HTC Magic user reviews

Cameron Bailey 8 August 2010

Comment: Great phone!!!!
just wish they would hurry up and put android 2.1 on it at least!

Ron.Keeley 4 February 2010

Good: Crisp, clean display

Bad: Minor quibbles but nothing seriously wrong with the magic

Comment: This is a great little phone. it's slick, quick and oh so sensitive (tip: lock the screen before pocketing it or random things will happen). The display is bright and crisp, and even 60 year-old eyes can read the fine print, and it does everything you'd expect from a phone and a bit more.

Syncs effortlessly with Google Mail and Calendar (if you haven't got them, why not?) and the browser (based on Google Chrome?) is pretty quick too, if you've got a good signal.

Google Maps, with GPS, is a real bonus... better than the dedicated satnav I bought last year :-(

Some good apps in the Marketplace: favourite -- Google Sky!

Quibbles... battery life is not great -- charge every day or two, depending on useage... plastic case feels slippery... sometimes slow to flip to landscape screen, or doesn't flip at all... touch keyboard takes some getting used to, even in landscape, but the predictive text feature usually hits the spot after two or three letters... the camera doesn't seem up to much, but maybe I just haven't got the hang of it yet!

But don't be put off... this really is a terrific phone -- Magic by name, magic by nature. Had three Nokias in 10 years (the last, an E61i, was a real turkey), and I won't be going back.

graeme210375 29 October 2009

Good: Android is the bas OS on the market.

Bad: No FM radio

Comment: Outstanding!!!! I have used all mobile operating systems including the iphone and Android beats them hands down. Very user friendly, seamlessly smooth and slick. Great phone with excellent build quality. Even the lowly 3.2 peggy mitchell camera takes a half decent snap.
Dont hesitate, and most importantly don't get sucked in by the iphone hype.
BUY ONE TODAY!!!

olivierm 20 June 2009

Good: Great snappy touch screen, suberb user interface, makes everything a doddle

Bad: no standard headphone jack, no built in podcast subscribtion

Comment: The touchscreen interface is really well thought out, with intuitive navigation and good looking screens.

I miss the internet radio and podcast downloader of my e71 but I am sure I'll find replacements on the market place. I can only imagine how good the new iPhone must be to top that but the Magic is quite enough for what I wanted to pay on top of my monthly subscription : nothing

harold miller 18 June 2009

Good: Small, stylish, Powerful, Easy to Use, Expandable

Bad: no radio, no outlook sync in box

Comment: Apple iPhone vs HTC Diamond 2 vs HTC Magic

This is my comparison review of three phones, the iphone 3g, HTC Magic (Sapphire), HTC Diamond 2. These are considered by most to be the leading touch screen phones at the moment.

There is another similar contest that could be had for keyboarded phones, but this is a slightly different market.

Firstly, I have used all these phones in real life. Some may point out many of the other touch screen phones, but many of them are just out and I haven't had a chance to look at. Two obvious rivals are the Blackberry Storm and the Nokia 5800. Nokia has obviously decided to target the mid-market. While the 5800 is a good phone for its position, and well specified, the build quality and user experience don't quite make it to the top tier yet. The Blackberry Storm is another contender. I have not used this in real life but reviews and others experience leads me to believe that Blackberry has someway to go in the consumer, hacker or interface aspects of this phone.

Style and look and feel
All three phones are very stylish and well built. Its really personal taste. The iphone is beautiful and in my opinion trumps the others with its glass screen, which just makes one more at ease when using it. However since Apple ditched the metal back, which had real character whilst it scratched :), the latest plastic back does not have the edge any more. The Apple packaging is also not as high rent as it used to be.
The first thing that struck me is that the HTC Magic doesn't have a stylus. For an HTC devotee this comes across as a bit of a shock. The Magic looks better in the flesh then in pictures, and is very compact. The white is nice and gives it a fun feel and its surprisingly compact. I very much applaud the inclusion of a track ball. I always like alternative means of input, and its much easier to scroll with a ball. Continually swipping fingers to scroll across these large screens to is tiring and ensures that long finger grease marks are maintained on the device.
The packaging of the Magic is also minimal. In fact it seems that manufacturers have given up on good packaging across the board - probably good for the environment. The last shock with the Magic is that it comes with no cd/dvd. This fortells the unique aspect of its philosophy which I will come to later.
Last but not least, the Diamond 2. HTC have been conservative with styling and it has paid off. It is very compact despite the super crisp 800x480 display. It also has real metal at the bottom for the main keys. Its a strong contender for the most stylish with an understated appeal. There is no d-pad or scroll wheel/ball. Disappointingly HTC have dropped the stylish metal stylus of the diamond with its cool magnetic holder and we are left with frankly a cheapo plastic one.

