HTC Legend review

This review will show you one of the latest creations of HTC: The brand new HTC Legend. This new phone has a lot of similarities with the very popular HTC Hero and is considered as the successor of it. It has the same screen size and the dimensions are almost the same, except that the Legend is 3 millimeters thinner and fully made of aluminum. It also features an AMOLED display now and runs on Android 2.1 (Éclair). In this review I will guide you through this new Android device, show it capabilities and conclude it with my personal thoughts.

1.  Introduction

The goal of designing a successor for an existing device is to make it better, faster, lighter and even better looking. I must say that HTC has passed all these criteria in my opinion. Make it better: The Legend now features Sense which gives you a new approach on communicating with your friends:

The HTC Legend raises personalization to a whole new altitude. An expanded selection of widgets brings more live content to the surface, for your instant enjoyment. There is even an online widget library, so no matter what your personality, there is content to help you get more out of your phone.

It also builds on the tradition of designing our phones to focus more on WHO we communicate with, rather than the tools used, like email, SMS or calls.

The HTC Legend is loaded with hidden little design touches that are sure to delight you. Like the ringer that knows when it has been heard. The ringer volume politely lowers when the G-sensor on your phone detects that the phone has been picked up, and it completely silences when you flip the phone
upside down.

Make it faster: The Legend now features a 600 MHz. Qualcomm MSM7227 processor with 512 MB of ROM and 384 MB of RAM. The Hero has a 528 MHz. processor, the same amount of ROM and 96 MB less RAM memory. All these little enhancements give the Legend wings !

Make it lighter and better looking: The Legend is has now a full body out of one piece. It has been made of brushed aluminum. This gives the device an incredible sleek look and makes it also lighter. The Legend is 9 grams lighter than the HTC Hero. That doesn’t seem very much, but when every gram counts, more than 9% on the total weight is a lot !
This new aluminum design is called Unibody and the video below shows you a bit more on this Unibody design.

2.  Specifications HTC Legend

On the HTC Legend product page you can see all the specifications which are summed up below:

• Model:  HTC Legend A6363
• Processor:  Qualcomm® MSM7227™, 600 MHz
• Operating System:  Android™ 2.1 (Éclair) with HTC Sense
• Memory:  512 MB ROM / 384 MB RAM
• Dimensions (L x W x T):  112 x 56.3 x 11.5 mm. (4.41 x 2.22 x 0.45 inches)
• Weight:  126 grams (4.44 ounces) with battery
• Display:  3,2″ AMOLED capacitive touch screen with pinch-to-zoom capability and with HVGA resolution (320×480 pixels)
• Network:  HSPA/WCDMA: Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz, GSM/GPRS/EDGE: Europe/Asia: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz,
• GPS:  Internal GPS antenna
• Connectivity:  Bluetooth® 2.1 with Enhanced Data Rate, Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g, 3.5 mm audio jack, Standard micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
• Camera:  5 megapixel color camera with auto focus, flash and widescreen photo capture
• Audio:  supported formats: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma
• Video:  supported formats .wmv, .mp4, .3gp, .3g2
• Digital compass for use with maps or geocaching
• Battery: Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery, Capacity: 1300 mAh
• Talk time:  Up to 440 minutes for WCDMA / Up to 490 minutes for GSM
• Standby time:  Up to 560 hours for WCDMA / Up to 440 hours for GSM
• Expansion Slot:  microSD™ memory card (SDHC compatible up to 32GB)
• Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate and turn-to-mute

2.1 In the box

The retail package of the HTC Legend is pretty much the same as the one the Hero came in. It contains everything you need plus a few extra’s – a 2 GB microSD and a one-piece headset with music controls.

In this package there’s also a micro USB cable, a charger that uses the USB cable to connect to the phone and the plug part is changeable (though the package arrives with only one plug (EU, UK or US), you can order plugs for other countries on the Internet).

The headset uses the standard 3.5 mm audio jack, so you can use your own instead, but this one is pretty nice, it has additional music buttons – the call button doubles as a play/pause button and there are previous and next track buttons that can be used to fast forward and rewind too.

