After you said this, I started a few apps with voice without problems. I just used the word "start" before the app name and it worked perfectly every time! I think I found my new preferred method for opening apps!
Moving from a Android device to HTC Titan?
- Thread starter O_G
- Start date
The memory is still an issue for me even after eliminating music on the device. Due to the number of podcasts I subscribe to, and the number of video podcasts as well. I do like the titan overall. The only thing I miss from y Dell Venue Pro are the keyboard (rarely) and the 32gb capacity I had. The Titan has me cionsidering finding a Zune HD on the cheap. I had one but gifted it when I went WP7.
I bought Zune subscription! £90 per year is nothing for all the free space you can enjoy on the phone plus all the latest music whenever you want!
I never thought of using start... good one. We should start a thread on tell me commands in the main windows phone area.
does the Windows Phone 7 connector software on Mac works fluently?
coz this is the main reason why I sold my GS2 for a Titan coming this January
coz this is the main reason why I sold my GS2 for a Titan coming this January
Ok.. this post is going to be huge... First, I would like to do things a bit in reverse. I'm going to post my review, which mentions a comparison of the titan w/my parents' photons (gingerbread), but FIRST, after seeing them again at xmas, I'm going to post my updates. Second, I have a few comments on ClassickWORLD's post. Finally... because it's so big, I'll throw up my whole review of the titan currently listed on amazon.
Quick updates:
Since my review, I've added a ton more apps and my parents have been playing on their phones quite a bit. One of the nice things I noticed is that the auto sorting kicks in after you build up a decent number of apps (apps are listed alphabetically, broken up by letter. If you hit a letter, it goes to a grid of all letters.. touch on that letter and go right to that section. Much less scrolling).
I can get to any app I own in 3 touches. My parents have to scroll through a crapton of apps they never use, hoping they remember the name of the app they DO need... and hone in on it. I probably have WAY more apps than they do, but you wouldn't be able to tell due to the effort they have to put into finding theirs.
I see why android phones have so much memory.... and I'm dumbfounded by the fact that they operate so terribly. My mom's phone boots up and it's already using more memory than my Titan even has... yet my titan is ridiculously faster than hers. The amount of management that has to go into controlling all of the possible apps on an adroid phone is ... just... pathetic really. To be honest, I felt like I was back on windows mobile.
I don't know if it was android in general or just gingerbread, but.. well.. here's a quick timeline:
- Played w/my mom's phone on thanksgiving weekend. Went through at least half a dozen full battery drains w/all the time I put into it (at this time I still had my ATT Tilt2)
- Got my phone Dec 13, have been playing w/it nonstop (and as per my review.. it has still never frozen).
- Played w/my mom's phone again on xmas weekend.
In that time frame, I went from "wow, your phone is really nice ma!" to "wow, wp7 is so smooooooooth" to "am I back on windows mobile?" For me, Android went from awesome to extremely dated in 1 month.
Now, a few words on some of Classick's comments:
- I agree there is 1 extra step that should not be there for making a call
- I loved swype on my mom's phone. Now that I've had my Titan, I can't even remember the last time I thought of swype.
- I do wish there was more voice integration for text entering.
- I don't think you're offering a fair comparison at all. Of course facebook/twitter are going to be optimized WAY more for the current smartphone market share leader, who's had more years and billions more poured into it. I'm wondering how/why this surprises you.
I currently have:
- 54 apps (not games)
- 31 games
I have uninstalled most all of the bloatware (which was not much to begin with), and I've uninstalled a decent chunk of apps I didn't really want. I do not use all the apps I have, but I find myself using a lot more than I though I would. As for social needs (twitter/facebook), I'm EXTREMELY satisfied w/the unification methods that wp7 has employed. IMO, wp7 is the best social phone out there.
Finally, my review.. unedited (except to highlight section headers):
Quick updates:
Since my review, I've added a ton more apps and my parents have been playing on their phones quite a bit. One of the nice things I noticed is that the auto sorting kicks in after you build up a decent number of apps (apps are listed alphabetically, broken up by letter. If you hit a letter, it goes to a grid of all letters.. touch on that letter and go right to that section. Much less scrolling).
I can get to any app I own in 3 touches. My parents have to scroll through a crapton of apps they never use, hoping they remember the name of the app they DO need... and hone in on it. I probably have WAY more apps than they do, but you wouldn't be able to tell due to the effort they have to put into finding theirs.
