March Smart Phone Madness Game 4: HTC HD2 vs. BlackBerry Storm 2
March 18th, 2010 by Marc Flores Voting has concluded for this contest, but more Smart Phone Madness awaits!
We’re already on Game 4 and so far the games have been relatively one-sided. The iPhone 3GS knocked out the HTC Touch Pro2, BlackBerry’s Bold 9700 stomped all over the Pixi and the Motorola DROID pretty much steamrolled the BlackBerry 8530. Today we have a slightly closer match-up between the HTC HD2 for T-Mobile, and Verizon’s BlackBerry Storm 2. The HTC HD2 isn’t available yet, but it will be hitting T-Mobile stores on March 24, just a week away. The Storm 2 has been available for quite some time and many BlackBerry fans are saying it is what the original Storm should have been.
Who will win this battle of the touchscreens?
The BlackBerry Storm 2 has been getting mixed results from the BlackBerry community, but overall it has been doing quite well with its owners. The screen is very clean and vivid and the Storm 2′s touch input is leagues better than its predecessor. Typing on it is faster than the original Storm and its overall performance is quite snappy by comparison. As an added bonus, the camera and camcorder are actually quite good.
Of course, you get all the goodness of BlackBerry e-mail support on the crisp 3.3-inch display. It also has access to BlackBerry App World and comes with built-in Verizon V-Cast with Rhapsody. Music fanatics will be glad to know that the Storm 2 supports up to 16GB microSD cards so you can carry a good chunk of media around with you.
Up against the Storm 2 is the HTC HD2. Now while it isn’t available yet, we’ve done a hands-on of the unlocked version and we were quite impressed. The T-Mobile version was also shown off at an NYC event just a few days ago and we gave our impressions of it here.
The HD2 has a gorgeous and enormous capacitive touchscreen. The 4.3-inch, 800 x 480 display is perfect for reading books (it comes with a Barnes & Noble app) or watching movies (Transformers and Transformers 2 are included with the 16GB microSD card, and it has the Blockbuster movie app). Its soft keyboard is a pleasure to use since it is large and spacious – something that you’d expect from a screen that huge.
The only downside, if you can consider it one, is that it’s running Windows Mobile 6.5. HTC did a fantastic job of skinning it with Sense UI, but it still feels like you’re on a system designed for three years ago. With Windows Phone 7 coming later this year, committing to a two-year contract with this phone might spark a little regret and envy after just a few months. WinMo 6.5 is certainly a capable OS, so we’re still suckers for this phone because of the hardware, but we’d be hard pressed to recommend this over waiting for Windows Phone 7.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, we’re talking now! Who do you think should win this battle? The poll is below, you know what to do.
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March 18th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
while the storm2 has excellent business application, the HD2 will include that along with the potential for dual-booting winmo & android, courtesy of XDA developers. my vote’s for the HD2.
March 18th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Even though I’m still waiting on the release of the HD2, I still vote for it because my experience with the Blackberry Storm/Storm 2 wasn’t very good. I actually sent it back for a refund within 24 hours. I don’t think this phone is good at all, not even business wise. Hopefully the HD2 won’t have any more disappointments. Its already disappointing to know it won’t be able to upgrade to Windows 7 and that Windows 6.5 market just might go down hill due to the fact they will be focusing more on Windows 7 since its suppose to come out later this year. Guess we’ll wait and see….
March 18th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
1230asdf is right HD 2 will be dual bootable after XDF has done it’s magic, and for those in the know-how Android will be installable. As far as I’m aware, HTC’s Touch Pro 2 is already running Android thanks to XDF, and HTC have come up with a total winner with the HD 2 imo, I can’t get past the 4.3″ screen – it’s just beautiful. The 1 Ghz Snapdragon CPU is just another winning element over every other phone available to date.
It isn’t a fair competition, but HTC’s HD 2 very easily wins this one for me too.
March 18th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
I own the hd2 and i love it. the display is amazing. It’s fully office capable. It’s useable sorgen Exchange push.
i vote 4 desire i jean hd2.
March 18th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
No comparison.
HD2 is the best phone of 2009 probably 2010 also.
March 18th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
No contest for me. All phones, except maybe the iPhone, have a similar range of apps available for business or personal users.
