[HD2 General] wacky.banana:
My persistent knocking on the doors of mobile phone providers within a 30 mile radius from my home finally paid off today when I finally managed to get my hands on a HD2 (hoorah).

I have always said that there is no way on earth I would spend over £500 ona sim free device without first seeing one in the metal and testing it out. No one in their right mind buys a house or car without first seeing it and, if appropriate, testing it out before buying.

First Impressions:

Even though I had seen a dummy earlier, the size of the screen does come as a bit of a surprise. However this is a very thin device which makes the whole thing just about manageable. It is not quite as in-your-face, size-wise, as, say, the Toshiba TG01. Be aware though that there is absolutely a shedload of real screen estate to play with on the HD2.

Build quality looked very good. The back plate looks like a well machined item. I tweaked the keys around a little but did not experience the "wobble" that others have talked about.

The screen is a fingerprint magnet of the first order; however it is nothing a quick blow of hot, moist breath and a clean handkerchief can't cure very quickly. Maybe an appropriate screen protector might be helpful; however I cannot confirm.

Something else that was immediately apparent was just how fast the device is. Apps opened near instantaneously and the device was simply a joy to use.

The camera was rather interesting: as a brand new device, straight out of the box and booted up for the first time, the camera screen started up with a pink hue across the whole of the screen. I immediately thought of the pink issue that a lot of people have spoken about. However after about a minute the camera settled down and the pinkish hue cleared up.

The guy from o2 said that he had seen this start-up effect on all of the cameras he had seen/used/demonstrated/sold to date so I am assuming that this is "feature" of the device.

All the shots I took (indoors in artificial light) came out just fine and the quality, to my eyes, was good as far as camera's on mobile phones go.

I did not find the lack of a hardware camera button a problem. The fact is I actually preferred the on-screen shutter button; seemed pretty cool and effective.

The Keyboard:

I opened up MS Word and moved onto the dreaded keyboard.

Within a couple of seconds I could clearly see why some of you have given up on this device and sent it back. The keyboard out of the box is awful and stringing 2 words together was a real pain. However switch off the T9 function and the keyboard is transformed into something very very useful.

Yes, you have to be quite accurate with your fingers. I found I got the best results using my fingertips pointing near vertically downwards rather than horizontal and flat. The former method presents a narrow minimal area of the finger to the keyboard, resulting in reasonable/acceptable accuracy, while the latter method simply created problems, pulling in adjacent letters to the ones I wanted to use on nearly every occasion.

The key here is that, given I had no more than a half hour with the device, I found that I made no more mistakes with this keyboard, at no greater frequency, than I do now with my resistive keyboard on my TYTN, which I have had for over 3 years.

I did not get a chance to test the voice, email or sms functions as I did not have the time. Therefore I am unable to verify whether the problems others have mentioned were present in the device I tested or not.

Availability:

It is difficult to work out what the strategy is with the supply of this device. The 3 o2 shops I went into had only received 2 devices each! 2 out of the 3 shops had sold them on within a day and the 3rd, where I did my test, had 1 left.

None of the shops could confirm for certain when their next supplies would be in or how many handsets they would get. Each one suggested contacting them on a regular basis to see what the position is.

For me, given that this is a device in demand at probably the most advantageous marketing point in the year, i.e. the run up to Christmas, I cannot understand why there is so much uncertainty around the supply chain.

What Next?:

Now that I have finally laid my hands on the device, the key question I had to address was this; given all the horror stories on here about various problems, etc, was it sensible for me to become another early adopter given that this device will be used for business purposes where reliability is essential.

The decision I have made is, given the work currently being undertaken by C'monex and others coupled with custom roms already in the pipeline, plus the hints and tips thread in this forum, on balance I think it is just about worth the risk me jumping in and purchasing a device.

I was at this point 3 years ago when I first purchased my TyTN. To this day I consider it an absolute miracle that the device did not end its days under a hammer within the first week of ownership, so appallingly awful was that device straight out of the box.

Over time, and with a lot of people doing sterling work on here, things turned around to the point where I have a device that is rock solid stable, reliable and good to use.

I would strongly suggest that if anyone is considering buying this device, they find a live model to play with first before making their minds up. I can see why the keyboard could be a real deal breaker although I intend to purchase a capacitive stylus to get around some of the problems I foresee with non-finger friendly winmobile applications.

Conclusion:

This device looks very promising and yes, it does have issues, based on the reports we have seen here on XDA. You need to play with one first before making a decision to buy.

The keyboard is very different to a resistive one and requires patience, perseverance and good technique to get the best out of it.

I did not have enough time to have an exhaustive, comprehensive play with the device; however I have seen enough to determine that, on balance, and based on emerging developments here on XDA, I could live with it. Besides my current device is now long in the tooth and needs replacing.

The only fear I have is that once I have paid out my hard earned cash for this device, HTC bring out an Android HD2-like device using the snapdragon processor, which is really what I would prefer.

My order for a HD2 plus a HTC Hero goes in next week, depending on stock availability in the UK.

I hope this quick walk through is helpful to those who are trying to make a decision on this device, one way or another.

WB