I see why android phones have so much memory.... and I'm dumbfounded by the fact that they operate so terribly. My mom's phone boots up and it's already using more memory than my Titan even has... yet my titan is ridiculously faster than hers. The amount of management that has to go into controlling all of the possible apps on an adroid phone is ... just... pathetic really. To be honest, I felt like I was back on windows mobile.
I don't know if it was android in general or just gingerbread, but.. well.. here's a quick timeline:
- Played w/my mom's phone on thanksgiving weekend. Went through at least half a dozen full battery drains w/all the time I put into it (at this time I still had my ATT Tilt2)
- Got my phone Dec 13, have been playing w/it nonstop (and as per my review.. it has still never frozen
).- Played w/my mom's phone again on xmas weekend.
In that time frame, I went from "wow, your phone is really nice ma!" to "wow, wp7 is so smooooooooth" to "am I back on windows mobile?" For me, Android went from awesome to extremely dated in 1 month.
Now, a few words on some of Classick's comments:
- Search has been addressed to you
- I agree there is 1 extra step that should not be there for making a call
- Add me to the list of "really?? You have a problem w/the keyboard? Everyone else thinks it's the best out there.."
- I loved swype on my mom's phone. Now that I've had my Titan, I can't even remember the last time I thought of swype.
- I do wish there was more voice integration for text entering.
- The only thing I miss on the browser is the forward button
- I don't think you're offering a fair comparison at all. Of course facebook/twitter are going to be optimized WAY more for the current smartphone market share leader, who's had more years and billions more poured into it. I'm wondering how/why this surprises you.
- That sounds like personal preference... Most people really like the tiles...
- I agree and miss when I could just open up my winmo phone as a folder and drag/drop. The biggest problem is at work where I cannot install anything, so there's literally no way for me to get to my files (other than sky drive). However I do have enough alternatives that this has not hindered me at all, and I'm having a lot of fun with OneNote.
- IMO, this argument is ridiculous. I was not a major app user and I already have WAY more apps than I thought I would have and download more all the time. Everything I need, I have...
I currently have:
- 54 apps (not games)
- 31 games
I have uninstalled most all of the bloatware (which was not much to begin with), and I've uninstalled a decent chunk of apps I didn't really want. I do not use all the apps I have, but I find myself using a lot more than I though I would. As for social needs (twitter/facebook), I'm EXTREMELY satisfied w/the unification methods that wp7 has employed. IMO, wp7 is the best social phone out there.
- IMO, you haven't spent enough time w/wp7. The tiles were one of the big things that had me on the ropes saying, "Yeah.. I really don't care how it looks! It's fine!! /whisper GOD THESE THINGS LOOK RETARDED!!!" Now that I've used it, I can't imagine a better way to handle a home screen. Again, my mom's phone seems ridiculous w/it's main sections of scattered app icons compared to my unified, tiled homepage.
Finally, my review.. unedited (except to highlight section headers):
To begin, my brief background:
- Extensive use of several different blackberries (work)
- Used Motorola Q9h -- windows mobile 5 I think?
- Used ATT Tilt2 - WM 6.5... TERRIBLE PHONE; TERRIBLE OS!!
- Used/configured parents' Motorola Photon/Electrify extensively over Tgiving break
- Have owned the titan over half a month, use it quite a bit every day
- Played w/every generation of iPhone
- I am a web developer
First of all, my primary comparison is against the Motorola Photon (several battery drains
Also, for those of you who want to tl;dr
**The number one thing that every WP7 review should contain**
Windows *phone* is NOT Windows *mobile*. The two could not be more different, and even the staunchest microsoft fanboy will crucify windows mobile. It's sad because it leaves anyone who's touched it a very sour taste for anything "windows" on a phone.
On to the Titan:
It just works. Whatever you want to do... it just works!
- Switches between apps without the slightest pause, and does so w/a fluid animation that makes it feel like all apps are connected
- Loads apps extremely fast
- Downloads apps extremely fast (thanks to ATT 4g or wifi... the download bar literally zips along in no time)
- Uninstalls apps fast
- Loads GPS fast
- Updates social networks fast
You getting the theme here?? All I need is about half a minute to show off my phone to someone new before they're like, "Wow... I can't believe you're just bouncing around between everything like that." It's truly a sight to behold. Of course, the reasoning behind this is wp7. Let's take a quick second to discuss this.
