HTC Titan Review – Ultra Fast Windows 7 Phone

HTC has announced its new flagship phone – HTC Titan, with a 4.7 inch screen and 1.5 Ghz  processor, it takes the windows phone 7.5 to the next level with this beastly device.  But there are definitely some gripes on the phone as well, the resolution of the screen is only 480 x 800, a lower resolution compared to other top phones like iPhone 4.

The phone boasts of 8 Megapixel rear camera with Focal ratio of 2.2 (2.2 F), and Dual LED flash which vastly improves the low light photos. The phone also has a 720p video recording capability. Strangely the phone doesn’t come with 4G.

Compared to other top phones HTC titan lags in some areas here are the dimensions of other phones against HTC Titan. HTC Titan is the biggest phone among all the competitors and nearly matching the Samsung Infuse 4G.

 

HTC Titan – 131.5 x 70.7 x 9.9
Samsung Galaxy S2 (Attain) – 125.3 X 66.1 X 8.49 mm
Nokia N9 – 116.45 x 61.2 x 12.1 mm
Samsung Infuse 4G – 132 x 71 x 9 mm
Iphone 4 – 115.2 x 58.6 x 9.3 mm
Motorola Atrix – 117.8 x 63.5 x 11 mm
Blackberry Torch – 111 x 62 x 14.6 mm

And in terms of weight is The heaviest phone around.

HTC Titan – 160 g
Samsung Galaxy S2 (Attain) – 116 g
Nokia N9 – 135 g
Samsung Infuse 4G – 139 g
Iphone 4 – 137 g
Motorola Atrix – 135 g

Size: 131.5mm x 70.7mm x 9.9mm (5.18″ x 2.78″ x 0.39″)
Weight: 160 grams (5.6 ounces) with battery
Display: 4.7-inch touch screen with 480 x 800 resolution
Screen: 119 mm (4.7″)

CPU Processing Speed
1.5 GHz

Storage
Total storage: 16 GB
Available storage: up to 12.63 GB
RAM:  512 MB

Connectors
3.5 mm stereo audio jack
micro-USB 2.0 (5-pin) port

Sensors
Gyro Sensor
G-Sensor
Digital compass
Proximity sensor
Ambient light sensor

Multimedia
See photos from your camera, Facebook and Windows Live™ accounts in the Pictures hub
Music and Videos Hub powered by Zune lets you listen to radio, download music, and more
SRS enhancement
5.1 surround sound for video
Audio supported formats:
Playback:.m4a, .m4b, .mp3, .wma (Windows Media Audio 9)
Video supported formats:
Playback:.3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .m4v, .mbr, .wmv (Windows Media Video 9 and VC-1)
Recording:.mp4
(You can only playback a .3gp or .3g2 video if the video is an email attachment or is part of an MMS message.)

Power & Battery2
Battery type:  Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
Capacity:1600 mAh
Talk time:
WCDMA: Up to 410 minutes
GSM: Up to 710 minutes
Standby time3:
WCDMA: Up to 460 hours
GSM: Up to 360 hours

Network – Europe/Asia
HSPA/WCDMA:
Europe/Asia: 850/900/2100 MHz
Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
850/900/1800/1900 MHz

Camera
8 megapixel camera with F2.2 lens, dual LED flash, and BSI sensor (for better low-light captures)
Front camera: 1.3 megapixel front camera
HD video recording: 720p HD video recording

Internet (USA/Japan)
3G: Up to 14.4 Mbps download speed
Up to 5.76 Mbps upload speed
GPRS: Up to 80 kbps downloading
EDGE: Up to 236.8 kbps downloading
Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n

Bluetooth® 2.1
A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
Other supported profiles: AVRCP, HFP, HSP

Social Networking
Twitter™, Facebook® and Windows Live™
Share photos on Facebook® or Windows Live™ SkyDrive

Location
Internal GPS antenna
HTC Locations
Bing™ Maps

Tethering
Internet Sharing

Samsung Attain Review aka Galaxy S2 Review

Apple is  going after Samsung for many reasons, but according to many experts the trigger is the new device Samsung released in April 2011. It is not the Galaxy Tab but the Samsung Galaxy S2 also know Samsung Attain or Samsung within in US.

