HTC Titan II review

The HTC Titan II launched using the Lumia 900, providing an additional headline Windows Telephone choice for AT&T's 4G LTE customers, but what makes this a potential standout choice?

The Titan II looks largely similar in form to the original HTC Titan, which launched alongside the Mango release of the OS last fall, albeit with a much more obvious lip at the base of the display -a light upwards curve where the virtual back, home, and search buttons are found.

As indicated by the title, the Titan II is a sizable handset, with a 4.7-inch display that luckily features little bezel along the sides, keeping it easily grasped.

The SuperLCD screen is bright and attractive, though at 800x480 resolution, the pixel density (199 ppi) leaves something to be desired.

A screen this large demands a much higher resolution, though the gorgeous Windows Telephone interface still looks great on the display, with text and the large colored boxes appearing bold and beautiful as you swipe through pages. At times, the individual pixels can be quite clear, but it's not as common as expected.

Flipping the telephone around reveals the HTC Titan II's standout feature -the 16-megapixel back camera lens, which arrives in stark contrast to the standard 8-megapixel lenses seen on most smartphones, including the Lumia 900. We'll dig into the camera's performance later in this review, though it's fair to say that double the megapixels doesn't necessarily mean twice-as-sharp photos.

Interface

While the iOS and Android operating systems boast a lot of visual similarities, the current version of Windows Telephone is truly a one-of-a-kind experience - and the large, bright tiles prove eye-catching, though perhaps not as practical for power users as rows of smaller icons.

The lock screen displays the day, date, and time with large lettering, as well as a calendar notification below and simple icon notifications for new emails or text messages.

While incoming text messages display a brief preview atop the lock screen, email text cannot be seen while the telephone is locked.

Icons for battery life, cellular, and Wi-Fi connections are seen at the top of the lock screen, though swiping up on the display reveals the main menu, which is where the UI really comes to life.

Performance

The size of the tiles always remains the same, and while some tiles do offer live info bursts, you cannot install widgets or shrink down the tiles themselves. As such, those who want a load of options on screen at once may be disappointed at having to scroll down to see much more than about eight tiles in 1 glance. 

Windows Telephone is tuned much more for form than function, but the form really is something special.

Tips:
If you want to watch various videos such as AVCHD, MTS, MOD,MKV, MOV and the like on it, Video Converter for Mac and Video Editor for Mac can help you convert them to MP4 to play on HTC Titan II.