Apart from all the cables and plugs, there are paper manuals too of course, plus a mini CD, which contains more manuals. The HTC Sync software is preloaded on the micro SD card.

3.  HTC Legend hardware design

In this section I will show you the hardware design of the Legend. I already showed the Unibody design, but there is more to talk about the look and feel of this device.

3.1  HTC Legend look and feel

Front view

The front consists of several parts: First, there is the 3,2″ AMOLED capacitive display. This display fits perfectly in the Unibody housing and this way of placing it in the body, makes the screen a lot bigger. The AMOLED screen has bright, vivid colors. Below the screen there are three buttons. The first button takes you to the home screen. The second button gives you the menu options or features as a context menu button in programs. The third button is made as one button, but acts as two buttons. The arrow button acts as a “back” button in all menu’s or options and the magnifying glass acts as a search button.
All these buttons are real buttons, so no on-screen buttons. You can actually feel the “click” when you press them. I prefer these instead of onscreen buttons.

Below the buttons is the optical trackball. I prefer a real trackball instead of the optical one. The optical version perfectly fits in the total design, but for control I like the “normal” trackball better.

Right side-view

The right side of the Legend contains no buttons at all. I wish HTC did place a shutter key for the camera there.

Left side-view

The left side features the volume button. There is one button to adjust the volume. In this picture you can also see the characteristic “chin” which also can be found on the HTC Hero, HTC Magic and the HTC Dream (Google G1).

Bottom view

On the bottom of the device you can see the Micro-USB connector for charging and/or synchronizing. Left from that connector is the microphone pinhole and on the right side you have the option to attach a lanyard.

Top view

On top of the HTC Legend you can find the on/off button and the 3,5″ audio jack.

Back view

On the back of the Legend there is the 5 megapixel lens for the camera and right under the lens is a LED flash for low light conditions. The lens and LED are placed in a rubbery piece of plastic. The holes on the left side are for the speaker, the rest is just decoration. This piece of plastic also prevents that the device will slide out of your hands when the aluminum becomes slippery. The other reason is the placement of the antenna in the device and the reception is a lot better when it’s placed under a plastic cover instead of the aluminum housing.

The bottom of the back also has a plastic cover made from the same rubbery material. This piece of plastic also prevents the device from sliding out of your hands, but there’s more to it. It also functions as a battery cover. You can slide it down and remove it. There you can see a plastic flap, which can be opened and gives you access to the battery compartment, the SD slot and the SIM slot.

3.2  Another Unibody video of the HTC Legend

You can also check out the video of Dieter Bohn, MVP Mobile devices and Editor on the SmartphoneExperts community-network, published on AndroidCentral and in which John Wang from HTC discusses the unibody design of the HTC Legend. This video shows you how the Unibody of the Legend has been designed. Be sure to take a look !

3.3 HTC Legend size comparisons: HTC Touch Diamond 2

To give you an idea of the size of the HTC Legend, I have placed it it next to another well-known HTC device, the HTC Touch Diamond 2. This Windows Mobile device has the same 3,2″ screen (only in higher resolution on the Diamond 2) and the dimensions of the housing are comparable to the HTC Legend. So if you know this device well, it’s about the same size as the Legend.

4.  HTC Legend software

The HTC Legend runs on Android 2.1 and HTC has put their Sense software on it. This is an intuitive, seamless experience built upon three fundamental principles -- make it mine, stay close, and discover the unexpected. The Sense interface has been supplemented with a lot of helpful programs that will make the usage of the phone more pleasant and easier. Just what we are used from HTC. Pictures always say more than words, so this review also contains a lot of screenshots to supplement the text and show you what is located where.

4.1   Android 2.1

Android 2.1 is a minor platform release deployable to Android-powered handsets starting in January 2010. This release includes new API changes and bug fixes. Android 2.1 does not add significant user features compared to Android 2.0. Some of the new features of Android 2.0 are:

Contacts and accounts

• Multiple accounts can be added to a device for email and contact synchronization, including Exchange accounts. (Handset manufacturers can choose whether to include Exchange support in their devices.)
• Developers can create sync adapters that provide synchronization with additional data sources.
• Quick Contact for Android provides instant access to a contact’s information and communication modes. For example, a user can tap a contact photo and select to call, SMS, or email the person. Other applications such as Email, Messaging, and Calendar can also reveal the Quick Contact widget when you touch a contact photo or status icon.

