HTC Legend, the latest HTC Smartphone to hit the streets
The HTC Legend has taken all the best bits of the HTC Hero and made them better, and that's no mean feat.
Metal Casing
The Legend is one sexy looking phone, with it's slightly slightly angled mic which makes the phone feel more comfortable in use, it makes the antenna better according to HTC.
The metal case of the Legend is a single piece of aluminium, which is an improvement on the previous plastic casing. HTC has also replaced the trackball with a round, touch-sensitive trackpad, it may not be the most useful feature on a touchpohone, but at least it looks better that previous incarnations.
Screen
The Legend's 81mm screen is the same size as the Hero's. However, the Legend has been given an AMOLED screen which means it's impressively bright, with good intense colouring.
The display's 320x480-pixel resolution is lower than the 480x800-pixel resolution offered by the Google Nexus One or the HTC Desire. Though it is the same resolution the iPhone 3GS, and its fine for reading tiny text on a web page.
The Legend has a 5-megapixel camera on the back, the same as the Hero, though there is now an effective LED photo light added.
Power
The Legend has a slightly upgraded processor and RAM, with a 600MHz processor, compared to the Hero's 528MHz processor and with 384MB of RAM, compared to the Hero's 288MB.
Web
The Web browser was also a speed demon, rendering complex pages almost twice as quickly as the Hero's browser (using the same Wi-Fi network). The browser offers quite a few improvements over the standard browser found on other phones running Android 2.1, such as the Nexus One.
Multi-touch zoom is supported, so you can quickly zoom in on small text with a pinch of your fingers. The Flash support isn't great: it does ensure that Flash-based Web sites look okay, but you'll struggle to play flash based games online. The Legend has HSPA and Wi-Fi connectivity, which makes it a good handset for browsing the mobile Web.
Email is well implemented on the Legend, with more little tweaks from HTC enhancing the Android operating system even further. For example, with standard Android, you can view your Outlook folders, but not move mail. With the Legend, that handy feature has been implemented.
Widgets
The email app is part of HTC's user interface called 'Sense'. It also includes several home screen widgets, including a widget that combines Facebook updates and tweets into one live feed.
Features that we loved on previous HTC phones seem to be more polished, such as the address book that pulls in contacts from Facebook and Gmail. We had no trouble with duplicate contacts being created, and people from different services were matched up smoothly and automatically.
Camera
The Legend's got a decent 5-megapixel camera with a built in LED flash. In tests, its photos were about average for a phone, though the LED light did a very good job of brightening up dark areas. There are plenty of options to help you get the photo you want.
There's a standard 3.5mm headphone jack w hich is great, and it's easy to sync photos and music onto your phone using a USB cable or a microSD card. The Legend can even make phone calls ;). However, as with many smart phones, the battery life is pretty bad.
Conclusion
The HTC Legend is a great Android phone, better than the Google Nexus One in many ways. Android is still clunkier than the iPhone operating system however the Legend is a great alternative to Apple's handset.
The Legend is fast, its metal body is gorgeous, and it's fun to use. It may not have a huge screen but this just makes it less expensive and more practical for slipping in your pocket.
