[HTC Titan] Wevenhuis:
Have been playing with my week old Titan. Great! My predecessor was an HD2. What a difference in performance! The Titan is definitely more powerful and quick in terms of smoothness of performance and crash free experiences of the WP7 Mango OS.

Other positives

1. Keyboard is much more accurate and responsive compared to the HD2 with windows mobile

2. Although the screen realestate bump is only 0,5 inches, the extra screen is a real sight for sore eyes and the viewing experience in both portrait and landscape is much more pleasant. The is also less bezel on top and below compared to the HD2. I still don't understand why iPhone and Nokia stay under the current 4 inches norm. HTC is definitely a plus in my experience on this matter.

3. I really have to get used to the thinness of the Titan. It is VERY thin, it is MUCH lighter, than the HD2.

4. The unibody back case feels trustfully solid, as if the heart of the machine is held in a safe cradle.

5. Although the back case feels slippery sometimes, the relatively sharp edging to the front body gives you a feel for a pinching grip. Something a rock climber could well understand.

6. The word that pops to mind when using WP7 Mango is efficiency. They did a good job of adding deep linking, live tiles and a more integrated feel of a diverse range of apps. It is as advertised in the beginning a more integrated experience. Things are at your fingertips. With windows mobile this was also the case, but asked you to switch often between tasks, making it relatively labor intensive with regard to search and retrieve. This went so far the I even used my desktop less than usual.

7. At first I was critical to the integration of xbox live to WP Mango, thinking it wasted the efficiency goal. Have however changed my views. Especially the internet integrated games are on occasion useful as a break in the days activities.

8. I love the background multitasking. the streaming of music and running it in the background works beautifully. The controls on the lockscreen are great!

9. The amount of apps in the marketplace are not disappointing. Although many are similar, it is fun to try different makes and see which suits best.

Tips and improvements needed

1. LANGUAGE SUPPORT. Was as expected very poor. It is a shame microsoft does not invest more. A mediocre language support makes the UI only half as useful, and yet again one is dependant on third party apps. A shame for such an investment in this operating system.

2. Improved international Bing Search and integration. The experience is very poor in the Netherlands. map search, visual search are very bad. Bing Netherlands doesn't even have a speech button for search (which can be seen in the US versions). This makes the OS messy. I have not used Bing once since the first tries. I can't help feeling this is more a Tango than a Mango version.

Yet again another impression of 50% less useful...and again the search for third party apps....messy, messy.

3. A lot of apps requiring server access are tailored for the US market. I was expecting the microsoft the Netherlands would have a least done a behind the scenes update for the Dutch or European market. Yet again this was not the case. Perhaps this could be improved in the coming weeks.

4. directions from A to B in Bing maps does not work. It can not find simple things like a movie, hospital, or even main street and number. So, at least as I can tell, Bing maps in the netherlands simply does not work. There are alternatives luckily, but if microsofts advertises an integrated experience and only delivers an OS that seems to work integratedly half the time, I'm wondering where that promise is.

Thus far my experiences in the first week. Will keep you posted.