use throughout the day couple long phone calls web browsing lots of picture taking you know and then when the workday is over uh using it a fair amount in the evening for you know everything and um I got through two days and noticed I had about 27% charge left I think it was when I went to sleep so um you know definitely impressed with the battery uh for sure the size of the phone like I said I think the screen uh size and Windows Phone 7 really work well together for me I have I guess fairly large hands and so I don't really have a problem navigating the display uh with one finger when I type on a cell phone I generally type with two fingers anyway so I'll do something I like to type in widecreen mode so I'll turn the phone this way and then um you know type like this so for me the size of the device hasn't been an issue in terms of navigating um the display I know for some people it will be and that's why you've got you know that's why 4.7 is an is an enormous uh enormous size device but it it's been much easier to use than I thought it would being this big uh and again I don't know something about Windows phone uh and the larger screen just really are working for me so this phone has been my daily driver uh I really really like it there are some things about Windows phone I'd like to see changed I would love to see this phone come in uh cyan like the Lumi 800 does if this thing had a cyan blue polycarbonate um shell that would be awesome as it is you know the be black is uh you know it's not offensive it's not uh it doesn't say anything to me in terms of um looking awesome but it certainly isn't a detractor uh you take the shell off here and um you know you've got the unibody construction and everything uh big battery plenty of life you know what can I say Bluetooth Wi-Fi and you've got the 3G speeds uh V via HSPA plus you can see I've got HSPA plus going on again this is the unlocked version and the um the AT&T version of course also supports HSPA plus uh the live tiles going on you can see the Spotify tile is flipping around now to show me uh that I was listening to the roots uh you know the the the biggest things I would say about the device you know sort of pros and cons wise um Hardware wise again just have to do with the sheer size of the phone if you want something this big and and again I never thought I would like a phone with a screen this large but I really do maybe it yeah the design of it the OS etc etc the other stuff has to do with Windows phone itself not as many apps obviously in the Windows Phone Marketplace as you're going to find on IOS and Android uh but it is growing uh the number of quality apps is growing uh for me there's no Sonos app yet so I use Sonos a lot I'm kind of bummed out but they do have Spotify the social marketing uh social media is baked into the phone which I like but then you can get your Twitter and you just saw for square and there's a Facebook appap and all that stuff uh the other thing for me is that I want more control over customizing I think I mentioned this earlier I would love to be able to turn some of these tiles into like you know a folder of apps that I use a lot or that kind of stuff I like that you can pin web pages and individual people and uh you know all that kind of thing here so if I go to people and I go to all people and I search for John ringer I can pin him to start and so there he is I've got John on my home screen now and so I can boom I'll cover up his personal email but uh I can boom get right to John ringer and I can see you know his recent stuff and all that kind of thing and uh you know just very cool that you can get right in I use Facebook more on Windows Phone Windows Phone mango uh than I have in a long long time because I never go to Facebook but I have an account with lots of friends so I love that you can do that kind of thing I wish there's better control over apps I uh in terms of sorting and that sort of stuff I wish that I could have a folder and just have like the eight apps that I use the most or like you can on Android and iOS you know have a folder for games and a f folder for social media apps and that kind of stuff instead I can just pin individual apps and because I can't control the size of the tiles you know pretty quickly I'm going to get to doing a lot of scrolling uh so I can go to my apps list and again I wish I could reorder these to have the apps that I use the most up at the top or to have you know the way that when you long press you get a little drop- down menu maybe you know this could be a folder of social media apps and when I long press it I get all of the individual apps down there and then I can tap one to launch something like that would be very cool as it is I could scroll or you know I can search and I can get Spotify and there it is so you know the the platform is evolving and that's why it's not one of the big boys just yet but I think there's a ton of potential I love the way it looks and feels and I think it it's really well suited to a big device like this then again the lumio with its 3.7 in display I also really liked using Windows phone on that device so I think I just really like using Windows phone and uh that's why at least for the time being I've put the iPhone away and this is my daily driver and uh between that the big screen the uh HTML 5 support in the browser I didn't mention but that's there uh the good camera you know all these reasons uh I am really digging this phone right now so a big thumbs up it's my favorite phone for now it's the HTC Titan from HTC also available as a locked phone on AT&T in the US but this is the unlocked version watch a little video here so you can see it's good stuff I'm digging it thanks again to the folks at HTC for Lending me this one we'll have much much more on all of the uh all the new Windows phone devices coming out speaking of Lumia nokki and T-Mobile just uh announced an event New York City December mber 14th I'm imagining they're going to launch a Windows phone device of some sort perhaps the Lumia 800 whatever is announced there we'll bring it to you and then CES 2012 right around the corner all kinds of stuff coming at CES I'm sure and we will be there in full force to bring it to you as well till next time my name is Noah thanks for watching technobuffalo.com your source for the digital lifestyle check it out bye-bye\n"