Email

• Exchange support.
• Combined inbox to browse email from multiple accounts in one page.

Messaging

• Search functionality for all saved SMS and MMS messages.
• Auto delete the oldest messages in a conversation when a defined limit is reached.

Camera

• Built-in flash support
• Digital zoom
• Scene mode
• White balance
• Color effect
• Macro focus

Android virtual keyboard

• An improved keyboard layout to makes it easier to hit the correct characters and improve typing speed.
• The framework’s multi-touch support ensures that key presses aren’t missed while typing rapidly with two fingers.
• A smarter dictionary learns from word usage and automatically includes contact names as suggestions.

Browser

• Refreshed UI with actionable browser URL bar enables users to directly tap the address bar for instant searches and navigation.
• Bookmarks with web page thumbnails.
• Support for double-tap zoom.
• Support for HTML5:
  • Database API support, for client-side databases using SQL.
  • Application cache support, for offline applications.
  • Geolocation API support, to provide location information about the device.
  • <video> tag support in full screen mode.

Calendar

• Agenda view provides infinite scrolling.
• Events indicate the attending status for each invitee.
• Invite new guests to events.

4.2  HTC Sense -- Make it mine, stay close, discover the unexpected

The HTC Hero also featured the Sense User Interface and after that the HTC Tattoo also got Sense, but due to the QVGA screen it didn’t release all it’s potential. The Legend takes advantage of the new Sense interface.
The new Home Screen now contains 3 virtual buttons and an arched scroll bar. The position of the screen is now clearly marked on the scroll bar (see green arrow). When you use the optical trackball to go to another screen you will see the position indicator move to the left. Now you can easily see on which screen you are.

The button left on the Home Screen opens the main menu with all the program shortcuts. The middle key is a shortcut to the Phone application, so you can quickly start a phone call right from the today screen. The right button shows you the “add to Home” menu, where you can add widgets and shortcuts to your home screen.

There are now seven screens (or desktops), where you can place your shortcuts or widgets. You can easily add by pressing your finger on an empty screen or remove widgets by selecting them and dragging them to the trashcan at the bottom of the screen.

These widgets below are to show my text messages and weather. All these widgets do come standard with the Sense interface on the HTC Legend.

You can use a lot of widgets to occupy all your 6 extra homescreens. You can also add shortcuts for programs on these screens. Some widgets are available in a normal size and a small size, so you can put widgets and some shortcuts on one screen.

4.2 Scenes and the Sense interface

Another part of the Sense interface are Scenes. With Scenes, you can quickly customize your Legend. When you are travelling, you can select the Travel Scene, which gives you Footprints and a world clock on your home screen. When you are out with your friends, you can select the Social Scene, which loads Mail and FriendStream so you can stay in contact with your friends. You can not customize the existing Scenes, but when you change or add something, you are prompted to save it to a new Scene. All Scenes contain different wallpapers too, so you can easily see which Scene you are using.

Here you can see Scenes in action. Just press the hardware Menu button on the Home Screen and in this context menu can see Scenes in the middle of the top row. When you select it, it shows you all available Scenes.

When you select the Work Scene, you’ll notice that the wallpaper has changed and the Home Screen now has different clocks. When you scroll through your Home Screens there are now different widgets active like a Stocks widget and a Calender. It also give you quick access to Google Maps, your phonebook and your emails.

The screenshots above are showing you the Play Scene. One of the widgets now shows the music on your Legend and gives you the option to use it as a Music player. On the Home Screen there are now shortcuts to Google Maps, all your friends and easy access to the camera application to take quick snapshots with the camera.

The last example shows you the Travel Scene. One of the widgets now shows you HTC Footprints. This is an application experience that enables people to permanently chronicle their special moments by capturing a digital postcard on their phone. Once captured, Footprints provides the ability to take notes and an audio clip of that favorite restaurant or special place while identifying its specific geographical location. One of the other widgets is (again) the Calender.

