Some years ago I moved from Apple products to PC products from mayor vendors like HP, Lenovo or Dell. I really love Windows and the way it works, don’t get me wrong OS X is a good operating system and some years ago (between Windows XP and Windows Vista/7) it had some advantages, but as I think in the last years the company who did the most and major innovation was Microsoft. Now what I always missed was really cool hardware. I know there are some machines out there which are okay but it does just not feel as good as Apple hardware.
Some months ago I saw some articles on the web about a small American company which was know for his TVs is starting to build PCs… Crazy? Sure I would think you have to be a little crazy to enter the PC market at all but when you see the products they make, you realize this could work. They make really clean and beautiful Apple like designs and they focus and building good hardware and not just selling some plastic.
Exactly one year ago I got my first Windows Phone. Since then a lot has change and Windows Phone has really improved.
After the first update, called NoDo, I could leave my iPhone 4 behind and change to the HTC 7 Trophy. Of course the hardware was nowhere near the iPhone 4 but the Windows Phone OS was just great. Now one year later there is a lot of good Windows Phone hardware out there and the Windows Phone OS has improved with Mango.
I am sure there will be a lot more great Windows Phone stuff in the future.
I know I said the Nokia Lumia 800 would be my next Windows Phone, but after Nokia announced that the release date of the Lumia 800 in Switzerland would be Q1/2012 I could not resist to buy a HTC TITAN.
I also know there are a lot of good HTC TITAN reviews already out, but I think maybe I can add some useful information for some people and help them decide. I don’t wanna talk to much about the Windows Phone software, because everyone knows already that Windows Phone 7.5 is a great phone OS.
Hardware
I was an iPhone user for a long time. Last year I decided to buy my first Windows Phone which was a HTC 7 Trophy. The Trophy was not really a great hardware device, it felt cheap and the camera and the screen were really bad. To be fair it was the cheapest Windows Phone at this time.
Now with the TITAN, HTC made a really big step in terms of build quality and features of the device. The HTC TITAN feels like a real high quality phone.
Now as you can see and read it is one of the biggest devices out there. With a 4.7-inch screen, 131.5mm height and 70.7mm width it sounds like a huge phone, but if you compare it to other phones it not a lot more to carry around. I compared it to a bunch of other phones like the 4-inch Samsung Omina 7, 4.3-inch Samsung Galaxy S2 and the 4.3-inch HTC Desire HD. And it really does not matter if you have a HTC Desire or a HTC TITAN to carry around. It actually feels really light in your pocket and does not use that much space because it is just 9.9mm thick.
I never was a fan of big phones, and I was not sure if the HTC TITAN wasn’t too big for me. But after the first days I really started to like the size and it isn’t a problem at all.
you want to compare different phones in size you can use www.phone-size.com.
Camera
One of the best features of the HTC TITAN is the great camera. In all reviews everyone mentioned the great camera of the HTC TITAN and it sure is. It’s not just the quality of the images, it has also some extra features like burst shots and panorama shot which allows you to create beautiful panorama pictures.
If you want to compare different cameras you can do this on digitalversus.com.
Performance and battery life
You cannot really say something bad about the performance of the HTC TITAN because it is the fastest Windows Phone device at this moment. This is not only because of the 1.5GHz CPU, which is the fastest CPU in a Windows Phone at the moment, it also because of the new flash storage HTC build in which makes App launching and taking pictures a lot faster.
Even with this huge screen the TITAN has a better battery life than my HTC Trophy before. I could use the HTC Trophy for one day and the HTC TITAN runs about 1.5 days without recharge.
Display
The 4.7-inch display is huge and the Super LCD display steps up to the AMOLED displays from Samsung. Now the only bad thing you could say about the display is the low resolution, but this is not HTC fault. All Windows Phone devices require a resolution of 480×800 which makes it easier for developer.
Overall
Even I would like to get a device with a smaller screen, I think the HTC TITAN is at the moment the best Windows Phone you can get here in Switzerland. Nokia will release their Windows Phones in Q1/2012 in Switzerland and Samsung did not announce an European version of the Samsung Focus S, which makes the HTC the one and only flagship device in Switzerland.
+ Great Screen Quality
+ Good battery life
+ Good performance
+ Very Good camera
+ Good build quality
Now I am still working with Office 365. I am still try to test all the features and also the support for mobile devices like the iPhone or Windows Phone 7. As a Windows Phone 7 developer I could get the beta for the next update of Windows Phone 7 called Mango. Now Mango will support Office 365. You can simply add your Office 365 account on your phone and this will connect you to Exchange Online and SharePoint Online.
What is missing in first beta of the Windows Phone 7 Mango update is Lync, but Microsoft is working on that.
I thinking about buying a new notebook and since HP, Dell and other vendors released new notebooks based on Intel Sandy Bridge this would be the perfect time to replace my current MacBook Pro with a new Windows Laptop.
So basically I made this HP Elitebook comparison for all Important things for me based on the Swiss data. (In Switzerland not every model is available.) I also took always the best available option for me.
Probook 6460b
Probook 6560b
Elitebook 8460p
Elitebook 8560p
Elitebook 8460w
Elitebook
8560w
CPU
i5-2520M
i5-2520M
i7-2620M
i7-2620M
i7-2630QM
i7-2630QM
RAM
16GB
16GB
16GB
16GB
16GB
32GB
Graphics
AMD HD 6470M 512MB
AMD HD 6470M 512MB
AMD HD 6470M 1GB
AMD HD 6470M 1GB
AMD FirePro M3900 1GB
AMD FirePro M5950 1GB
Display
14.0 1600×900
15.6 1600×900
14.0 1600×900
15.6 1920×1080
14.0 1600×900
15.6 1920×1080
3G
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
Glass Trackpad
no
no
yes
yes
yes
yes
USB 3.0
no
no
yes
yes
yes
yes
Weight
2.02kg
2.46kg
2.07kg
2.73kg
2.22kg
3kg
Thickness
3.4cm
3.4cm
3.4cm
3.4cm
3.2cm
3.45cm
Design
good
good
okay
okay
awesome
good
Battery life
okay
okay
very good
good
good
bad
Battery life+
no
no
yes
yes
yes
yes
Docking station
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
incl. warranty
1 year
1 year
3 years
3 years
3 years
3 years
Price
good
good
okay
okay
okay
okay
Maybe there are some mistakes in this chart but the most things should be right. And I don’t say one is better than the other one, clearly they are made for different tasks and workloads.
Other things:
I will add a Intel SSD
I will use 8GB RAM
I will not use an optical drive
What’s important for me:
I need long battery life up 6-8h (more would be better)
I need fast disk speed. Since I used a SSD I will never use a HDD again.
I don’t need a lot of graphic power
Resolution should be 1600×900 or higher
the notebook should be light and not to think
CPU power, should be enough to run Hyper-V for demos (boot from VHD)
After some years with my Apple MacBook Pro its time for a new notebook. Now since my work now is really in the Microsoft field, it does not really make sence to buy a MacBook Pro again. So first I check out the new Dell Latitude E-Series, and now HP released the new Elitebook Workstations.
Now I don’t really like the new HP Elitebook p-series, but I really like the black desgin of the ProBook or the new gunmetal black of the Elitebook w-series.
What is important for me:
Screen resolution – 1600 x 900 or even 1920 x 1200
battery – life 6 hours or more
Size 14 inch or 15 inch
cool desgin
docking station
multiple monitor support
If you need more information you can get them here.
