HTC Titan deals & review

The Titan is one of the first Windows Phone 7 devices launched for several months and one of the first smartphones to come with the Mango update. Mango introduces some interesting new features to the Windows Phone 7 ecosystem and they have been expertly implemented on the Titan. As the name would suggest, this phone is pretty large as it comes with a 4.7 inch screen. This is similar in size and design to the earlier HTC HD7 which was ideal for videos, Xbox and web browsing and the Titan also excels with these features.

The large Super LCD screen comes with a sharp WVGA resolution and uses 16 million colours. The screen supports multitouch and the phone also comes with an accelerometer, and is one of the first Windows smartphones to feature a gyrosensor. Even though the phone is admittedly quite big it retains an unimposing presence due to its slim 9.9mm thickness.

HTC has included a speedy 1.5GHz processor with graphical acceleration on the Titan, making it handle intensive features such as Xbox LIVE without any difficulty. 3G and DLNA Wi-Fi are included providing the Titan with some excellent connectivity for web based features. Web browsing is one of the areas that the larger screen is truly appreciated on the Titan as it allows more comfortable viewing of web pages than on more standard 3.5" screens which can feel cramped.

DLNA also allows the Titan to connect to other devices to share music, videos and pictures. One of the downsides of the Titan, which is true for all Windows phones, is that it is limited to 16GB internal storage with no option to expand via microSD. While 16GB is certainly a lot of space for a good deal of music and videos, the option to expand it would have been a plus and more entertainment-centric users may have benefitted from higher capacity. However, the increasing use of multimedia sharing via DLNA will make internal storage on phones less necessary in most situations.

The Titan includes excellent entertainment options including a wide range of music and video formats and the excellent Zune player on board. The Titan also supports streaming internet video via its YouTube app and includes an FM radio for additional music fun. Xbox LIVE is included for gaming, and other apps and games can be acquired from Marketplace.

As you would expect from a Windows Phone the Titan comes with a good range of professional features too, with excellent email support and full MS Office support. Mango also includes support for SkyDrive, Microsoft´s cloud service, which allows you to save documents, images and videos to the cloud and access them from other devices.

The new Bing search engine that can be activated by pressing the search button allows you to search through speech and images. Simply say what you are looking for and Bing will do the rest. Alternatively, take a picture of something and Bing will search for it. This latter option now also includes native support for QR codes.

The Mango update has also provided plenty of updates to the social side of Windows Phone, with updates to the People Hub. People Hub now features integration for Twitter and LinkedIn. Photography has also become more social with the Titan´s camera app allowing you to caption and tag people in images ready for Facebook.

The Titan features a pretty impressive 8 megapixel camera which comes with 720p video recording and an LED flash. Another one of the many updates to Windows Phone 7 provided by Mango is support for video chat, and the Titan is one of the first WP7 phones to come with a front facing camera. The 1.3 megapixel camera is combined with preinstalled video chat software to get you started in no time.

In physical terms the Titan is a lot like the previous HD7. It has a large 4.7 inch screen which might not be to everyone´s tastes but does provide a fantastic experience for web browsing and entertainment. The Titan certainly has plenty of entertainment value with Zune and Xbox LIVE, and also has the professional and social aspects covered too. Although the Mango update is available for all earlier Windows Phones, they are not all able to make use of all of the features such as front facing cameras.