The HTC HD2 (O2 variant)

Over recent years O2 announced and brought to the world the renowned Xda range of machines. Unfortunately the Windows Mobile devices offered by O2 seemed to be released less often with the dark days of the iPhone and O2's singular UK market of that...

Ref: blue cast in photos... the auto white balance settings could be misinterpreting the light source. to confirm, would have to take the same picture using auto and then again specifying white balance. it's definitely tricky with any camera, but at least the HD2 gives white balance options.

in the photos from an earlier rom version the red cast was crazy, and now with the blue cast there might have been overcompensation.

I wish they would leave the option for RAW file format capture, would be much better to edit photos after, rather than the pre-processed jpeg and then re-processing it after and losing quality.

btw - if it is actually a white balance issue, possibly may be able to adjust white balance in Lightroom or other photo software to correct

I won't miss either one. I've had TV-out availability on Touch Pro forever, and never even used it, not once. Not much reason to, actually. I want video from Windows Media Center or DVD *to* my phone, and not necessarily the other way around. and any video/photos I take from phone get synced to pc anyway, so no biggie.

second video camera isn't high on my priority list either since not much use for it in USA. Would be nice if it could be used with Skype though.

so for me, both would be extra features and not affect my own marks for required functionality.

tmn0004676: TV Out I never think to use as I've only had it on the Xda Serra and had little use for it then. The front facing camera, yes I've had it in phones I've used over the last three years but as there is not a lot of 3G around here I've never had a video call so don't miss it. Therefore those elements do not occur to me, so you could say I missed them or did not take them into account but I do not consider them 'killer' features to omit.

Colour balance: from what I can recall when taking the shots the camera did tend to focus on the sky and maybe a sit was a bright sky but the rest was pretty much in shadow that caused the effect?

So which way should one adjust the white balance to compensate?

It might be worth mentioning that the Saturation / Contrast / Sharpness are all set to +3 as a default, could this also have an effect? Metering mode is set to spot unfortunately which probably does not help?

OK- just seen your memory chart and HTC Sense definitely grabs a lot of Program memory.

I still can't understand how the devices can both have 512MB Storage but the TG01 has 120MB more available after a hard reset other than that the HTC stuff- Contacts, Calendar, Sense etc- use huge chunks of storage.

I'll have to run Tillanosoft Spacefinder, and see where it's gone!

I think this device is also missing the ability to act as a USB mass storage device (I'm not taking about USB Host here)....also does anyone know if it capable of any digital sound effects....surround, stadium, echo etc?

@neil - on first impressions do you think it's a good single device replacement from using the diamond and x7510 combined?

Well, I've been using the TG01 in that manner since July, and have to say 'yes'

Interestingly I went back to the Diamond this week after selling the TG01, and it felt oh-so-slow

The HD2 has a lot more built-in function- like the HTC Calendar and Contacts so I won't have to install Resco Contact or SBSH Calendar Touch. I'm still getting to grips with the screen sensitivity- especially with the SIP. I keep 'double hitting' keys by mistake! I'll probably put TouchPal back on, as it's still a lot better than the HTC SIP.

The HD2 is head and shoulders above the TG01 in call quality and general sound quality- the TG01 suffers a lot of crackles and signal dropouts.

There is the usual setting in 'USB to PC' to set it as mass storage or Activesync, plus settings for USB Modem and WiFi Router.

There is no DSP facility- I don't know of any mobile that has this, though some add-on Music/Video programs have some sound shaping abilities.

There is no USB Host cable in the package unfortunately, though it has been reported that the Motorola microUSB to USB Host adapter does allow external devices to be plugged in.

I thought you might like the HD2 Neil, it's excellent isn't it

The screen checkboxes can be tiresome, but there is an answer. Use the outward pinch action (if that makes sense!) on the screens with the check boxes, this activates the screen magnifier, you can then tick the box, or choose from a drop down menu with ease.

neilm: I'm not convinced that spacefinder will locate where the 'missing' memory ha gone as I think HTC are using it as a cache for Sense / teh O - I could be wrong though!

tmn0004676: Ah ha we missed that bit. No you're wrong there it supports all three modes with the usual HTC pop up menu screen - USB Mass Storage, ActiveSync and Tethering. I ue it as storage taking thigns to / from work each day.

NeilM: The WiFi Router is not included in the O2 ROM as it's use contravenes O2's connection policies. It was removed two ROM revisions ago!

Boz: I'm not convinced the magnifier works in all third party applications but I could be wrong there!