For starters, the long-rumoured Nokia Lumia 900 is finally a reality, and it’s every bit as awesome as I had imagined. The new Nokia flagship smartphone features a 4.3-inch ClearBlack AMOLED display (800 x 480), a 1.4GHz processor, 512MB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. No word on whether there will be other storage options, and 16GB just seems so 2008.

At 11.4mm, the Lumia 900 is definitely not a skinny phone. But it packs a 1,830mAh battery, which, coupled with the power-efficiency of an AMOLED screen, should mean a very impressive battery life.

The phone is compatible with LTE networks, and Nokia boasts that it will allow download speeds of up to 50Mbps on US carrier AT&T’s networks. This should tie in nicely with the gradual rollout of LTE networks over Singapore.

The 8-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lenses on the back is likely the same as the one found on the Lumia 800, and there’s finally a front-facing camera that Nokia says has a wide-angle lens.

There’s no word on pricing or availability other than it going to be released in the US in the next couple of months. But seeing that Singapore was one of the first countries in Asia to get the Lumia 800, I would bet we’ll see the Lumia 900 soon after it launches.

The Lumia 900 isn’t the first Windows Phone to come with an LTE radio. That honour belongs to the HTC Titan II, the second iteration of the fantastic HTC Titan launched just 4 months ago in September 2011.

What completely stole the show is the Titan II’s incredible 16-megapixel camera with a backside illuminated sensor. It’s official, folks: 8-megapixel phone cameras are so 2011!

But of course, megapixel-count is not everything, and it’s possible that the only benefit is higher-res photos. At 16-megapixels, the quality of the lens is also going to be a key factor in image quality, but unlike Nokia trumpeting its Carl Zeiss lenses, HTC doesn’t seem to be using anything fancy.

Still, HTC has packed in some serious camera features, including an f/2.6 wide-angle lens, red-eye reduction, image stabilisation, and a dedicated image processor.

Other than the insanely bumped-up camera, the Titan II is not that much different from the Titan, save a few cosmetic changes. It runs on a 1.5GHz processor and 512MB of RAM, and is marginally lighter than the Lumia 900.

There’s a front-facing camera, naturally. And of course, that massive 4.7-inch Super LCD screen (800 x 480) is an absolute delight for watching videos, playing games and looking at spreadsheets. The battery is also bumped up from the first Titan, but at 1,730mAh, I don’t think battery life will be as good as the Lumia 900.

And seeing that HTC didn’t bring the first Titan to Singapore, I wouldn’t be too hopeful about the Titan II as well.

It’s going to be an interesting fight between these two phones. Nokia’s long-awaited hero phone doesn’t disappoint, but HTC’s newest offering should make those waiting for the Lumia 900 to pause and reconsider their options.

Will 2012 be the year Microsoft’s Windows mobile platform takes off?

Expect red Dr Dre-endorsed earphones to be draped around upcoming HTC phones and tablets this year, as the Taiwanese phone maker buys up a hefty stake in audio gear maker Beats Electronics to differentiate itself from rival phone makers.

HTC’s US$309 million investment will give it a 51 per cent stake in the brand made famous by rapper Dr Dre, the phone maker revealed today.

It will also enable HTC to include Beats Audio technology - proven in good if expensive headphones as well as Beats-powered HP laptops – in its mobile devices come Fall 2011.

As PCMag smartly points out, HTC’s move is not as much about the well-known Beats Audio technology as it is about buying street cred in a race to win over non-techie users.

With Dr Dre onboard with his iconic red-themed earphones, HTC is buying a lot of cool that the latest dual-core processors or Super AMOLED screen just cannot offer. Just as it can pitch its hipness to the fashionista, it can avoid having its devices commoditised as Android continues to gain more share in the smartphone market.

HTC, of course, is not the only one who has tried using Beats Audio in mobile devices. HP’s recently-launched TouchPad tablet promises better bass and clearer audio – as musicians intended the music to be heard, as HP would say.

HTC and Beats Electronics have said that existing partnerships with HP as well as Monster Cable and Chrysler would continue, adding that the the audio company is to be run autonomously.

HTC has the knack for creating little unique selling points for what would otherwise be vanilla products. It’s Sense UI for Android phones, for instance, is one of the best around and heartily recommended by reviewers.

With HTC Flyer, the Taiwanese company has once again brought something different to differentiate itself from all the “me-too” Android tablets flooding the market. For one, HTC is building in what they call the HTC Scribe, a proprietary pen input method.

