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Hands on with the HTC Magic “Google Phone” on 3mobile – Android

The good people at 3mobile Australia and HTC recently gave me a pre-release trial of HTC’s latest Google Android powered handset, the HTC Magic.

Due to be launched mid June on both Three and Vodafone (soon to be merged into Vodafone Hutchison Australia yet are still trying to undercut each other), the HTC Magic is the first Google Android powered handset to be released to the Australian market.

My pre-release HTC Magic package came in an unmarked box with no manual nor software, just the handset itself, charger, USB cable and 2GB MicroSD with SD adapter.

Who needs a manual anyway!??

My first impressions of the handset, before even switching it on were pleasant. The handset has a large 3.2-inch TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen with 320×480 HVGA resolution. At 116 grams it is a good weight and feels quite solid.

The face of the handset sports six buttons, Home, Menu, Back, Search, Answer/Dial and Hangup/Close as well as a navigation trackball. Odd. The only other protrusions from the glossy black shell is the volume rocker on the left hand side.

Personally I found the buttons to be just too small and hard to find in the dark or whilst driving (wrong I know) even if the handset was right in from of me in a cradle.

The Android OS itself is very iPhone-esk with the ability to have multiple home screen slides and kinetic scrolling.

As a Gmail fanboy I was very impressed to see that integration with my Google Apps (Gmail) account was as simple as entering my email address and password. My gmail, contacts and calendar were then automatically synced with the handset.

As a user to System SEVEN Push email with contacts sync on my Nokia 5800, my gmail contacts were already in good order.

The other nice touch was that all of my new Gmail emails, contacts and calendar entries were pushed to the handset automatically with no manual intervention required.

One problem that I did encounter was the inability to use multiple Gmail accounts on the one handset natively.

I personally have separate work and personal gmail accounts.
System SEVEN on S60 allows me to draw email from both but contacts and or calendar from either, i.e Contacts from personal and calendar from work accounts.

As I entered my personal gmail account details during the handset setup the only way for me to access my work email and calendar was via the browser, the alternative was to reset the handset and re-enter my work account details.

Luckily the browser is pretty awesome. The large screen makes browsing a dream. Generally websites with an iPhone version were picked up by the Android browser, further blurring the lines between the two.

I guess what really makes Android and the iPhone so similar is the ability to very easily and inexpensively expand the handsets abilities using third party apps.

Apps like Google Maps, or Google Skymap are both AMAZING! As is a little app called Facebook Sync that syncs your Friends photos from facebook with your handsets contacts.
I wont go too much into the apps that are available for Android as I will be here all day.

Unfortunately there were a few things that bugged me about the handset and I am unsure of who to blame, Android or HTC.

Firstly and most annoying was the Dialer app. This critical part of any phone be it touch or not really got me annoyed. It is so S–L–O–W. Android have tried to improve the dialer by performing an auto search for contacts in your address book, this however seriously slowed down the process of dialing a number to the point of being able to do the old “1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi”, thus my problem, who do I blame, Android for trying to help or HTC for not giving the handset enough juice? Especially seeing as I only have 80 contacts for it to search through!

Secondly and in general, I found the touch screen to way to inaccurate, even after going through the screen calibration process. This became especially apparent when trying to use the mini qwerty input. The responsiveness of the screen also wasn’t fantastic and there was often the need to press an icon a second time or harder in order for the touch to be recognised.

Battery life was acceptable however when you start using WIFI, bluetooth and general use it was lucky to see through a day. I definitely recommend keeping a USB cord at the office to keep it charged during the day.

In terms of general phone functions such as voice quality the HTC magic performed well with clear voice and good connection to both the 3G and GSM networks.

Overall I found the HTC Magic with the Android OS to be very easy to use. The Android Market is stocked full of great apps to extend the handsets features and functions. The build quality of the handset itself is great and I never felt like I might break it (even after a minor accidental drop – sorry).

I would highly recommend this handset to anyone who wants an iPhone on the 3 network, or simply wants tight integration of their gmail account with their handset and a powerful, desktop like mobile internet experience.

Tags: 3mobile, Android, contacts sync, facebook, gmail, google, google apps, google maps, HTC Magic, iphone, mobile internet, navigation, Push Email, qwerty, SEVEN, system seven, touch screen, vodafone, wifi

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