Touch HD - no Longer?

[Paul Boy]

i contacted Orange yesterday to upgrade from my TytnII, only to find out that they have discontinued the Touch HD the only WM phones they could offer me was the Touch 3G and the Touch Diamond (both of which are now OLD)

after thinking about this, i reckon they've done this to help boost the new Nokia 5800 they have exclusively.

To me it makes no sense to ditch the HD and keep the older style WM phones.

off to o2 me thinks to an iPhone

[Funkstar]

Orange are picking up the Touch Pro 2, and could well be prepairing for the Diamond Touch 2 as well.

The Hero is also coming to Orange.

[jim]

Yes, I noticed a few weeks ago and thought it was a bit nutty. Thing is though, it's still pretty easy to get hold of one through an internet Orange contract reseller from what I can tell, and almost certainly a fair bit cheaper.

I suspect the Touch Diamond 2 will be a better option though if it does come to Orange, pretty much the same as the Touch HD from what I can see.

[Funkstar]

Specs are essentially identical for the internals. I think the screen on the HD is larger, ans hence the handset is larger, however the screen resolution is the same. The Touch Diamond 2 has a beautifull screen.

[s87]

I dont like touch mobiles. It is very noncomfortable.

[CrazyMonkey]

If you can grab a touch pro 2, it's basically the touch hd and the touch pro all in one bit of kit - It's fantastic.

[starbuck]

i contacted Orange yesterday to upgrade from my TytnII, only to find out that they have discontinued the Touch HD the only WM phones they could offer me was the Touch 3G and the Touch Diamond (both of which are now OLD)

after thinking about this, i reckon they've done this to help boost the new Nokia 5800 they have exclusively.

To me it makes no sense to ditch the HD and keep the older style WM phones.

off to o2 me thinks to an iPhone

don't go to the dark side and get an iphone. Reports are already starting to surface that the new 3gs is overheating and turning the white iphones a lovely shade of brown.

[starbuck]

As said in the headlines on the main hexus page, the palm pre seems to be coming to O2. Could be a good alternative.

[Templar87]

If you can grab a touch pro 2, it's basically the touch hd and the touch pro all in one bit of kit - It's fantastic.

I'd agree with this. You lose around 0.2" of screen (same resolution) but gain a hardware keyboard. Sells it for me :-)

[TheAnimus]

what a hypocritical thing to say... your saying don't get the phone you really want but can't get/afford so your going for the rip off styled market instead.
riiiight... makes so much sense.
did we have all these clones before the iphone? no we didn't we had crappy xda/htc's and now what are they all doing? trying to copy every touch gesture in the world.

First off, no one is saying they can't afford it, only bad thing is the lock in with o2.

Second calling them a rip off market shows a lot of ignorance. The HD, the phone in question here is on paper way ahead of the iPhone 3g, the 3gs starts to catch it up.

That is hardly a rip off, when the main features you actually want to use, like speed surfing, and how much text you can easily read (much better screen, better resolution), the HD is far ahead.

who ever thinks windows mobile is better than symbian or iphone os is better is insane.

Well lets have a think about this. I'm a developer, i've found symbian quite good, its a fairly standardised platform, with ideas like the s60, from over 7 years ago!

Windows Mobile is waaay ahead of the others in ease of developement. Making a simple program which used a secured webservice to check on status of some systems took me, 10 minuites. Start to finish.

Then the fact this program can be peroidically scheduled to poll automatically. If it fails it alerts me automatically, even when my phone is on sleep profile.

oh and as for the browness that's utter rubbish Over 1 million sold in the first weekend are they just overhyping an issolated incident hmmm?
either way it's not like they won't give you another and it's probably just a dodgy batch like when those sony laptops years ago were catching fire with dodgy chargers...

People have to realize - no product is perfect. The fact that one breaks isn't proof of a design problem. If there are a significant percentage, then you can make a case of it.

I think the fear is that its not isolated, apple have a track record for saying lalalallalalala there is no problem, lalalalallalalalallalalala. Given this people are naturally untrusting, it will be intresting to see how big this problem comes, there are already a sizeable number of reports, but given the number sold, it could be an insignificant issue, myself i'd hold off for a refresh thou.

get the iphone because it's probably what you actually wanted originally but had to settle for an alternative... or alternatively get the most expensive phone you can get then sell it and buy an iphone and unlock it and use your preferred network that's what i'm doing o2 mate!