But here’s the million-dollar question: is it worth the steep S$1068 price tag?

First, a little about the Flyer. It has a 7-inch (1024 x 600) touch screen which is bright and crisp. It comes with 32GB of internal storage, which is further expandable via a microSD card. A 5-megapixel camera capable of taking 720p videos sits at the back and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing one lets you video call and take pictures of yourself.

A smooth aluminium unibody wraps around a rubbery plastic material which is nice to touch, and the device has solid heft to it. The standard Android buttons line the bottom of both the portrait and landscape orientations. Powered by a 1.5GHz Qualcomm processor with 1GB of RAM, the tablet runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread with a version of Sense that is customised for the Flyer’s larger screen.

Why not Honeycomb, you ask? Well, HTC has put a lot of work into this version of Sense for the tablet, and it really shows once you pick it up and start using it. Due to the various restrictions placed on Honeycomb by Google, HTC says they will need some time to customise it appropriately. Rest assured that an upgrade to 3.0 will be sent your way as soon as it’s ready.

But honestly, it’s not a dealbreaker. There’s a dearth of Android tablet apps at the moment anyway, and we’ll probably still be looking at Sense no matter which version it gets bumped up to. The new Sense is similar to the one on the HTC Sensation, with slick new animations and an unlock screen that lets you jump straight to a particular application after unlocking.

HTC Scribe

But the real star that sets the Flyer apart from the rest of the Android tablet pack is this little thing (see picture on left):

This is the Scribe technology HTC is talking about: A short little pen with two buttons. To make it as small as possible, HTC chose to power it with one AAAA battery.

Yes, you read that right, 4 A’s! I confess I’ve never heard of such a battery until today, and I imagine it won’t be easy to find shops selling batteries of this size.

The pen works great for note-taking and general scribbling, although there’s one disconcerting drawback: it’s only for writing and scribbling and you can’t navigate around with it.

If you try touching the screen with the pen at a screen other than an app which supports pen input, the Flyer will automatically take a screen capture.

Yes, HTC brings screen capture to Android at long last! Are you watching, Google?

This might sound confusing, so let’s break it down:

1. The bundled HTC pen is not the same as any generic capacitative stylus. While a capacitative stylus will expectedly work like your finger, you can only use the HTC pen within apps that support it. At the moment, that means only HTC’s built-in note-taking and photo-editing apps. No word if 3rd-party developers can take advantage of it.
2. Use the pen anywhere else and the Flyer will automatically take a screenshot of that screen, whether it’s a webpage, your app drawer, or your homescreen. You can proceed to immediately scribble and paint on that screenshot, then either share it with your friends or send it wirelessly to a printer to print it out.
3. The pen will not work with any other screens; it’s specifically engineered for the Flyer with HTC’s proprietary tech.

In other words, this pen does not work like your good ol’ Windows tablet’s stylus, and it takes a while to get used to. For a moment, I forgot how it works and tapped on an app icon. I then stood there stupidly waiting for my app to load, not realizing that a screenshot has been taken and I’m now looking at a picture, even though the screen flashed to inform me a screenshot was taken.

It’s admittedly not very intuitive. I would rather have a separate method of taking screenshots (like the iPhone’s elegant way) and just let the stylus work like a stylus. What’s more, if you’re writing something with your hand resting on the screen, there’s a chance you might bring the keyboard up on-screen. This might sound inconsequential, but it starts to get annoying after it happens for the 500^th time.

But other that than, the pen works like a charm.  There are definitely benefits to writing something out compared to typing it out, and the ability to quickly scribble out charts and graphs can help us visualise information easily. And if your drawing skills are somewhat lacking like mine, you can also snap pictures and embed them in your note.

A special button at the bottom corner brings up the various brushes and colours available, including pencil, fountain pen, and highlighter. The pen is pressure sensitive to an extent, so it feels more natural writing. An artist was at the launch to show this off by sketching portraits, and it does look pretty good. But don’t throw out your Wacom just yet; it’s not that sensitive. Here’s a video of it in action:

And (ta-da!) the final product, printed wirelessly straight from the Flyer:

The notes app is linked to the calendar, so you can quickly start a note when you attend a pre-listed meeting. It’s also linked up to Evernote, so you can sync your notes and store them in the cloud. On the downside, you can no longer say to your boss you forgot to complete a task because you lost your minutes of the last meeting.