Clean Slate gives you the option (you guessed it already) to start all clean. You can add widgets, shortcuts, wallpapers, different clock, anything you want and build your own custom Scene. You can even download extra themes and widgets online.

4.3  Applications on HTC Legend

When you take the Legend out of the box, it is loaded with applications that will make your life on the road as easy as it can be. There is a Calculator and Calender on board, a Call History application, Camcorder and Camera application for taking pictures and video and two clock applications. To keep in touch with your Friends, there is a Facebook application and a Friend Stream application and if you like listening t0 the radio, just start the FM Radio app and enjoy the music ! Of course you also get all the default Google apps like Gmail, Maps and Google Talk.

You will also find some familiar applications from Sense like Stocks, Weather, YouTube and Peep. Even the well-known Teeter game is there.

But there’s more: If you are like me a frequent caller, you will definately appreciate the Phonebook in the Legend.
It’s the same phonebook that you might already know from TouchFlo only with a lot more functionality. When you open the phonebook, you will see the default info for your contact like name, phone number and (if available) a photo of that contact. If you check the bottom bar, you’ll see that there are more tabs available now.

The first tab shows you all the details for that contact. The second tabs shows all the text messages you have exchanged with that person. Third tab is the same as the second one, only for all exchanged emails. The fourth tab shows you all the Updates and events from various Social networks like Twitter and Facebook. The fifth tab will show all the photos that your contact has shared with you, like pictures from Facebook and Flickr. The last (but not least) tab shows you the Call History.

So you are getting a lot more information from your contacts now. This is People-Centric communication at it’s best ! People-Centric communication was first introduced with the HTC Touch Diamond 2 and HTC Touch Pro 2 and is providing a single contact view that displays the individual conversation history of contacts regardless of whether voice, text or email were used. Now it has evolved to a full Social Network-aware phonebook with all the information you may need on the road.

4.4  Software updates

When you are using  the Android platform, it is possible for device makers to push software updates “Over The Air” (OTA) to your device. This way your device is always up-to-date and you won’t have to check for updates all the time, because you will be notified when there is a new update available for your device. In this section I did a manual search for updates.

You can see that the Legend now searches for an update.

When there is an update available, you will get a warning when you are connected to a cellular wireless network. Some data plans have limited downloads and downloading this update might cost you some money when you pass that limit. You can always connect to a WiFi network and run the update again.

The update is being downloaded and when the download is finished, you can choose to install it direct or install it later. During the update, you cannot use your phone.

Before the update is executed, a backup of all your data and settings will be made to your storage card. After that, the phone reboots and installs the update. When the update has finished, your phone reboots again and you will see a notification on the screen that the update has been installed and that your phone is updated to the latest version.

4.5  Android Market

One of the other advantages of the Android Platform is the Android Market. In the Market you can download free and paid applications and games right onto your Android device. You can visit the Market right from the browser on your PC and look for applications and games you want. After that go to the Market on your Legend and download the applications on your device. Android is an Open Source Platform, so everyone can develop applications and games and send them to the Market. You will find a wide range of games and apps there to suit all your needs.

When you enter the Market for the first time on your device, you have to agree with the terms of service first before you can search for applications and games.

The Market opens with the option to search for Apps, Games or manage your downloaded games or Apps. When you open the Apps section you can easily choose between paid and free apps. Paid apps are handled through Google Checkout. The Market will also show you when there is an update available for an App or game. This is done in the Market App or through a notification in the top bar.

5.  Connectivity

The Android Platform is all about connectivity. To fully utilize the Android Experience you need to have an active conection to the internet. This can be done by a cellular connection or a WiFi connection. The setup of a cellular connection is easy: Just insert your sim card and the appropriate connection to your provider will automatically be supplied. The Legend immediately detects a new sim card and will search for the right connection data like APN (Access Point Name) and logon credentials for that provider. When your data connection is not automatically set up, you can create your own connection by supplying all the information to set up a  new connection.

