HTC Titan
The HTC Titan was my first experience with a Windows Phone and while my expectations were low going into it, I was genuinely surprised with both the phone and the operating system.
First impressions of the Titan are nothing but good. When you pick up the Titan, you’ll notice it feels solid in your hands and the big screen makes viewing and using the phone extremely easy. I was nervous at first that the phone would be too big, but it is saved by its thinness, which allows it to slip nicely into your pocket. The phone has both front camera and an 8MP rear camera. It takes good pictures including some nice panoramics. The Titan’s 1.5 GHz single core processor was able to keep up with commands and didn’t have problems apps or games. What was upsetting was that the phone has only 16GB of storage and no space for an SD card so you have to be careful with what music or movies you decide to put on it or risk running out of room very quickly.
Using Windows Phone 7.5 on the Titan takes getting used to and took me a little exploring to discover the ins and outs. It’s not as customizable as Android and your home screen can’t fit as many different icons on one screen as the other two operating systems, but the advantage to the live tiles is they add a little pizzazz to your phone. The large tiles are easy to interact with and are always changing their appearance. With the Titan, you can view tiles 2 across by 4 down at one time and seamlessly scroll up and down to view the rest. You can also customize it by ‘pinning’ apps, games, even specific peoples social network feeds to your home screen to keep track of what close friends are up to.
My biggest problem was that the Windows Marketplace is still lacking. While it does have most of the popular apps, it doesn’t have anywhere near as many as Android or iOS. Also you may have to pay for some apps that are free on other operating systems. This has the potential to change however if Windows starts to
The Titan was fun and entertaining to use and the fact that it uses Windows Phone sets it apart from the competition. Windows’ approach to their interface gives users an experience that is very different from that of Android and iOS. While it still has its pros and cons, at the very least the interface was dynamic and if you’re bored with Android or iOS, the Titan is worth looking into.