The best thing about Scribe is what HTC calls Timemark. Timemark is basically real-time audio recording in line with your note-taking. As you write, the Flyer records the audio of your meeting, lecture etc. When you review your notes and stumble across a part where you think, “What was going on when I wrote that?” Timemark will let you play back the audio recording at that very moment, helping you jog your memory.

HTC Watch, OnLive gaming, e-book reading

Part of the reason the Flyer carries such a hefty price tag is because of HTC Watch, a movie streaming service that the company is working to bring to users by Q4 2011. The service could possibly be free of charge, but nothing is confirmed as yet. For now, we can only watch movie trailers through the app.

The situation for OnLive cloud gaming is slightly murkier. Currently available only in the US, HTC is still trying to negotiate licensing deals with game makers to bring it to Singapore. There’s no timeline for this, so it could be a long wait.

The e-reader app, like on HTC’s smartphones, is powered by Canadian company Kobo and comes with several public domain titles preloaded. Unlike the Kindle, you can actually buy and download books off Kobo, which is a huge plus. Territorial rights still exist, however, so not all e-books will be available for purchase.

Should you buy it?

As a student, I can see many scenarios where the Scribe can save my life. It can also help me live a more environmentally-friendly live, as I probably kill a hundred trees every year just printing my notes and lecture slides. And it’s not just students who benefit; people who need to take regular notes will find the Flyer a attractive.

When HTC Watch and OnLive arrive, the Flyer will make a pretty good entertainment tablet too. After all, there’s built in virtual surround sound, powerful dual speakers and support for a good range of media formats.

Still, it’s hard to justify spending over a thousand dollars on it, when you can get a bigger screen tablet such as the Motorola Xoom for a lower price. You can simply purchase a capacitative stylus separately if you really need pen input. On the other hand, HTC will partner with telcos when it goes on sale, so we can expect some subsidies.

But Scribe with Timemark is a unique piece of software than no other tablet manufacturer offers, so if you need something like this on a regular basis, the Flyer is a no-brainer purchase.

Do you think the Flyer is a good buy? Let us know in the comments!

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Here’s an example of how to roll out an Android phone and keep it updated with new features months after its launch.

HTC Singapore has just said it would be sending an Android 2.2 (Froyo) update over the air to users of its mid-end Wildfire and Legend phones, which were launched last year as part of its Android lineup.

Phone users will get a pop-up notification to apply the update, according to an HTC, which also recommends that they log on to a Wi-Fi or flat-rate 3G connection to download the update.

Here are the explicit instructions:

Simply accept the update via a data connection* (Wi-Fi or 3G/GPRS) when the update notification pops up. After installation, you can verify the successful update by confirming that the Build Number reads “2.24.707.1.” for the HTC Wildfire and “3.15.707.3.” for the HTC Legend respectively (From the Home Screen, go to MENU> Settings> About phone> Software Information> Build number). Android version should also reflect “2.2” at the top of the Software Information screen.

*Note: Please backup your data before firmware update. We highly recommend using a Wi-Fi connection or unlimited data plan to implement the update as standard data connection charges may apply.

More support available here: http://www.htc.com/sea/CA_Hotline.aspx?region=Asia

While the Wildfire and Legend are not the first Android 2.1 phones to get the update to the watershed version 2.2, which comes with goodies such as Flash support and faster performance, it’s good to see HTC has not forgotten its mid-end users.

Going by Techgoondu readers who tell us about the issue, Android users do want updates, so here’s hoping other Android phone makers take the cue from HTC that it’s not enough to launch a phone and simply forget about it. Easily-applied updates are required as well.

When some Microsoft folks recently asked me how users and techies felt about its upcoming Windows Phone 7 OS, I told them “you’re lucky to still be in the news”.

Until the past few weeks, when favourable first-looks of Microsoft’s totally rebuilt smartphone OS came online, the only OSes that anyone was talking about were Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.

For an example of how fast a dominant OS can fall in interest level, look at Nokia’s Symbian OS that now powers most of its phones, as it transitions to the more advanced MeeGo. Who thinks anything great of Symbian now?

And compared to Nokia, Microsoft was worse off a few months ago – it only showed glimpses of what Windows Phone 7 was about at February’s Mobile World Congress and nothing more.

So, it was with a bit of surprise when I saw how well Windows Phone 7 was built, during a hands-on preview at the Microsoft offices here in Singapore last week.

