I'm a convert - this is my first touch phone and I love it!!! (HTC Magic)

Member Name: jools_uk

Product:	HTC Magic
Date:	05/08/09 (62 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Loads of apps, lovely user interface, loads of features

Disadvantages: Battery life poor, limited bluetooth support, you might prefer the Hero

I've had my Magic for about two weeks now. I had to change operator to get it, which was no trivial thing for me since I'd been with the same operator about 15 years - but it was worth it.

This is my first touch phone. I had the HTC Touch Dual for about three days and returned it because the poor hybrid of touch with keypad on Windows Mobile drove me nuts. Most recently I had a a Samsung i620 (QWERTY slide-out keypad, but VERY annoying touch buttons near the jog-dial that made me want to drop-kick it), and before that a Sony Ericsson W890i (great phone, but limited in the apps available). I thought I would prefer another T9 or QWERTY phone, but there was just nothing *quite right* and I liked the ethos of Android (open source, lots of free apps, no locking everything down like iPhone) so I decided to take the plunge and go for something completely different.

AND I LOVE IT!!! Two weeks in, I'm still getting to grips with the on-screen keyboard, but I'm happy to say it isn't taking me ages to type texts any more, and as most people have found, the battery is starting to settle down, although it still has some way to go. At least I hope it does.

So, why is this such a great phone? Well, first it just looks and feels nice to hold, which I think is important. The touch interface is just lovely. It's very responsive and the gestures to navigate around are very natural and intuitive. But the big deal for me is the range of apps available. In a relatively short space of time a huge developer community seems to have sprung into life and there are all kinds of free and paid apps and utilities available. The phone itself is pretty light on features - for example ringtone 'Profiles' don't really exist in the way they do with most phones. But it's not a problem, there are free apps to do that, and you get to choose the one you prefer. I have an app that switches off power-hungry features when I'm low on battery, an app that switches bluetooth on and off with a single touch (for when I want to connect my headset in a hurry), an app that puts my phone onto Loud mode when it detects from my location that I'm at home. Don't like the messaging (SMS) interface? Fine, just download another one! Just google "android apps" to get an idea of what's available - lots of people have compiled their lists of essentials and you'll quickly see the ones that crop up again and again. I have twitter apps, an MSN mobile app, even an alternative web browser app (for when I want it to pretend to be an iPhone to access iPhone-optimised web sites). If you're the kind of person who never accepts the defaults and always wants to go for the custom option then I think you'll love the flexibility you get with the available apps.

Another thing I use this for is watching recorded TV. It doesn't handle a wide range of formats like some phones, but I convert to the right format on my PC (plenty of info on this around on the web) to watch on the phone, and the video is very smooth with excellent sound (which wasn't the case with previous phones I've had).

Oh, and the whole thing is integrated with gMail and Google Calendar, so if you're already a user of those then you'll be in sync wherever you go.

One last thing - it's something that's often overlooked in phone reviews but I guess it's pretty important - the call quality is excellent. I've been really impressed.

I can only think of three drawbacks: 1. battery life (everyone complains about this, but it does get better over time). 2. bluetooth - currently only headset support is implemented, so zapping a music track or contact over to your friend's phone isn't possible (but this is expected to be fixed in a future firmware version). Having said that, I use it with my Sony Ericsson bluetooth headset and so far the audio support has been more stable than on any other device I own! 3. The HTC Hero just came out, which has a new interface from HTC. I haven't seen it in the flesh, but from the photos I didn't like the shape so much, so decided to go with the Magic - you might prefer to check out the Hero first.

Summary: Despite a few drawbacks, the Android operating system makes this a really great phone

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