HTC Magic Review (Verdict: A Good Start)

Hardware

Construction

My first impressions after holding the Magic at the Rogers launch event were very good. The device has a good weight, a smooth finish, and a sensible, tight layout. The HVGA capacitive touchscreen is crisp, and generally responsive, depending on what’s running, although I found visibility poor in direct sunlight. The soft keys feel especially good, and are snappy enough for me to think they’re metal. The battery door is tight and smooth, making for a great feel when typing. Overall, solid construction – no complaints whatsoever.

Layout

HTC is going for a very simple layout with the Magic, which, on the one hand, looks great, but also hampers functionality. The extUSB plug is one example of trying to unify everything, but only succeeds in irritating the end user. More on that later. The lack of a dedicated camera shutter key is what really hurts the most – half the fun of having a decent camera on your phone is taking spur-of-the-moment shots, the immediacy of which is ruined as soon as you have to unlock your device then find the camera app and wait for it launch. For pictures that will wait for you, that’s fine, but I find my best ones are shot from the hip.

About The Author

Simon Sage

Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement. With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.

Shreyas Kulkarni

i have been using winmo for last couple of years (o2 xda orbit), and am looking for change. from my perspective, android, lacks the punch.

no synching with exchange server for emails, lack of radio(!), no office document viewer, no bluetooth file exchange … etc etc these are all deal breakers for me.

at the price it’s selling, business features are expected in the device. now i am left with either some blackberry (i dont like storm) or or iphone (i already hv an ipod touch) or some HTC winmo once again.
Gowtham

@Shreyas Kulkarni: Dude!! The phone has all the features what you told are not there !! Check it out the magic now comes with the cupcake update ! you can finally move from Winmob to Powerful Google android! And forget about ifail(iphone)