5.1  Internet Sharing

The Legend supports out of the box Internet Sharing. The principle behind Internet Sharing is simple: Use your phone as a modem to connect your laptop or Netbook to the internet. In this way you are sharing the internet connection of your Legend. Both the Legend and the connected device are able to access the internet at the same time. Just connect the Micro USB cable to the Legend and a menu will pop up, where you can select Internet Sharing. When you have selected that option, the drivers will automatically be installed and the connected device is automatically connected to the internet. Easy as that !

5.2  Wifi connection

The other option to connect to the internet is by using the WiFi connection. When there is an active WiFi connection, your cellular data connection will automatically end. Your device will also automatically remember the previous wireless settings. When you have received a key for a network, it is saved, so you won’t have to enter it the next time when you are near that network.

In the top bar you can see the WiFi signal strength indicator. You will also receive a notification when you are near an open network without encryption, so you can easily connect to that network.

6.  Multimedia

The HTC Legend has several applications to make your multimedia experience worthwile. It has a camera and a powerful image gallery to view the pictures you took and share them across social networks. You can also record videos with the Legend and view or share them.
For music there is a great Music player and finally an FM radio where you need like every other phone a headset to act as an antenna.

6.1  Camera and image gallery

The onboard camera has a resolution of 5 Megapixels which should give you a maximum resolution of 2592 x 1936 pixels. There is a LED flash to help you snapping better pictures in dim conditions. It is also equipped with auto focus, you can also change the ISO settings and set the White Balance. The same goes for Exposure, where you can set the brightness. If you want to add some effects to your pictures you can choose from a wide range like greyscale, sephia, polarize and so on. The flash can be set at auto or manual and in settings you can adjust a lot more settings.

6.1.1  Picture quality

As pictures can say more than 1000 words, I took the Legend out for some pictures.

Click on the picture for full resolution.

6.2 Music player and FM radio

In the Legend also features a nice music player where you can play all your favorite tunes. The interface looks quite familiar with other Music Players from HTC, so you’ll quickly find your way around here. When you have loaded your SD card with tracks and albums, you can play a track or a complete album, shuffle it or repeat it. When you are connected to a Bluetooth Audio Streaming enabled device, you can also send the music to that device. Adding it to a playlist comes standard with every Music Player, so HTC didn’t leave that out too. A fun feature is Set as ringtone, where the current played track can be set as phone ringtone or contact ringtone. When the track is too long, you can even trim it with this option.

The FM Radio in the HTC Legend works just as you expect from a FM Radio application. First, you need to plug in your headset, which acts as an antenna. Without headset, the application will not be able to start. When the application has started, you can search for FM stations (only FM band, no AM band available). You can search for stations manually or automatic. When you have found a station, you can store it, so you can tune in to it next time you are using the FM radio. More options contain: Mute or Mono. When the headset is connected you can hear the music through the headset or when you want through the speaker of the Legend. The sound is pretty good with the speaker enabled ! The last feature it contains is Scan and Save. It scan the complete FM band and saves the available stations for later use.

,

Final thoughts and overall conclusion

After an extensive review, it is time to sum up the overall conclusion. There are a lot of things I like from the Legend. First there is the Unibody design. It really makes the Legend stand out from the rest of the (Android) devices. It is the first phone with this kind of design and I hope HTC will do this more often in the future. The faster processor also contributes to a better user experience and makes the use of the device a lot more pleasant and there is no need to wait for the start of applications. It is always responsive and fast. Apart from this, the Sense Interface, which we also know from Windows Mobile, makes the device so much more usable. The common factor is that the Sense Interface is almost the same on both Android and Windows Mobile, so if youa re used to it, you can quickly find your way around on an Android device with Sense.

The Legend is packed with features like a great design (not really a feature, but important enough to mention), fast processor, a lot of memory, 5 Megapixel camera, Bluetooth, WiFi, HSDPA (quad band phone!), GPS and the integration with all social networks makes it an excellent partner for your daily routine and during travels.

You can pick up a (localized) Legend for around 399 euros on the High Street shops and probably a bit less when ordered through an online source.