You see you've failed to give a good reason for the iPhone.

iPhone has multi touch, so you can touch more than once, is this better than a stylus? Depends, for the zooming is very controlable ie when web browsing, for everything else i ask of the modern smart phone, not really. Pocket Opera for instance has a much better inteligent zoom, use it and you will have to admit its better.

The iPhone user interface is quick, and responsive always, thing is, when i'm never leaving an app open on my WM phone, it is quick and responsive. Sliding animations asside, this is true of my 7 year old nokia smartphone.

[TheAnimus]

You've obviosuly never actually used the touch HD.

As for WM vrs iPhone applications, what am i trying to deny?

Then size and feal, even a college of mine who loves his iPhone has to admit the touch feals better, its got that less wasted space because they couldn't fit the stuff in fealing. The touch HD weighs an extra 10g. Worth it for the extra battery life? Size look at the screen and the resolution, web browsing is preferable on the HD, but i've yet to spend enough time with the 3gs to see if the speed really compensates for the lower resolution, and worse experiance.

Been able to flick out a stylus is very useful for 'serious' i'm stuck in terminal 5 for an extra 2 hours browsing (and having a phone that has the battery life for such a task . But at the same time having the touch interface done well enough so that you don't need to resort to complex gestures, a double tap snapping to a div works really well on 90%+ of the websites i read. The way it works on beeb news for instance is just perfect.

I'd like to get a little try with the Pre, might make it my new 'work' phone, seeing as the storm was so useless I gave it back after less than 2 weeks.

Also i'd really like to know which features HTC have copied?

They had been replacing chunks of the WM shell before the iphone came out. The only thing i can think of is the 'slide to awnser' thing, and tbh have ignore the other way is a good refinment.

[muppet_hat]

I don't like WM phones. but I got friends that have the Touch Diamond. It is a really sexy phone. The size, design, and everything!!!! But I would not buy it because of WM, which I find unstable. Sorry, but that is my biased opinion = /

[TheAnimus]

haha yeah i used it and saw the demo's before it came out where the guy was stood there going yeah you just tap this and do this and he had to do it 5 times before shi**y windows mobile responded. it's the whole touch gestured interface they've copied with their own slant on things.it's just sad.

Ok, first off that wouldn't have been the offical video, why would they realese that? Was it a pre-release firmware by chance?

I've not had to do ANYTHING twice on my touch HD, my glofiish beforehand was a nightmare thou (but had features at the time the iPhone was seriously missing).

The responsiveness of the HD is excellent, when no apps are running, its better than the 3g iPhone, a simple operation like looking at text messages to one of my good friends (ie 300+ texts since feb) is quicker on the HD.

Now again, how could they have copied the touch interface, THEY DID IT BEFORE.

The ONLY bit that is copied by HTC is hte blatent ripoff of slide to awnser thing, but by adding the both ways for ignore or awnser it is BETTER. If your going to copy something, you have to refine it. They have done this.

if their sposed to be so business orientated then why put so much flare into it gui wise... balmer was ripping the piss out of the iphone and saying its a toy and how windows mobile is for professionals and how the iphone doesn't have a keyboard... hmm and this does does it no it doesn't along with alot of other windows mobile phones.and if their sposed to be so corporate why have they put these gui eyecandys in? hmm to compete that's why. not focusing on pure productivity like they should be...

This is the thing, the HD isn't designed to be the ultimate emailer, its missing the keyboard. HTC have different products, rather than been a jack of all trades.

For me, i'm either always near a proper machine if i want to write war and peace, or if its just a couple of lines, the on screen keyboard is fine.

If this changes (it looks like it might), i will go for a keyboarded phone, full qwerty slide out.

Remeber that balmer when he made those comments was spot on, they didn't have any offerings for the business.

and complex gestures lol i have huge thumbs and fingers and my hands are massive aswel and if i can do it with ease you can. for example what i'm typing this on my new macbook has all the pinch and sqeeze tech on a completely different material and system and you pick it up in seconds and it's a joy to use.how is it so complicated to do real life movements like pinching and extending your finger and thumb it's not is it.hence why they did it.after all it's meant to be about slick usability...