Hardware:
The proverbial "mine is better than yours" starts with simple hardware numbers. Dual cores instead of single cores (photon vs titan). More ram. More internal storage. That's all fine and dandy, except for the fact that PHONES ARE NOT COMPUTERS. When you compare computers, comparing hardware is valid. For the most part, when you're comparing hardware, it's a windows computer vs another windows computer (unless you're comparing against an apple computer to show how you get the same hardware for $1000 more), so you're both on the same level in terms of how the system would run, given a set of resources. This is NOT the same with phones!! The OSs are fundamentally different and therefore use hardware completely differently. WP7 accomplishes more with less hardware. I can personally vouch that a dual 1Ghz CPU phone w/1GB of ram was outperformed by a 1.5Ghz CPU and half a GB of ram.... time and time again. Straight up number comparisons just don't work when it comes to phones!
Dependability:
The Titan has never frozen on me... regardless of what I throw at it. I froze my parents' electrify several times in the handful of days I played with it. Coming from a phone as buggy and glitchy as my Tilt2, I figured that these slowdowns were just a limit of mobile computing capabilities. It was way better than the Tilt2, but still had some upper limits by mobile hardware. It was only after a handful days of using my Titan that I paused and thought, "hmmm... this thing hasn't slowed down for anything... ever!" It's just such a natural experience that you kind of forget you're on a mobile device.
Interconnection:
WP7 really allows the best of all worlds when it comes to social consumables. You have to option to break EVERYTHING out into it's own tile and bloat your start screen if you want to, or you have the option of combining all like-typed items. Facebook and twitter updates all in one stream. I have 2 gmail accounts combined w/each other, but I leave my work email on it's own tile. I can combine my contacts, so that people I had saved in my old phone under an alias are now linked to their facebook profiles that pull up on my Titan. Messaging is laughably easy, as you can switch between facebook chat and texting on a whim (this could save on txt messages for those of you who do not have unlimited plans). Setting up social networking on my parents' phones was a pain. Some of it integrated really easily, had a great display, and worked really well.... for what it wanted to show. Finding other parts of social streams was more difficult and/or involved other apps. You don't really *need* many apps here because of the build in functionality of wp7. **It truly is the best social phone out there** The only flaw I will give it in this department is that speech to text isn't nearly as prevelent or well executed as on Android devices. That was probably my favorite thing about my parents' phones.
Oh yeah.. and xbox integration. I can control my xbox from my phone. I can see interactive halo maps on my phone. I have gamerscores for XBL apps. +1 for the entertainment side of phones!
Apps:
I'm not a huge app user, but that still doesn't change the fact that arguing about apps into the hundreds of thousands is ridiculous. Android has 4x more apps than wp7. iPhone has twice as many as android. Know what that means? Android has 4 apps that all do the same thing one on wp7 does, and iPhone has 8 apps for it. The major apps that you need are all there... and even some of those are already duplicated on wp7. Need youtube? Metrotube is a BEAUTIFUL app that does way more than the youtube app. Shazam? It's there..but just use bing music search instead. 2 touches on the phone. Image editing apps? There. Major newspapers/feeds? All there. Pandora? They're making one. And that's the thing. Within the weeks following the launch of the new major wp7 phones in November, developers have been filling those major holes like CRAZY. Microsoft has all kinds of incentives out there to help developers beef up the app count. I didn't think I'd be playing many games, but I've already got a huge backlog of really addicting games that I just stumbled upon. The apps are there, people!
Now let's talk briefly about working w/the Titan specifically.
Handling the Phone:
I've seen the "it's too big" argument. I don't think so. I have medium to large hands, but I don't ever recall trying to get my hand around the phone in a position that was hard to handle. I don't know why you would have to, so I don't really understand those comments. I'm extremely happy w/the real estate. It makes playing games a great experience! I will say that I might have been happier w/like.. half a mm more on the power and camera button, but I have to admit, it's a REALLY small gripe. The volume rocker feels perfect where it is. I noticed myself adjusting calls easily w/out even thinking about it.
