HTC Legend

HTC produced the first Android-powered smartphone to go on sale in the UK and its latest model, the Legend, bears more than a passing resemblance to the old T-Mobile G1 and more recent Hero.

The similarity comes from the angled ‘chin’ at the bottom of both smartphones, but the HTC Legend is a much slicker smartphone and it’s both slimmer and lighter than that early device.

Most of the Legend’s case is made from brushed aluminium and the smartphone feels very robust as a result, although the matte finish does make it a little slippy in dry hands. Two black rubber pieces cap either end of the back of the case — one surrounds the camera lens and speaker grilles at the top, the other acts as a cover for the battery, SIM and microSD card slots. The rubber pieces also act as a cushion when the Legend is placed onto a hard surface, though we can’t see the aluminium case showing much in the way of marks.

The main reason for the Legend’s thinness (just 11.5mm) is that there’s no physical keyboard and all input is instead made via the capacitive touchscreen. Well, that’s not strictly true — there are also four rectangular buttons below the screen for the usual Android functions (Home, Menu, Back and Search) and an optical joystick in the middle of that ‘chin’.

This latter controller replaces the trackball used on other Android smartphones (and the original T-Mobile G1) and since there are no moving parts, there’s no risk of mechanical failure. There is some loss of tactile feedback, but the tiny raised sensor still feels like a ball under the fingertip and generally works well — not that you have to use it, of course, since it doesn’t do anything that can’t be done with the touchscreen.

A long volume rocker on the left side and a thin power button on the top are the only other adornments on the Legend’s case — there’s no dedicated ringer silence switch. There is a 3.5mm headphone socket at the top and a microUSB port on the bottom though, so there are no complaints about non-standard sockets here.

Anyone who’s used to an iPhone will find the Legend’s screen rather small in comparison, even though its 3.2” diagonal is only 0.3” less. It has the same crisp 320 x 480 resolution though, and the OLED technology makes it much more vibrant. Visibility is good in daylight too, but it is a bit too bright in the dark and we had to disable the light sensor and revert to manual control to achieve a comfortable level.

The HTC Legend ships with the latest Android 2.1 operating system, but much of this is hidden away behind a bespoke user interface called HTC Sense. The stock Android UI simply isn’t in the same league as this slick skin, although that term does HTS Sense a disservice, since it does much more than change the superficial look of Android.

HTC Sense kicks off with a Home screen replacement that offers seven customisable screens. These can contain the usual shortcuts to applications and folders, but a number of widgets are also supplied that plug into email, Twitter, Facebook and RSS feeds. Most only provide a limited overview of the relevant information, but a tap usually leads to the full app for when you want a more serious view on things.

HTC has also created a few bespoke apps that work seamlessly with Sense, including a social network aggregator called Friend Stream and an email app that we liked much more than the standard Gmail app that’s part of Android.

Although it was an uncomfortable reminder of HTC’s similar efforts to make Windows Mobile more user friendly, HTC Sense generally works very well, but we would prefer a snappier response in some widgets — scrolling is a bit sticky in some and animation isn’t always smooth. We presume that this is the fault of the Legend’s 600MHz processor, but we won’t know for sure until we see the upcoming HTC Desire with its 1GHz chip.

Android 2.1 still has a few rough edges that put it behind iPhone OS for ease of use and we’re still not a fan of some of its conventions. We much prefer the one hardware button approach of the iPhone, for example, compared to the four buttons plus trackball of Android, and Android generally requires more faffing to get anything done.

There’s also some infuriating inconsistency in the way Android behaves. Just because a form appears with the input cursor blinking in the first field doesn’t always mean that the on-screen keyboard pops up with it, and there are some on-screen objects that can’t be selected with the trackball — they still need a finger tap.

We’d also like such silly usability issues would have been addressed by version 2.1, but given that Google has yet to address the 256Mb storage limit for applications, perhaps the finer design points are some way down on the list of things to fix.

Mobile operators in the UK are yet to offer the HTC Legend with a contract, so you’re stuck with paying around £370 for an unlocked handset for the time being. That’s about the price you’ll pay to import a Nexus One from the US and while it’s a much more capable smartphone, it lacks the slick custom interface of the Legend.

So, the HTC Legend is certainly worth adding to your shortlist if you’re shopping for an Android smartphone, but we’d wait to see how the soon-to-be-available £440 HTC Desire shapes up before splashing out.