Having lost crucial market share to Android and iOS, Microsoft has clearly done the right thing by building its new OS from ground up. Gone are the clunky “halfway house” touch offerings on Windows Mobile 6.5. Absent too is any lag that you get while moving around menus. In fact, pretty animations accompany most actions – without slowing things down.

Here’s what I learnt from a hands-on session with Windows Phone 7:

>> Customisable “tiles”
You can basically change everything on the Home screen, which is made up of “tiles”, or a sort of big icons, that let you in on either a contact or program. It’s very flexible and easy to customise like Android’s home screen, but I have to say, a little less pretty. You can change the colours, but I wish I could have nice icons instead.

>> People Hub
Think of HTC’s FriendStream or Motorola’s Blur, and you get the idea here. Basically, you get updates on a friend’s social activity on one page, whether he/she is updating his/her status on Windows Live or Facebook with this feature on Windows 7, which works pretty fast. But, and this is a big but, there’s no Twitter updates yet – Microsoft is still working on getting them in.

>> Auto upload pictures
How many times have you taken a picture of a nice bowl of ramen and then searched through your picture gallery to upload it to Facebook? With Windows Phone 7, you can set the phone to upload every new picture you take automatically to Facebook or Skydrive (for backup). Great feature – just make sure you don’t forget and take any Edison Chen-like kinky pictures.

>> Music + videos
This one I am impressed with, especially the Zune-like interface, that lets you scroll through and also search for songs in your library with much finesse. If you use your phone as a music player, this Windows Phone 7 interface beats both the iPhone and certainly the Android in its touch and feel.

>> E-mail
With the iPhone 4′s reported problems with syncing with Exchange servers, some companies might just be happy to go back to a good old Microsoft phone OS. That’s probably what the Microsoft folks were planning on, with a pretty nifty e-mail client that can filter through e-mails with a simple swipe of the finger on-screen.

Want to jump to Urgent or Unread messages? Sure. Just swipe your finger. With Android, you still have to go to “Labels” or directories, to check out your mail. But there remains a big question here for Microsoft, especially from the consumer: does it have push mail for Gmail and Yahoo out of the box? Microsoft doesn’t seem to have an answer to that yet.

>> Calendar
Again, the calendar view looks cool, by integrating both your personal Windows Live calendar with your office’s Exchange/Outlook calendar in one view. But again, the big question is yet to be answered: does it support Google’s Calendar out of the box?

>> Xbox
This could potentially be Microsoft’s secret weapon, if the Windows Phone 7 integration with Xbox Live is done right. At the demo, I only saw how you could link your gamer tag to your phone, because the Microsoft folks were all tight-lipped about this. But the possibilities are great. Imagine selling a mobile version of an Xbox title to a gamer while he is out and about? Or perhaps letting him hook up with pals over the Xbox Live network while on the move?

>> Office
Edit your Word documents, and if your eyes are so powerful, even Excel spreadsheets, with the bundled Office app, which will be a handy tool for busy folks on the go. I like this because it comes with the phone out of the box. You can start working and editing your e-mail attachments straightaway.

>> Voice activation
This is one of my favourite features simply because it works. I’ve tried Google’s voice search/dial on my Nexus One, but often find myself repeating what I had just said. To be honest, I’ve never been a big voice recognition fan since I reviewed the good old Dragon Naturally Speaking software for the PC in the late 1990s.

So, when the Microsoft chap, Matt Hardman, spoke into his phone, telling it to call his wife, I wasn’t impressed. Hey, you’re an angmoh, I said, of course, it recognised your voice. But when I tried with my Ah Beng voice, it too recognised what I told it to do. Now, that’s something I can use, especially when I want to call my wife while driving.

>> Updates
Finally, updates are one area that I think Microsoft can improve on. Instead of delivering them over-the-air, Microsoft will send OS updates over the Net and users will have to sync up their phone via a Zune application on their PCs. This adds complexity to the updating process, though the good news is Microsoft itself, rather than individual phone makers, will be sending out these updates directly.

This could solve a problem that has confused and pissed off many Android phone users – fragmentation. Singapore’s Milestone users, by the way, are still yet to receive their Android 2.2 updates even though American users of the similar CDMA-based Droid have got theirs.

>> Flash?
For now, no Adobe Flash support is planned for Windows Phone 7, which means no YouTube or Flash games or animation on your Internet browser – something that updated Android phones like the Google Nexus One, have been able to do for a while now.

