The standout is the work done by HTC in designing and building this phone in particular, the effort the company has gone to to deliver new touchscreen capabilities with the inclusion of a new HTC Sense GUI.  

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The letdown is the short battery life, which in part is caused by Telstra applications such as Foxtel, BigPond and WhereIS that seem to suck the life out of this phone as soon as they are activated. However, it appears that HTC was aware of battery problems, with the company last week releasing a new battery kit in Europe, with a very clever stand, that allows users to watch a video or TV news service using the stand to prop up the phone.         

Another problem is that the HD2 doesn't actually support HD-quality video playback, which is probably good due to the limited battery life.

The HD2 plays MP4, H.264 and WMV video files plus AAC, WMA, WAV and MP3 audio files, all of which look and sound great on this phone.

 

The 5-megapixel camera is brilliant and significantly better than most we have seen of late. Also good is the camcorder which is excellent for that quick video.

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New bigger battery in newer model along with smart stand for viewing video's or TV programs.

 

Overall, the HD2 is stunning handset that's bigger than the iPhone with a brilliant 800X480, 4.5 inch touchscreen. While it lacks features such as those found in Apple's application store, it does have a major advantage in the form of the 1 GHz QUALCOMM snapdragon processor, which delivers superior speed to the iPhone, which has an old Samsung processor.

I will address issues relating to application stores and the attitude of Microsoft when it comes to delivering a Microsoft consumer experience in Australia later in this story.

 

When I first saw the size of this phone I half expected it to be heavy. It's not, as it weighs in at only 157 grams.