Camera Phones Plaza

From its debut on the mobile phone market, HTC was always considered a business solution manufacturer. Basically HTC produced only smart phones in a period when people didn't really understood what high feature phones were about. However, since Nokia developed its E series and RIM gain more popularity (especially in the States); potential customers diverted their attention to HTC products, with hopes that they will find the perfected balanced device. Even more, HTC is now considered to be one of the greatest high end phones manufacturers. Nowadays, it offers not only business solution phones but also great headsets for average users. The HTC G1 or HTC Dream was the first phone to bring the new Android software platform. However, as a prototype phone, its life cycle came to an end pretty fast due to some drawbacks. Its successor in line is the new HTC Magic.

This device provides beside the great Android platform, an excellent touch screen and an overall decent feature package. All of this offered under compact dimensions and a good looking design. As any other device, HTC Magic has a few drawbacks, it lacks the second camera for video calling, no flash support in the web browser (iPhone, anyone?), no built in FM radio support, and a bad Bluetooth profile. The HTC Magic comes with a good design, nice shapes and a glossy white finish. Fortunately, the white glossy case doesn't show the how much of a fingerprint magnet it really is.

However, if you choose for the black HTC Magic, you are probably going to hate the glossy finish. Even so, the black finish is more resistant to scratches than the white glossy finish. Beside plastic you will not get any other finishes on your HTC Magic. On the front panel, under the display you get six keys (pretty much for a touch screen phone). However, because they're so many keys onboard, HTC reduced the keys dimensions to the minimum, making the usability of the keys from this phone under average.

The menu button will bring up a set of options. You also get the home button and back button, the search key (pretty useful), and the end call key on the right, and the call key on the left. HTC doesn't provide the Magic with a touch screen switch, you will have to use the end call key to lock and turn off the touch screen. HTC replaced the five keys pad (left, right, up, down and select / ok) with a trackball (not many manufacturers use this feature anymore, because is unreliable on long term usage).

Even so, the trackball worked pretty well (because the phone is new), and it has multi functional purpose (not only navigating through the menu, but also provides as a camera control key). The overall built is pretty simple, you don't get ports or buttons neither on the left side nor the right side. The only keys you will get on the right side of your HTC Magic are the volume control keys. However, on the bottom of the phone, you get beside the microphone pit, the mini USB port (you will have to use this mini USB port in order to connect any headset to your HTC Magic).

On the back panel, you can find in the upper center the 3 megapixel digital camera lens and right above the camera the loudspeaker. Don't look for an external memory card slot, because you are not getting one. The memory card slot is under the back cover, but not under the battery. Therefore, you don't have to shut down the phone when you will replace the memory card. HTC Magic is equipped with a 3.2 inches TFT capacitive touch screen with a resolution of 320 x 480 pixels (HVGA), offers up to 65000 colors. For a better use of this screen, HTC included an accelerometer sensor for auto rotate. You don't get many colors in the HTC Magic, even more because the touch screen has a big diagonal, you will see that it lacks vibrant colors. In direct sunlight the result is undesirable. The ambient light sensor above the display doesn't do any justice in broad daylight.

HTC Magic runs in 2G networks (GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900) but also in 3G networks (HSDPA 900 / 2100 and HSDPA 1700 / 2100). The dimensions include the Magic in the average department. It has a height of 113 mm, wide of 55 mm, deep of 13.7 mm, Magic weights about 118.5 g. HTC Magic is shipped with the latest Android version, 1.5. One of the best features of this version is the landscape and portrait on board virtual keyboard. It is easy to use when writing with both hands (landscape mode), but also when writing with one hand (portrait mode). Even if the keyboard is on screen it can still provide a good feedback. Even if the Android competes with the iPhone platform, the home screen of Android is just dull. You don't feel anything. It doesn't provide nice icons, and a good overall feeling.

A good feature (also found in the Symbian platform) is the widget application. The HTC Magic comes with a few widgets pre-installed, like the music player or calendar. This feature comes to improve the dull home screen. You get two types of widgets, the first type, is the widget that extracts a result and displays it (like the title of the current song played), and the second type of widget involves a back door application. HTC offers for the Magic a Lithium Ion battery of 1340 mAh. This battery is pretty powerful and will provide about three days usage (average usage).

HTC official press release provided a number of 420 hours in standby mode for the Magic, and about 7 hours and 30 minutes in talk time. All the day by day functions (phonebook, messaging, calendar, notes and other), work great, smoothly even, because of the Qualcomm MSM 7200A 528 MHz processor and the 288 MB of random access memory. The internal memory is limited at 512 MB but is expandable using micro SD memory cards, or Trans Flash memory cards (up to 16 GB). The connectivity in ensured by the Class 10 GPRS (4+1 / 3+2 slots) with a speed from 32 to 48 kbps, HSCSD, Class 10 EDGE with a speed of 236.8 kbps, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g profile, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP (limited access), HSDPA with 7.2 MB per second, HSUPA with 2 MB per second, and mini USB connectivity. This phone is not camera orientated. However, it sports a 3.15 megapixel digital camera with a maximum resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels (with autofocus).

This camera will deliver average performances. It can also record video in QVGA resolution at about 15 frames per second (also known as bad video quality). HTC ships the Magic in a iPhone look alike box. Beside the actual Magic you also get a charger, mini USB cable, wired one piece stereo hands free, and a 2 GB micro SD memory card. A nice touch is the leather carrying case that matches your Magic at color. Overall the HTC Magic is an average touch screen phone. However, if you are looking for an Android touch screen phone, then the HTC Magic might just be what you are looking for.