How soon is now?
“Holiday 2010″ is when the first Windows Phone 7 devices, made by LG, Samsung, HTC and Dell, will appear in stores. The device I tried on was an LG model with a slide-out keyboard, different from some of the demos shown to the media in the past few weeks.

All in, I’m impressed with how much the ground-up work has changed the Windows Phone OS beyond any recognition from its older versions. That’s a good thing.

Gone are the laggy screens and clunky interfaces. Instead, the current one is reasonably up to date with what Google and Apple have in the top phones out there now.

The approach that Microsoft has taken is also quite smart. Instead of going totally closed (typical Apple) or laissez faire (a la Google), it has taken the middle ground. While being stricter – much stricter than before – with hardware makers in terms of what hardware are allowed, it is also open to many phone makers with different form factors. That’s a good thing too.

But one immediate problem I foresee is the lack of apps. So crucial to the success of an OS these days, an app store stocked with all manner of knick-knacks to satisfy spoilt iPhone and Android users will take time to build up, and time is a luxury for a company playing catch-up in the cut-throat mobile phone space.

A yet bigger question for Microsoft is whether their holiday release will come fast enough. Even as Android devices are being updated with version 2.2 (Froyo), folks are talking up Google’s next OS update – Gingerbread – scheduled in the coming months. And Sony is said to be coming up with a PSP Go-like phone that uses that Google OS, possibly as early as October this year, says Engadget.

How much all that factors into the buying decision remains to be seen. But if you always wanted more choice, then Windows Phone 7 is a good thing that’s coming our way soon.

Availability: 9th April 2010, via all three telcos SingTel, StarHub and M1, and all authorized resellers
Retail Price: S$748 (including GST), without plan
Quick highlights: Windows Mobile 6.5.3 phone, 3.2 inch HVGA 320×480 screen, 5 megapixel camera
Full Specifications: You can find it on HTC’s site here

In essence, it is a clone of HTC’s HD2, but shrunk down into a smaller form factor.

“It’s a ladies phone,” said Kathleen Goy, HTC’s Singapore marketing communications manager at the media launch of the phone today. HTC’s customer feedback showed that some — especially women — felt that the HD2, with its 4.3 inch screen, was too “clunky and large”.

So, in a bid to sexy up the phone for women, the screen size was shrunk so that it fits comfortably in petite tote bags and jeans pockets.

Other changes include a slower processor (Qualcomm 600Mhz processor vs the HD2 Snapdragon 1Ghz), the addition of a better camera (5 megapixel vs the HD’s 3.2 megapixel), and of course, a cheaper price (the HD Mini is about S$150 cheaper than the HD2).

I reviewed the HD2 last year for Digital Life. The most memorable thing that stood out about the HD2 was its humongous screen, and playing YouTube videos on it was a blast. With the HD Mini’s screen size being shrunk down, it takes away the best thing I liked about the phone. All I can say is that the HD Mini wasn’t designed for me, with my male Y-chromosome, in mind.

I fiddled with the HD Mini briefly and it seems that the phone is a bit slower than the HD2, and that is to be expected, with its slower processor. I suspect that battery life might be longer though, with its smaller screen size but almost same battery capacity. This really needs to be throughly tested in a review though.

The phone that I’m really excited about is the HTC Legend, which also launches today.

Availability: 9th April 2010, via all three telcos SingTel, StarHub and M1, and all authorized resellers
Retail Price: S$798 (including GST), without plan
Quick highlights: Android 2.1 (Ecclair) phone, 3.2 inch AMOLED HVGA 320×480 display, 5 megapixel camera
Full Specifications: You can find it on HTC’s site here

Alf picked HTC’s Legend as a phone to look out for during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year. I’m not going to rehash his preview, so check out his excellent hands-on piece if you’re interested!

If successful, Apple’s action will get HTC’s phones banned — both Androids and Windows Mobiles — from being sold in the US, and be awarded “treble damages” and “interest at the maximum rate allowable by law”. Going by the list of patents Apple is whacking HTC for, it sure sounds like a hit job. It’s a big middle finger to the mobile phone industry not to mess with Apple, which had already tussled with Nokia in lawsuits late last year.

Not going to rehash the newspoints that you can find covered better elsewhere, but just some quick comments of my own.

Apple did shake up the mobile phone industry when it debuted with the iPhone in 2007, which birthed the touch phone genre. I can’t even remember when was the last recent phone I reviewed that was not a touch phone, so for this we have Apple to thank.