This is the thing, i'm not deny they aren't good. Far from it. Its just i also like a stylus. Take today i was in a coffee shop remebered that i needed to email a friend some details, straight to the website, copied the text from that to the email, isn't it much easier to select text with a stylus? I sure as hell find it quicker, but i do have large hands.

oh and battery when browsing what are you talking about have you not used/red up on the S? its got Up to 5 hours on 3G Up to 9 hours on Wi-Fi which has been vouched for by a lot of trusted sites and magazines... the same with the upto 30 hours audio playback... lots of people have had around 24hours... more than good enough for me.sure it's not 3.2days solid like the n97 is sposed to be but then the battery on that thing is nearly as big as the S itself LOL. good phone though

Again, you are completely ignoring me, the HD has a bigger battery.
You are going on about 24 hours been good. Are you high? That is ABSOLETELY USELESS, where are in gorden brown definitions of useless.

battery life is immensely impressive, lasting 119hrs 50mins – the best performance by far this month.

(link: http://www.pcauthority.com.au/Review...tery-life.aspx)
so 5 times hte battery life..... You honestly think the iPhone is better in battery life? wow.

You know what i find strange too? 5 days to me isn't good. I want at least 2 weeks. I want to be able to go on holiday for a long weekend break, and not bring my charger.

as for rendering taken straight off their site...

This thread is about the touch HD, not the Pre. I could compare the touch HD to a nokia and say omgz the rendering speed is teh awsomez.

The rendering speed on the HD is actually often slower than the iPhone, it has much higher resolution, so it stands to reason that its slower.

the storm jesus that phones SUCKS haha so that's one thing we aggree on.

Yes, anyone who has that phone, and thinks its any good I honestly don't think has used a proper smart phone from the last 7 years.

So lets go on to some more features where the HD whipps the arse of the iPhone. Communications.
The new HTC phones bring you this centralised people view of comm, you have all the emails, all the texts, all the appointments, all the facebook crapola, all the phone calls, all the 'notes' brought together into one place. It is really well made and well done.

Conferencing again is something that the last few days I'm finding really useful, the way the HTC works with this is just again miles ahead of hte iPhone.

The place the iPhone wins over is in games. Its hands down ahead of the WM generations.

But i hope you can see the iPhone is actually lagging far behind the innovation of people like HTC. Yes some bits have been copied, thou i think its only fair to say its the phone awnser screen, but we are not talking carbon copy hear, we are talking with their own spin and improvements.

The HD is better in terms of specification AND productivity. Its funny you are telling people to get a 3GS with out even having owned an HD or used one. (i admit, i've not used the 3gs, but I've used the 3g).

[Flibb]

Hey Animus, you running winmo 6.5 yet, have installed it on my kaiser and its quiet impressive. First install was slow, but followed the instructions the 2nd time (flashed stock rom, flashed 6.5 ROM, HARD RESET) and it flys. havent had any problems running older software either, nice having the choice of front end.

[Bunjiweb]

keef247, you can reply without being offensive or getting heated. What phones have you actually used? Being an iPhone fan boy gets you nowhere....

And as for quoting sales bumf off the O2/Apple website about the Iphone, you cannot be serious right? That like me saying..

"Have you seen this new Vauxhall Corsa? They are saying its twice as good as the last vauxhall corsa, read the sales brochure!!!"

.... I think not..

Personally for me as much as I like the look of the iPhone, and think the appstore is wonderful, it isn't the phone for me as there are a few fundamental flaws with it.... However, I am not going to help turn this thread into any more of a heated arguement I hope!

The TouchHD was a great phone but there must be various reasons why it is being discontinued? Perhaps there wasn't as bigger uptake on the network as they had hoped and decided it wasn't worth continuing, maybe they hope the HTC Hero will be a good alternative for people, and although of course it isn't winmo etc. etc. it certainly looks like an excellent handset and might suit Orange's customer type much better.

Ben

[TheAnimus]

I'm still on Late April/Early May Dutty.

Its been so good, i don't want to rock the boat! Battery life has been very good, i got 6 days a couple of weeks ago. Might give it a go next time i'm bored!