In London today HTC announced two new Windows Phone handsets, the HTC Radar and the HTC TITAN. The Radar has a 1 GHz processor, 8 GB storage, and a 3.8" LCD, and a 5 megapixel camera. The TITAN sports a monstrous 4.7" screen (still using Windows Phone's standard 480×800 resolution), 16 GB storage, an 8 megapixel camera, and a 1.5 GHz processor.
The design and the market positioning of the two handsets is quite different. The Radar is white and silver, with a body "crafted" from a single piece of metal. It's a mid-range phone, with a mid-range price, and will retail for ?399. The TITAN is a premium handset. 9.9 mm thick, unibody construction, and a ?599 pricetag. The Radar also lacks the full range of sensors that Windows Phone supports; though it includes GPS, proximity and ambient light sensors, and an accelerometer, it doesn't include a compass or a gyroscope. The TITAN has the complete set of sensors.
Both phones are equipped with front-facing cameras—1.3 megapixel on the TITAN, VGA on the Radar—confirming rumors that Windows Phone Mango would indeed support such hardware. Surprisingly, the only built-in application that can make use of the cameras is the standard camera app; it has a button for switching between the main camera and the front-facing one. Beyond that, use of the camera is up to application developers—Mango itself won't include any built-in video-calling capabilities.
The rear cameras, though they differ in resolution, both include a lens with a fast aperture of f/2.2, and the sensors are backside-illuminated, which should in principle give them better low-light performance than conventional sensors.
The Radar is only a minor update over the first round of Windows Phone devices, leaving the TITAN as the star of HTC's show. The screen is remarkable; it feels huge, but the device itself is slim and lightweight. While the phone is big—unavoidable, given the screen size—it is not unwieldy, thanks to narrow borders and the slimline design.
HTC is pre-installing some new applications, too. The phones will include an app for the HTC Watch streaming media services (already supported on Android), DLNA streaming, and Virtual 5.1 surround sound.
Both phones will be available from early October.
Even with new Mango phones on display, Microsoft representatives refused to disclose any information about the Internet connection sharing feature that has been discovered in the operating system. Nor did they provide any information about general availability of the software, saying only that the situation would be "better" than the roll-out of the NoDo copy-and-paste update.
HTC representatives were a little more forthcoming; they said that whether Internet sharing would be permitted was up to the carrier (just as it is on the iPhone), but that no UK carriers were enabling it.
Read the comments on this post
apple iphone news apple macbook news apple stock news microsoft news
No comments:
Post a Comment