But of course the rest of the mobile manufacturers fought back, and this led to a flourishing touch phone market. End result: More choice for consumers, and Asian brands like HTC and Samsung are doing well in the touch phone space.

So of course Apple nips it in the bud by throwing roadblocks at the competition, namely number two (Nokia) and three (HTC). And with Android gaining fast ascendance, whack the phone manufacturer, i.e. HTC, which has rolled out the most Android phones thus far. Doh!

What these lawsuits will do: Not very much, I predict. Even if Apple gets its way, the US is not the only phone market in the world. In Asia alone, mobiles are huge, and we have two of the world’s most populous nations — India and China — in our patch.

All of this in a bid to entice customers for the upcoming Chinese New Year season. The Nexus One might also be a cause. In any case, that’s good news for consumers.

For those who are interested in shopping for HTC phones, here’s a list below, with prices and links to TechGoondu reviews for phones we’ve played with. All prices are in Singapore dollars.

Android phones

Phone	Pix	Price
HTC Magic (hands-on)		$648
HTC Hero (review)		$698
HTC Tattoo		$468

What’s notably missing is the Nexus One, which is not available in Singapore yet unless you buy direct from Google. Which means no subsidized telco plan as yet, but some of the Techgoondu folks are such techheads they bought the phone already.

Both Alf and Gin wrote stories on getting the Nexus One to work, Alf on MMS, and Gin on the 3G issues.

Windows Mobile phones

Phone	Pix	Price
HTC Touch Diamond 2 (price and specs, first looks)		$678
HTC Touch Pro 2 (price and specs)		$788
HTC Touch HD2 (Christmas wishlist)		$918
HTC Snap (first looks)		$498 (camera version), $418 (non-camera version)

Of the HTC phones I’ve played with, I really fell in love with the form factor of the HTC HD2. Unfortunately it’s Windows Mobile based. Would have loved it to be an Android phone.

After all the talk, we are finally getting the Google phone – the Nexus One – out in the open and there’s even better news for Singapore users: you can buy this nifty ‘Droid phone immediately over the Net.

Yes, we are one of four countries in the world to get the phone at launch, along with the United States, Britain and Hong Kong. Cost? US$577.31 (S$806.65), if you factor in the power charger and shipping through DHL.

Made by Google partner HTC, the Google-branded Nexus One is the first to run the Android 2.1 OS. It has a number of goodies packed into a light 130g frame that is as slim as 11.5mm, or a mere few credit cards stacked together.

The large 3.7-inch AMOLED screen shows off webpages, pictures and stuff at a stunning 800 x 480 pixels, which is going to be one of the sharpest screens around at that size (the overhyped iPhone has a 3.5-inch screen sporting 480 x 320 pixels)

What we would have liked better though, from looking at the specs sheet:
>> faster, 10Mbps HSDPA (the Nexus One links up to the Net at 7.2Mbps)
>> more built-in memory (it has 512MB flash and 512MB RAM and relies on an expansion slot that support up to 32GB)

But all in, this is good news for those looking for a nice smartphone alternative to the iPhone.

Forget about silly data usage caps and jailbreaking that outdated model. In fact, there’s no waiting for this phone. It’s available online right away, and quite a few goondus here are already contemplating keying in our credit card numbers online.

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First, merry Christmas to all!

For those that haven’t read it, check out Alfred’s and Gin’s Christmas wishlists. This is our 2nd Techgoondu Christmas thus far (hopefully many to follow), and following last year’s tradition we post our Christmas wishlists.

Well this year I already spent a bundle upgrading my old desktop PC to a new complete Dell rig, and buying a few new peripherals like a 750GB WD 2.5-inch portable hard disk. So, Christmas shopping wise, I’ve already gotten what I wanted.

About the only other gadget I’m seriously looking at getting is a new handphone, as my old Samsung one is getting a little cranky liaoz. Of the few handphones I got a chance to play with and review this year, the one I really liked was the HTC HD2 (retail price S$1,188 without contract).

The reason can be summed up in a word: It’s gorgeous. The 4.3-inch touchscreen display is one of the largest in the market, and the thin and sleek form factor, with it’s metal finishing, is super chio. Apps wise it’s not as spectacular as the iPhone (nothing is), but the UI is sane and intuitive (unlike other phones I can mention). It also uses standard 3.5mm audio jacks and typical USB cable jacks, something which I really appreciate.

After watching Youtube videos on this phone, I can confidently say that the next phone I buy will have a large LCD screen.

Have a merry Christmas and a great New Year ahead!