Look at the specs for the HD2 and you’ll find a processor and screen that rival early netbooks. The HD2 is therefore the closest thing to true device convergence we’ve seen, and so a worthy winner.
(Sent from my HTC HD2!)
March 18th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
No brainer there. HD2 all the way. I see this ending up iPhone 3GS vs HTC HD2. I’m standing in line for the HD2 the 24th.
March 18th, 2010 at 8:40 pm
Like the remark ‘no brainer’ above it all systems go on the HTC HD2 and the following generations yet to come!!!
March 18th, 2010 at 10:15 pm
Wow. The Storm 2 has been out for months, while the HD2 hasn’t even come out yet. How is this even fair. None of you have personally tested out the capabilities of the phone yourself, so how can you even compare them? I don’t know anything about the HD2 myself, but I had the HTC Touch Pro before my Storm 2 and I’m glad I upgraded. The TP had tons of bugs, so there will be some for the HD2 that you can’t even hesitate. This is just like comparing the F-35B(new US fighter jet under current development) vs the F-22 and assume the F-35B is gonna win out, just because it has the newest and latest technologies, which doesn’t always triumph. This is poll is clearly biased with all the fanboy hype.
March 18th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
Watched Transformers2 to on a flight to Seattle today on my new HD2!!! This phone is AMAZING!!!!!
March 19th, 2010 at 4:24 am
Seminole: The HD2 has been out for a LONG, LONG time. Hint–there’s a world outside the US.
March 19th, 2010 at 4:28 am
I’ve had my HD2 for over 3 months now and it’s a superb device. With the latest ROM, the bugs have been squished, and the support at XDA developers is brilliant. Windows Phone 7 series is looking fatally flawed and locked down, so no upgrade is not an issue for me. An easy win for the HD2.
Sent from my HD2.
March 19th, 2010 at 8:03 pm
I have an HD2 since 2 weeks: WOW!!!
It is the fastest phone i’ve tryed until now, it reaction on touch screen is awesome, the screen is huge, pics are fantastic etc etc etc, so my vote is 1000% for HD2.
March 20th, 2010 at 4:45 am
I had so many phones and I believe strongly that the HD2 is in a league of his own, this phone is in the “something else category”, the HD2 HTC Sense is far better than the other handset and there is not match with the hardware HD2 wins.
March 22nd, 2010 at 2:11 pm
htd hd2 is a undisputed king of all phones. I am using it since last 8 week and i am fully satisfied with this phone.
March 26th, 2010 at 8:56 am
HTC HD2 is a slab of rock!
i hate the fone
its just so friggin HUGE?
never used BB so cant comment on it, but HTC is horrendous
May 14th, 2010 at 11:37 pm
I’ve had my HTC HD2 for 1 month today and it’s really sad. Actually, I love the hardware – it’s a beautiful phone, screen is amazing, super thin, responsive, functional, etc., but the software is something Microsoft and HTC should be truly ashamed of. I’ve never felt this consistently frustrated by a phone – not even close. And I’ve had BB, Nokia, iPhone, Motorola, etc. I have to sell this phone or start taking blood pressure medicine, b/c it has sooo many annoying, non-intuitive, time-consuming problems it’s truly amazing anyone would put this s/w out there and refuse to spend more time making sure it just works better and isn’t such a source of frustration and productivity reduction. The worst thing about it is that so many of the weaknesses, glitches and shortcomings could’ve been easily fixed if the people writing the s/w were willing to do anything but ‘hand in’ C+/B- work and expect people to be satisfied with that. I guess except for iPhone and Android s/w that probably would be the case…
June 15th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
lund…only a girl would say “its too big” HD2 screen size is perfect, especially for soft keyboard. you must be the guy on the burger king commercial with the small hands that cant hold the burger. anyway….if HD2 were an android phone it would be no comp. but it aint…i-phone all the way !
August 14th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
Sure I want the weather at the house srceen with news updates, yes I want contacts visable at any given time, I need a train app, a flight app, a road congestion standing app and sure I desire a telephone with the intention to respond to my each command and now not hang/freeze or shutdown like my present Nokia E72 or my earlier Blackberry Bold.