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HTC Legend Review

The HTC Legend is the latest Android phone by HTC. It is the successor of the hugely successful HTC Hero and comes in a new aluminium unibody avatar. It is priced around $520 (INR 23000). It sports the Android 2.1 OS and comes bundled with HTC’s Sense UI.

HTC Legend Specifications:

  • Dimensions: 112 x 56.3 x 11.5 mm
  • Weight: 126 g
  • Display: 3.2 inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 320 x 480 pixels, 16M colors
  • RAM: 384 MB
  • ROM: 512 MB
  • Memory Card: Micro SD 32 GB
  • Connectivity: GPRS Class 10, EDGE Class 10, 3G HSDPA
  • WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
  • Bluetooth: v2.1 with A2DP
  • USB: MicroUSB v2.0
  • Camera: 5 MP Camera, 2592 x 1944 pixels, Autofocus, LED Flash
  • OS: Android OS v2.1 (Eclair)
  • Processor: Qualcomm MSM 7227 600 MHz processor
  • Radio: Stereo FM radio with RDS
  • GPS: GPS with A-GPS support
  • Battery: Li-Ion 1300 mAh Battery

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Design:

The HTC Legend has a superb industrial design. Its outer frame is composed of an aluminium unibody casing which has superb build quality and feels tough. It is quite compact and feels lightweight. The design is minimal; the front face has the display, the trackball and four buttons. There is the volume rocker on the left side, the power key and the 3.5 mm audio jack on the top and the MicroUSB port on the bottom. The back sports the 5 MP camera and the LED Flash. It sports a chin just like the Hero but is much more stylish.

Display:

The HTC Legend sports a 3.2 inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 320 x 480 pixels and supports upto 16M colors. The AMOLED display is much better than standard TFT display in the Hero. The colors are much more vibrant and the contrast much better. It also has decent viewing angles. The visibility in direct sunlight is affected though.

OS and UI:

The HTC Legend comes with the Android 2.1 (Eclair) mobile OS. The resolution is standard so it should support most of the applications in the Android Market. It comes bundled with the newest version of HTC’s Sense UI which is extremely intuitive and user friendly. The new interface is very smooth and transitions are very fluid; thanks partly to the upgraded hardware. It comes with new icons and widgets which make it even more attractive.

Camera:

The 5 MP camera captures images at a maximum resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels. The image capture quality is much better than the iPhone 3GS. The camera interface is also packed with customization settings – contrast, saturation, white balance, ISO, resolution and has many features like timer, geotagging etc. It also comes with autofocus and a LED flash. It captures VGA resolution video at 30 FPS. The video capture quality is decent.

Multimedia:

It comes with a standard image gallery with Facebook and Flickr integration. It supports multitouch gestures so you can pinch and zoom into the images. Browsing through the images is pretty fluid and the interface is very responsive.

It also has a built-in video player which can handle 3GP and MP4 videos. The video playback is very smooth. The new music player interface is visually pleasing. It supports Album Art and allows you to group your music by artists, albums, genres, playlists etc. It also comes with a built-in FM Radio with RDS. The audio quality is very good; you can easily use it as a PMP.

Other Stuff:

It comes bundled with a range of connectivity options – it has Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, MicroUSB etc. It also has GPRS, EDGE and 3G HSDPA. It also has a GPS transceiver with A-GPS support. It comes with a 1300 mAh Li-Ion battery which lasts for about 2 days with moderate usage.

All in all, it’s a great device packed with features. It is priced at around $500 which is pretty decent.

Rating – 8/10