Touch screen web geo madness: a review of the HTC Legend. Part 1

I'm proud owner of a HTC Legend for a little over a week now. In this review, I'll not focus on technical details about how its processor, screen, built-in memory compares to the iPhone or to the Nexus One, but how the phone looks and feels in daily operation. Does it feel well in your pocket? Is the display bright enough? Does it operate smoothly? How easy is it really to write (longer) text? How long does the battery last? How well does it sync with Outlook? And do all the built-in gadgets (gps, WLAN) make a difference in real life?

Design

But first the most important question of all: how beautiful is it? Answer: VERY. This is a mindboggingly beautiful device - the single-piece alloy body feels just heavy enough to emanate a strong aura of quality and preciousity. The screen is bright, text and graphics look great on it. This is a phone that is at least on par with the iPhone when it comes to looks. And it's far less common.

That said, let's talk about hard facts.

Idiot Typing 101

"a magical device" - that's how Steve Jobs called the iPad. Over and over. When you use the keyboard of the HTC Legend, this phrase comes to mind. First you'll try to hit the little virtual buttons as good as you can. But the longer you type, the more you learn to trust the truly magical error correction and you type ahead more or less without seriously trying to hit the right keys. Just make sure you roughly hit the right area and the machine will know what you meant. Example: instead of

typing "example", you can type "rcsnpke" - as all letters of the later word are next to the letters of the former word, the phone won't have any trouble detecting what you mean.

... to be continued