Resolution:
The screen is beautiful. Period. Jaggies? Not there. Brightness? Perfect. I went back and forth between the Samsung Focus S and the Titan for weeks before the Titan was released, reading every review I could. I had google checking for news by the hour. I admit.. I was worried about the screen from the reviews, and purely from basic math. Same resolution spread over a wider screen = ugly.. right? I went from a 3.5" screen on my Tilt2 to the 4.7" on the Titan.... and both have the same resolution! The odd thing is that the Titan looks miles better than the Tilt2 did. I don't get it mathematically, but it's true! When the Titan did finally drop, I checked it out against a Focus S in an ATT store. First, let there be no argument... the Focus S is beautiful. That being said, I liked the Titan better. The brightness was a big part of it for me and fit me better, though I will say that in the end, the build quality was probably more of a deciding factor (between the Focus S). Sooo......
Build Quality:
It's an aluminum case covered by scratch proof, thick glass. How do you think it is?? Lol. No surprises here. It's a tank! The only real thing I was worried about was spreading that much screen out over such a thin depth. That hasn't been a problem at all. I've had my girlfriend plop on my lap in such a manner that she was basically breaking the phone over my thigh. While that sensation isn't enjoyable with ANY phone in your pocket, it did absolutely nothing to the Titan (as expected!). The weight is perfect. It's exactly what I would want a device w/those dimensions to be. Not flimsy at ALL, and not heavy. A child would have absolutely no problem porting this around. It's slim profile fits extremely well into pants, and you hardly even notice it's there. I couldn't really compare this to the photon, because my parent bought otter boxes, so of course the things were ginormous.
Conclusion:
The Titan is the best phone on the market right now. Period. The iPhone is pretty much the old Motorola razr back when smartphones started coming out and Android is really good... but wp7 is better (don't take my word for it.. read some of the major editors on tech feeds like CNET that say the same thing). You can't slow the Titan down. You can't break the Titan (in normal use) and it's just one of the most comfortable devices all around to use. If wp7 was as popular as Android, I'm sure we'd see tons more devices out there for variety, but to be honest, wp7 doesn't really need it. Yeah, they have sandboxed specs.. but that's because it's a current sweet spot and it works VERY well! I honestly think that ANYONE who didn't already have their mind set could pick up the Titan and it would be extremely hard for them to be unhappy with it. I have 0 regrets w/this phone.
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You can easily enable it using a cool javascript hack:
http://www.liveside.net/2011/10/21/...page-back-in-ie9-mobile-on-windows-phone-7-5/
is there any significant difference between an HTC titan UK and an asian version?
Not hardware wise, may be OS features might be different?
Hello HTC Titan 2011 forum. I am coming from an old HTC Eris/Hero and the difference is night and day. No more force closes or 10 seconds to open the android web browser. Of course I had mine rooted and overclocked which made a difference but it's nothing like the speed of the HTC Titan. Things I wish they improved on is the GPS navigation and an addition of a usable seekbar in the Zune music player. I don't mind the Bing maps but the navigation is stuck on portrait and I have to touch to get directions after each waypoint. Also I don't understand why the non-functional seekbar in the Zune music player? I have podcasts and music radio streams that are hours long which I want to skip around in the file. I already found most of the google apps that I use on android from a 3rd party developer on the market place so the transition was smooth for the most part. I love the my new HTC and hope that windows will continue to improve on it's os.
Very pleased to hear this from fellow old androidian. I am glad you've found it all a pleasant experience. For spot on navigation there are few paid softwares, but they are well worth it! One-off payment is all negated if you use GPS navigation a lot. I've never faced the issue with tapping after each turn on Bing Maps but try GMaps if you find them better. There are a few more maps/navigation apps for free. The reason I love bing maps is because they are spot on in London!
I've been using Android for 2 years and just bought my Mango Titan past week. Having read many positive reviews, I had high hopes.
There are things that I had expected a normal user would expect to have. Things that really disappoints (or is there any app to solve these?):
1.No smart dialing. I found apps on Market to complement that but then those apps does smart dialing and nothing more. To see phone history, missed calls etc, I have to go back to the original phone app. Kind of strange to put two phone app tiles on main screen.
2. How to turn off notification sound at night automatically? My phone charges on my night desk and keeps beeping when emails come in in the the middle of the night. In Android we have the SoundManager app that can set daily time zones to turn on/off various rings/notifications.
3. Pressing on the live tiles will launch a program (say Facebook app). That's fine, but having pressed the Win button to go back to main screen and launch the same app again seems to launch the program from scratch (i.e. slow). It's very often that we hop among a few apps to do things. Long press on the "back" button could bring things back much more quickly.
4. Calendar. The calendar is the weakest thing I've used in the past few years (WM6, Android 1.5-2.3, iOS) It's basically useless in the month-view as I cannot read anything on it and there is no week-week. Calens\dar tile seems to only show tomorrow's events and nothing beyond een when the tile has lots of space left to show more stuff.