Features and specifications.
The Apple and Magic have 480x360 screens. It would be nice with current devices to have at least vga. However in use you hardly notice the difference. The Safari browser on the iphone fools you into thinking the resolution is much higher. The large 800x480 resolution of the Diamond 2 wins out here.
The Apple and Magic also have capacitance screens rather then the resistive of the Diamond 2. Capacitance screens are said to be less accurate but more sensitive. In actual usage the new sensitive screen of the Diamond 2 does not appear to be different from the others in real life usage.

All the phones are decked out with all the specs you need. The magic and diamond 2 have 528 cpus, the iphone 3g has 428 and the 3g s has 624. Ultimately the Diamond 2 pips the others in sheer power, including a whopping 288mb of ram and 5mp cameria. For me the pictures from the magic seem to be the clearest, with the diamond 2 next and the iphone good but trailing. I have not tested the iphone 3g s but it is an upgrade.
It is fair to say that all these three phones are very slick and no real performance limitations come to mind.
The iphone 3g

redmozzy 5 June 2009

Good: The style, OS, Google intergration, Android Marget Place

Bad: Lack of 3.5mm headphone jack, camera, no podcast capture out of the box

Comment: I have upgraded to this phone from an N95 8-GB and it has been quite a jump. I was a little apprehensive of the colour when I saw that I could only order this in white, but when it arrived, it looked gorgeous. On startup, you get a tour of how to use the phone then you enter your Google account details to get started (or create an account if you don't already have one).

The screen is bright and clear and although not as big as the iPhones, it is plenty big enough. The touch screen works like a dream and although I had problems typing on the virtual keyboard at first (I have big hands), 24hrs later and I was having no such problems. I found it didn't take me long to start getting round the phone and using it's functions, everything is pretty intuitive and the Market Place has so many free apps, it will keep you busy for a very long time. One of the best apps I have found is an un-official BBC iPlayer app which works perfectly (can use wiFi or 3g)

I love the way it syncs with my Google account, I have all my email addresses, phone numbers etc stored in my Gmail account and it auto syncs them with my phone. This is a major plus if I ever lost/broke this phone as I could just re-sync to a replacement and have all my contacts back. It should also be noted that it syncs with all other Google properties (calender etc) and allows you to enter several Google accounts into the phone (in case like me, you have more than 1)

Now, no phone is perfect and I do have a couple of issues, the first being no 3.5mm jack meaning that I cannot use my Sennheiser CX600's with this phone until I purchase an adaptor (around £4 on the net) and I had to purchase a podcast catcher for around $7. The other problem is the camera is not as good as the N95's, although I haven't played around with it properly yet to see if I can get better pics. All 3 of these issues were strengths of the N95 but, I would still rather have the Magic, it is such an all round great phone and being Android, I have no doubt that it will get even getter with future updates. If they included the 3.5mm jack and podcast catcher, then this phone would score a 10 from me.

Overall I would recommend this phone to anyone, for what I want, it is easily as good as the iPhone and was free on a £30 contract (600 xnet mins, unlimited texts and unlimited data), this may sound a lot for some people but this is actually £15 cheaper than my last contract with 3.

greewny 26 May 2009

Good: The screen size. The on screen keyboard. The Google Sync. The Apps store.

Bad: The camera is a letdown.

Comment: I previously owned a blackberry bold, and this phone in my opinion is so much better!

Starting with the screen size, it's just perfect, you can view any webpage and move around the page with your finger or using the scroll ball, compared with the blackberry bold which had a small screen.

The apps store is full of useful apps and 90% of them are free. Installing apps is at a click of a button and uninstalling is straight forward as well.

Loads my say that this device is an iPhone copy, yes it is, but it comes with WiFi and loads of other features which the iPhone or the Blackberry is missing.

I am pleasantly pleased with this device and I would recommend it to anyone who's a Google User. It syncs directly with your google contacts, email, calendar etc, etc. It pushes emails in about 30 sec from receipt. Text messaging is email style, similar to the blackberry bold.

You get to have a screen lock similar to the iPhone, where you chose a pattern of keys to unlock the screen. While taking a phone call the screen automatically locks itself, and can be unlocked just by double tapping on the screen.

The "desktop" shortcuts can easily be dragged and dropped wherever you want. Also there are some useful widgets available (e.g. the clock, search box, calendar on screen display)

As I said it's very good device, is there at the top with the iPhone and in my opinion it definitely "overtakes" the blackberry.