Hands0n
7th May 2009, 07:32 PM
I had it in my hands for a little while today. I fondled it. I caressed it. I stroked it. I admired it. All in all, I was quite impressed by it.
The HTC Magic's predecessor, the T-Mobile Googlephone G1, was okay, but it didn't really float my boat. I dislike intensely the swing-out keyboard with its tiddly, fiddly, piddly little keys. My elder son loves the thing, he's really impressed with it, and so far it has stood the test of time with him - one being notorious for trashing stuff from an earliest age :D
The HTC Magic, on the other hand, is an elegant work of technological art. I was impressed more than I thought I might be. The pictures of the handset on Vodafone's website do it no justice at all.
The Magic is gorgeous to behold in life with its sleek shape and smooth glossy finish and very tidy trim and buttons (such as there are). The handset's weight is well balanced and overall feels very firm and solid in the hand. I do wonder about the robustness of the plastic case, but then again Apple moved over to plastic with the iPhone 3G without too much bother.
The HTC Magic is a touchscreen-only handset, there is no fold-out keyboard as with the G1. So the first question has to relate to how well the touchscreen operates. And I am pleased to say that it functions very well indeed - at the very least on a par with the iPhone. Dare I suggest that it maybe is a tad more responsive? I did not have time to do a side-by-side comparison but it certainly felt that way.
In use the touchscreen lulls an iPhone user into doing things that only the iPhone does, such as multi-touch gestures like pinch and squeeze. The HTC Magic was having none of that. But its keyboard and touchscroll functions worked flawlessly.
The intelligent text feature of the HTC Magic was completeley spot on and corrected all of my typo errors, of which there are always many on these tiny devices. Again, I have to say that my impression is that the HTC Magic's interpretation of my keystrokes was more accurate than my iPhone.
Talking with the handset's new owner I was told that the only problem he had with the HTC Magic related to using it as a music player. Unlike the iPhone the HTC Magic has no direct equivalent of iTunes. Also, as a Mac user already with iTunes, he found it a relatively complex process to manage files and playlists on the HTC Magic. Perhaps this is one area that is going to let all Android handsets down?
My short time with the HTC Magic has convinced me that I could indeed have one of these but won't be able to (that is another story that I will relate elsewhere on Talk3G). It wouldn't replace my iPhone now that I have become so dependent upon it. But to participate in the Android experience you would have to look far and wide to find a more capable handset with that OS on it.
If you're after the touchscreen experience but don't like O2/Apple then the HTC Magic is likely the one for you. It is as close as it gets, and Android is some head and shoulders above the iPhone's OS X (version 2.2.1) at the time of writing. That may change when OS X 3.0 arrives in June.
If you're not a fan of Vodafone either, and you wouldn't be alone on here (would they miffed?) you should expect the HTC Magic on other networks in three months time when Vodafone's exclusive deal expires (I read somewhere).
And as for the others? I'd not touch them with the proverbial pole used for propelling canal barges. Not when the choice is there betwixt iPhone and HTC Magic.
The HTC Magic's predecessor, the T-Mobile Googlephone G1, was okay, but it didn't really float my boat. I dislike intensely the swing-out keyboard with its tiddly, fiddly, piddly little keys. My elder son loves the thing, he's really impressed with it, and so far it has stood the test of time with him - one being notorious for trashing stuff from an earliest age :D
The HTC Magic, on the other hand, is an elegant work of technological art. I was impressed more than I thought I might be. The pictures of the handset on Vodafone's website do it no justice at all.
The Magic is gorgeous to behold in life with its sleek shape and smooth glossy finish and very tidy trim and buttons (such as there are). The handset's weight is well balanced and overall feels very firm and solid in the hand. I do wonder about the robustness of the plastic case, but then again Apple moved over to plastic with the iPhone 3G without too much bother.
The HTC Magic is a touchscreen-only handset, there is no fold-out keyboard as with the G1. So the first question has to relate to how well the touchscreen operates. And I am pleased to say that it functions very well indeed - at the very least on a par with the iPhone. Dare I suggest that it maybe is a tad more responsive? I did not have time to do a side-by-side comparison but it certainly felt that way.
In use the touchscreen lulls an iPhone user into doing things that only the iPhone does, such as multi-touch gestures like pinch and squeeze. The HTC Magic was having none of that. But its keyboard and touchscroll functions worked flawlessly.
The intelligent text feature of the HTC Magic was completeley spot on and corrected all of my typo errors, of which there are always many on these tiny devices. Again, I have to say that my impression is that the HTC Magic's interpretation of my keystrokes was more accurate than my iPhone.
Talking with the handset's new owner I was told that the only problem he had with the HTC Magic related to using it as a music player. Unlike the iPhone the HTC Magic has no direct equivalent of iTunes. Also, as a Mac user already with iTunes, he found it a relatively complex process to manage files and playlists on the HTC Magic. Perhaps this is one area that is going to let all Android handsets down?
My short time with the HTC Magic has convinced me that I could indeed have one of these but won't be able to (that is another story that I will relate elsewhere on Talk3G). It wouldn't replace my iPhone now that I have become so dependent upon it. But to participate in the Android experience you would have to look far and wide to find a more capable handset with that OS on it.
If you're after the touchscreen experience but don't like O2/Apple then the HTC Magic is likely the one for you. It is as close as it gets, and Android is some head and shoulders above the iPhone's OS X (version 2.2.1) at the time of writing. That may change when OS X 3.0 arrives in June.
If you're not a fan of Vodafone either, and you wouldn't be alone on here (would they miffed?) you should expect the HTC Magic on other networks in three months time when Vodafone's exclusive deal expires (I read somewhere).
And as for the others? I'd not touch them with the proverbial pole used for propelling canal barges. Not when the choice is there betwixt iPhone and HTC Magic.