5. On-line status. Is there any way I don't sync status with all accounts? Right now when I say I'm on-line for MSN chat, it'll also show me on-line in Facebook...
6. No folder to aggregate various tiles/apps. My tile and app list is already growing so long that I find it cumbersome to scroll through it.
7. Hand writing Chinese recognition is so slow. Basically the stroke lags.
8. WhatsApp problem. Very often it says I have received new msg and the tile says so too. Yet when I go inside, nothing. May be this is WhatsApp only?
Am I the only one that is disappointed? Sadly the list seems to be growing...
Michael
There are things that I had expected a normal user would expect to have. Things that really disappoints (or is there any app to solve these?):
1.No smart dialing. I found apps on Market to complement that but then those apps does smart dialing and nothing more. To see phone history, missed calls etc, I have to go back to the original phone app. Kind of strange to put two phone app tiles on main screen.
2. How to turn off notification sound at night automatically? My phone charges on my night desk and keeps beeping when emails come in in the the middle of the night. In Android we have the SoundManager app that can set daily time zones to turn on/off various rings/notifications.
3. Pressing on the live tiles will launch a program (say Facebook app). That's fine, but having pressed the Win button to go back to main screen and launch the same app again seems to launch the program from scratch (i.e. slow). It's very often that we hop among a few apps to do things. Long press on the "back" button could bring things back much more quickly.
4. Calendar. The calendar is the weakest thing I've used in the past few years (WM6, Android 1.5-2.3, iOS) It's basically useless in the month-view as I cannot read anything on it and there is no week-week. Calens\dar tile seems to only show tomorrow's events and nothing beyond een when the tile has lots of space left to show more stuff.
5. On-line status. Is there any way I don't sync status with all accounts? Right now when I say I'm on-line for MSN chat, it'll also show me on-line in Facebook...
6. No folder to aggregate various tiles/apps. My tile and app list is already growing so long that I find it cumbersome to scroll through it.
7. Hand writing Chinese recognition is so slow. Basically the stroke lags.
8. WhatsApp problem. Very often it says I have received new msg and the tile says so too. Yet when I go inside, nothing. May be this is WhatsApp only?
Am I the only one that is disappointed? Sadly the list seems to be growing...
Michael
I had my first reboot while trying to end a call from an area which had low signal strength. I find that the call quality is less than my old HTC android. I'll keep my WP and hope the 2 planned software upgrades will improve my WP experience.
Yes, I've been told from callers that my voice seems muffled, distant sounding from my new HTC Titan.
For the muffled. Slide the titan up more so your mouth is closer to the mic at the bottom. It's a big phone.
For folders in your tiles use this... it works sweet and no unlock needed.
http://windowsphonehacker.com/folders
Who needs smart dialing? use voice. hold button, say call whoever. or call the number. I call people back more then i call people so the history button is sweet for me.
As for the calendar, i like it. Click the month view, click the day and it takes you to the view for that day. works for me and syncs very well with exchange, hotmail and facebook calendars all at once.
For folders in your tiles use this... it works sweet and no unlock needed.
http://windowsphonehacker.com/folders
Who needs smart dialing? use voice. hold button, say call whoever. or call the number. I call people back more then i call people so the history button is sweet for me.
As for the calendar, i like it. Click the month view, click the day and it takes you to the view for that day. works for me and syncs very well with exchange, hotmail and facebook calendars all at once.
I find even if I move my mouth closer to the bottom of the phone to be of no help with my voice quality issues.
This feature works very well and I have been using it a lot. Way better than androids' implementation of the feature.
My wife has been complaining about my voice quality on the Titan since I got it, and I can confirm that sliding the phone up to position the mic better helps very little, if at all.
Today I called into a voicemail system (Magicjack, not AT&T) and changed my outgoing message. I did it a half-dozen times, and every single attempt was unintelligible. I finally called into the same system with my wife's Focus and nailed the message first time.
Oh well. The good news is that I hate talking on the phone anyway, and use the "smart" way more than the "phone." And I love the Titan's "smart."
remove the shell of the phone, and at the top put a small piece of Electrical tape over the top MIC and the put the Phone shell back on.
you be amazed the difference in call quailty
you be amazed the difference in call quailty
A picture would help me locate where to put that piece of tape.