After launching Hero and having success with this model, HTC created its legendary successor, HTC Legend. A super smartphone with Android 2.1, exceptional hardware and a nice design. The aluminum housing makes a good impression, and the AMOLED screen offers a very attractive image.
In addition to hardware performance, the software also contributes to the success of this model. Android 2.1 has a lot of useful and interesting news and the apps from Android Market offer the possibility of almost doing everything you want with your phone.
Key features:
Aluminum unibody design
Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
3G with HSDPA 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA 2Mbps
Android OS v2.1 with latest Sense UI
3.2" capacitive AMOLED touchscreen of HVGA resolution
Qualcomm MSM 7227 600 MHz CPU, 384 MB RAM
5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash and VGA@30fps video recording
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g and GPS receiver
Digital compass
Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate and turn-to-mute
Proximity sensor for automatic screen locking during calls
Stereo Bluetooth (A2DP); File transfer over Bluetooth
Standard microUSB port for charging and data
Standard 3.5mm audio jack
FM Radio with RDS
microSD card slot with support for up to 32GB cards (2GB one included)
USB tethering support right out-of-the-box
Social networking integration with Facebook and Twitter
Web browser comes with Flash support
Multi-touch zooming in gallery and web browser
Direct access to the official Android application repository
Full specs here.
In the phone’s box I received its charger, microUSB cable, a headset with a 3.5mm audio jack, a 2GB microSD card, a software CD and the user manual.
The phone is very compact, even if it has metal housing. Legend has a length of 112 mm, a width of 56.3 mm and its thickness is only 11.5 mm. The weight of 126g is similar to other smartphones on the market. Using plastic would have reduced a few grams, but the metal offers a very pleasant aspect and I was glad to observe that fingerprints are hardly sticking to the phone. It’s available in two colors, black and gray.
The Legend's frontal side is dominated by the 3.2 inch screen. Lacks secondary camera for video calling. Below the screen are four hardware buttons: home, menu, back and search. Under these buttons you will find the trackpad, which replaces the usual trackball for HTCs. It is easy to use and accurate, but trackball fans will miss it.
The right side of the phone has no button and the left has only the volume control key.
On the top, you will find a 3.5mm audio jack for headphones and the ON/OFF button. The audio jack is not protected against ingress of dust.
The bottom is not made of metal, but plastic. Here is the microphone, microUSB port and the hand strap attachment hole.
The back of the phone is simple. Here is the 5 megapixel camera and LED flash. The camera’s lens is not protected from any scratches, so you may notice a quality drop when taking photos after a while. The camera’s area is soft plastic, in some places having some speaker holes.
The Legend’s 1300 mAh battery has a good capacity for a smartphone, which consumes more than a regular phone. The manufacturer says it has an autonomy of 440 hours standby and 7 hours talk time on 2G. The 3G autonomy increases to 560 hours standby time, but it decreases the talk time to 6 hours and 10 minutes. The reality is different, because this phone prompts you to use it a lot. If you use the whole capacity and listen to music, watch movies or surf the Internet, you’ll have to charge it it daily. If you use it moderately for calls, messages and occasional take pictures, it will resist even four days. It depends very much on how you configure the screen’s brightness and on the Internet browsing frequency.
Legend uses the new Sense user interface, which is very user-friendly. The processor is powerful and the memory size is generous enough to eliminate delays.
The call sound quality is very good, the Legend’s speaker provide clear and powerful sound. The signal reception is good too.
The video player does not support DivX / Xvid, so you can just look at 3GP and MP4 movies. The high resolution does not block the phone because the CPU is fast enough.
The music player is simple and efficient, it’s standard on Android phones.
FM radio is present on the HTC Legend. It’s able to automatically search the FM radio stations in range and save them. RDS function prsent.
The camera has 5 megapixel camera and LED flash. You have quite many image settings such as setting ISO speed and white balance, change resolution, layout, photography, etc.. Unfortunately, no dedicated shutter key. Image quality is pretty good, but I expected more from a 5 megapixel camera on a phone with such a big name.
The video is recorded at VGA resolution (640 x 480 pixlei) and 30 fps. The user interface does not differ much from the camera. The video quality is good for a camera of this type.
The HTC Legend’s connectivity is complete and provides a very good speed. For browsing, you have WiFi and HSPA (7.2 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload).
The Web browser is excellent, it loads the pages quickly and accurately, you can load any web page without blocking, even if it is complex. The copy & paste function in Android is available everywhere, being very useful in web browsing. It has support for Flash, so you can browse Flash sites and YouTube.
To connect to the computer, you can use the micro USB data cable and Bluetooth.
Like any Android phone, Legend comes with a rich range of applications. If the pre-installed ones are not enough, you can download many others from the Android Market.
The QuickOffice application is very useful if you work with Microsoft Office files. It knows how to open Word, Excel or PowerPoint. Legend also has an application for PDF files.
HTC Legend also has GPS and it uses Google Maps as map-application. Unfortunately, Google Maps has voice navigation in only a few countries for the moment, so you cannot use the phone as a GPS unless you buy another car navigation application.
In conclusion, the Legend is one of the best phones of the HTC manufacturer. Android is an excellent operating system, which makes this phone to be good enough for any user. Whether you use it for music and photos, surfing the Internet or using it as a GPS, Legend will not disappoint you.
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