Android has been evolving fast and with Nexus series everyone was expecting the device can match , the market leader Apple. But it appears finally it was up to Samsung to bring the real iPhone competitor , in many ways a real iPhone beater. It will be really harsh to compare iPhone 4 with Samsung Attain,  the Galaxy S2 is more of a competitor for the next generation iPhone be it iPhone 4S or iPhone 5.  But while going over the comparison we will compare the device with iPhone 4, Motorola Atrix, Google Nexus S , Nokia N9 and Samsung Infuse 4G.

We will also use the names Samsung Galaxy S2, ATT Attain , Samsung Attain 4G, Samsung Within 4G (CDMA)  interchangeably. All the names refer to the one and only Samsung I9100 Galaxy S2 (SII) , the main difference would be Network frequencies if at all they exist.

Processing Power / RAM –

Samsung Attain probably defines the class of 2011 cellphones. It is the first major Cellphone to have a Dual Core processor and individual cores breaching 1GHz (clocked at 1.2GHz), but it appears Samsung has limited the clock frequencies to 1GHz only. It runs on the Samsung 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor (Dual Core) on the exynos (Samsung Orion) chipset. The Phone also boasts a 1GB RAM and  Mali-400MP GPU.  These specs alone would beat many mainstream computers few years ago. The Phone has 16GB/32GB memory option for storage.

Compare this to iPhone 4’s spec, it has 1GHZ Single Core Processor, 512 MB RAM and PowerVR SGX535GPU which are definitely one generation behind. And the Specs of  Samsung Attain (Samsung Within) most probably will also be the specs for next Gen iPhone.

Camera –

Samsung Attain is also the first phone which would bring Full HD Video Recording  ie 1080p @ 30fps. It also has 8MP camera with Auto focus and Geo tagging etc.  Samsung has also increased the front camera to a 2MP one from the VGA camera found on most models. Most of the current models have 720p video recording including the iPhone 4 , Samsung Infuse, Nokia N9 and Motorola Atrix (1080p with software update). Nokia N9 has fancy Carl Zeiss lens in place of the standard lens.

Samsung Attain (Samsung Galaxy S2)  –  8MP , 1080p Video
Samsung Infuse 4G – 8MP , 720p Video
Nokia N9 – 8MP , 720p Video (Carl Zeiss Lens)
iPhone 4 – 5MP , 720p Video
Motorola Atrix – 5MP , 1080p (with update)

Dimensions and Weight –

Samsung Galaxy S2 probably gets the sweet spot of the dimensions, little larger screen but thinner and lighter. This is not as large as the ATT Samsung Infuse 4G and not heavy like iPhone 4. It is definitely bigger than iPhone 4 due to bigger screen.

Samsung Galaxy S2 (Attain) – 125.3 X 66.1 X 8.49 mm
Nokia N9 – 116.45 x 61.2 x 12.1 mm
Samsung Infuse 4G – 132 x 71 x 9 mm
Iphone 4 – 115.2 x 58.6 x 9.3 mm
Motorola Atrix – 117.8 x 63.5 x 11 mm
Blackberry Torch – 111 x 62 x 14.6 mm

Weight comparison
Samsung Galaxy S2 (Attain) – 116 g
Nokia N9 – 135 g
Samsung Infuse 4G – 139 g
Iphone 4 – 137 g
Motorola Atrix – 135 g

Screen –
Samsung Galaxy S2 has 4.3 inch (480 x 800 pixels) Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touchscreen 16M colors. This is not upto iPhone’s pixel density but you cant really make it out either. The phone has capacitive touchscreen and is super responsive due to the Processing Power. Also sports the Corning Gorilla Glass found on other high end devices, the Gorilla glass much stronger and scratch resistant.

It also runs on Android 2.3, has a standard 3.5 mm headphone jack. Uses A-GPS.
Supports
Audio formats
MP3, OGG, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB , AMR-WB, WMA, WAV, MID, AC3, IMY, FLAC, XMF
Video formats
MPEG4, H.264, H.263, WMV, DivX, Xvid, VC-1
Image formats
JPEG, PNG, GIF, WBMP, BMP, AGIF

The phone has a large 1650mAH battery, which seems to be drained easily. But it is expected, that this issue should be fixed with software updates.