HTC Titan Review

Introduction:

Last year when Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform rose out of the ashes, veteran smartphone maker HTC came to the plate bringing along devices fitting for the launch party – such as the HTC Trophy, Surround, and HD7. Obviously, the biggest one of the bunch, the HD7, didn’t quite pack the same punch as previous ‘HD’ devices from HTC, but fortunately enough, the Taiwanese company is making sure to turn things around with its latest Windows Phone device. Truly having a gargantuan presence behind it, thanks to its insanely large 4.7” display, the HTC Titan as its name implies intends on being a prominent figure amongst the recent crop of Windows Phone Mango smartphones.

The package contains:

• microUSB cable
• Wall Charger
• Quick Start Guide
• Safety and Regulatory Guide

Design:

At first glance, the Titan might seem to be too much phone for any normal human being, especially with its wide figure, but after holding it in our hands, it reconfirms our assertions of being yet another quality device. Donning yet another indelible industrial design that shines in all corners, there’s plenty to like about this beauty – like its sturdy metallic casing, relatively slim figure (0.39” thick), and clean appearance. Yes, its metallic shell adds some weight to the handset, but it’s warranted in keeping it rock solid.



You can compare the HTC Titan with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

It was only yesterday when the HTC HD2 enthralled us with its 4.3” display, and as fate would have it, we’re reliving the same thing now that there’s a 4.7” WVGA (480 x 800) S-LCD display taking up space on the HTC Titan. In a smartphone world filled with 720p displays, its WVGA resolution (200 ppi) is undoubtedly behind the times – and it’s blatantly exposed when viewing fine text in a zoomed out view within the web browser. Nevertheless, its Super LCD panel produces enough vivid and high-contrast color tones to reel in our eyes. Add in to that its wide viewing angles and strong brightness output, it’s able to maintain its visibility when using it outdoors.


Since there is plenty of spacing separating its capacitive buttons, accidental presses are actually very rare. Above its display, it features that distinctive narrow looking earpiece common amongst HTC smartphones, and a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera, which combines with the Tango app to offer video chat via Wi-Fi or cellular connectivity.

Around its sides, we find its microphone, microUSB port, two-level shutter key, volume control button, 3.5mm headset jack, noise cancellation microphone, and dedicated power button.

Interface and Functionality:

We’ve gone through it extensively in our reviews of the HTC Radar and Samsung Focus Flash, but the HTC Titan offers the same exact Windows Phone 7.5 Mango experience found on those . On the surface, it’s still able to catch our eyes thanks to its dynamic live tiles, integration of social networks (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn), and multi-tasking elements. Certainly, the latest build of the mobile platform has a ton of new features to keep even older users content. On top of that, the HTC Hub has been updated as well to give us that distinctive Sense UI feel.


Although it might not matter as much, since all Windows Phones have to adhere to strict hardware requirements, the HTC Titan is blessed with Qualcomm’s third-generation Snapdragon processor – well, it’s specifically a single-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 processor. Coupled with 512MB of RAM, which might seem miniscule by some, it’s still able to provide one responsive performance throughout all aspects of the platform. From opening up apps to kinetic scrolling, the HTC Titan is seemingly blazing with its response.

Thanks to its massive display, the HTC Titan makes the already fantastic messaging experience found with Windows Phone even better! Well, that’s because of the spacious layout available to us, plus, when you combine its awesome responsiveness and spot-on auto-correct feature, it’s by far the best Mango device to type messages.


With Mango’s presence, the email experience has been refined to offer a universal inbox system and threaded conversations. And of course, the setup process is simple as pie seeing that it essentially requires only our email address and password to automatically set up.


Not surprisingly, AT&T’s presence is felt yet again with apps like AT&T Code Scanner, AT&T FamilyMap, AT&T Navigator, AT&T U-verse Mobile, and myAT&T. Besides those carrier branded apps, the only third party one preloaded is YPmobile.



Internet and Connectivity:

Yeah, there’s no Flash support, but honestly, we’re hardly heartbroken about that because the web browsing experience on the HTC Titan is especially gratifying – thanks to its smooth movements and fast HSPA+ speeds.


Planning to take a trip overseas? Well, you’ll be in good hands with the GSM enabled HTC Titan, which also boasts HSPA+ connectivity for faster data speeds over 3G. Meanwhile, it features your typical arsenal of connectivity items like aGPS, Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, and even mobile hotspot functionality.


Camera:

Similarly to many other recent HTC smartphones, the HTC Titan is geared to be a photo-taking centric device thanks to its 8-megapixel auto-focus camera, which features a dual-LED flash, wide-angle F2.2 lens, and backside illumination. The photos don’t impress us, but they are not bad either. Exposure isn't handled in the best way possible, while color reproduction is a bit on the colder side, but not to the point of making photos look unnatural. Detail is better than average and is good even indoors in lower light.

Think that its 720p video recording would rinse out the sour taste left in our mouths? Unfortunately, it doesn’t since there is nothing high-definition found with its quality. Above all, it suffers tremendously from some very poor looking details – resulting in extremely muddy videos!

HTC Titan Sample Video:



Multimedia:

As always, we’re delighted by the Zune experience when it comes to playing music. Enabling SRS enhancement, its volume output is rather average in overall tone without any evidence of crackling or distortion at the loudest setting.


Needless to say, the HTC Titan is unequivocally the perfect device for watching movies, as it’s able to flawlessly play our test video encoded in DivX 1920 x 1080 resolution. Besides the obvious fidelity of having a wealthy display, it’s  further supplemented by its smooth playback and rich visuals.


Out of the box, the handset offers 12.89GB of internal storage, which means you’ll need to manage your multimedia content more carefully – and yeah, there’s no way to expand it.

Performance:

Emitting a buzzing sound through the earpiece, it’s most prominent when there’s dead silence, but we’re still finding ourselves having to deal with hollow sounding voices on both ends of the line. Switching to the speakerphone, it’s decent thanks to its strong volume output.

Signal strength is solid as it pulls in 4 to 5 bars in high coverage areas, and on top of that, we didn’t experience any dropped calls during our testing.

Tucking a 1,600 mAh battery inside of its body, we’re actually content with its good battery life, which pulls in a solid one day’s worth of normal usage with a single charge – albeit, it’s something that still requires nightly charges. Meanwhile, we’re able to get in 6.5 hours of continuous talk time on a single charge, which is only a little bit less than the 6.8 hours rated by the manufacturer.

Conclusion:

Collectively, second-generation Windows Phones are in limited supply as of right now, but thankfully the HTC Titan is here to get things rolling for the fledging mobile platform. Showcasing its larger than life presence, thanks to its unbelievably large display, the Titan is definitely a captivating handset on its own, but more importantly, it stands above most Windows Phones we’ve been checking out of late. When you compare it to the existing crop of Windows Phone Mango devices, it’s absolutely something that stand out prominently. For $199.99 on-contract, it’s undoubtedly a fitting price point that will appease those who are tinkering on the idea of moving into a Windows Phone of some sort.

However, if you haven't decided on the OS yet, there are lots of competitive Android phones. For example, AT&T offers the 4.5” HTC Vivid and Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket, plus there is a bunch of 4.3” phones. And, if you are looking for a really big screen, the Galaxy Nexus has a 4.65” one with 720p resolution, and comes with the awesome Ice Cream Sandwich OS, but you'll have to wait a bit, because it's still not offered by U.S. carriers Stateside.

OS Version: 7.10.7720.68

HTC Titan Video Review: