HTC Tilt 2 (AT&T)

Summary: My business colleague from AT&T recently tested out the HTC TouchPro2 for AT&T, slated for release as the AT&T Tilt 2. I currently own an iPhone but in the past had an HTC Tilt (which was great, used it for 3 years).

I was especially interested in the Tilt/TouchPro 2 because of its revamped design, larger screen, and minimalist design, and also just because it's running with AT&T. When I first decided to say goodbye to my Tilt I thought about checking out the Fuze because of its similarity but decided against it because of the iPhone. If I could return the iPhone I would definitely do so and pick up an iPod Touch instead and buy the Tilt 2. I'm not a fan of the Windows Mobile OS and in the past have hated using it because of slow processing and those irritating little freeze-ups that occur while you're trying to multitask. Well great news, people, the TouchPro2 solves the problem! Along with its little sibling the HTC Pure (also from AT&T) multitasking with Windows Mobile has never been easier.

Seems right to start off with performance, then, doesn't it? The phone's general performance and speed was great, even while web browsing and multitasking. I noticed that the lag (duration between selecting a command and the phone executing the command) was only about a second in some cases. Phone performance also is great. I brought this up in my review of the Pure and feel that I should point it out again in this review. The caller's voice (running on 3G in Los Angeles) was crystal clear on my end and there was very little to no background noise. Oftentimes I'll be on a call with someone in a crowded downtown area or loud environment and the caller or myself will notice great levels of background noise, boy can that get irritating. (I still have this problem with my iPhone). The Tilt 2 greatly reduces this problem and even when walking around outside I can hear what the caller is saying and or they can hear me. My friend and I did this test which we often put phones through. He held his iPod earphone up to the speaker of the Tilt 2 and called me on my iPhone and the clarity of the sound even from Apple's less than mentionable standard earphones came through clear on my end, whereas when doing this with the iPhone music often came through fuzzy, with static, or not at all. I think we were listening to Breaking Benjamin's new album and (if you're a fan) as you know their music is often loud and has a heavy bass track, well even that came through.

Business users will be happy to find a great looking and great feeling and (most importantly) great working tactile full five-row keyboard on the Tilt 2. I really liked the Pure when I got to hang onto it for a few days but having to use the virtual QWERTY was getting to be a pain in the you-know-where. More and more phones are combining a full touch screen and a full QWERTY keyboard. Some are failing at it, some are excelling and I have to say that the Tilt 2 was probably the BEST phone with the combo I've used. Typing out emails and text messages is extremely easy and is overall a great experience. The screen is large and has a high resolution so text and pictures and videos look AMAZING on the phone.

Email setup (corporate and personal) is a breeze and once you're done you're good to go. It's up to you whether or not you want to activate Push (this will drain your battery). I need to for my business email but if you don't need to I'd suggest not doing so. It'll save your battery! Windows Mobile hasn't in the past been the best for email capabilities, but this baby does it all. I honestly have to say that with the larger screen and larger keyboard it handles email better than the iPhone and Blackberry smartphones. The only problem I had was that the message didn't fully download and so I only got half of what my message said. Okay, that wasn't too bad but let's just hope it wasn't anything important. Email not only looks great, but the application works well and is integrated with everything else on your phone.

A new home screen greets you everytime you power up your phone, and unlike previous HTC and Windows Mobile devices this guy actually knows what you want on your home screen (and you can customize it too). No more switching apps and slowing down the phone. Everything you need is right there and only a tap away, very convenient.

A drawback for me was battery life, however. (And as I mentioned with the Pure) I was only able to get about 12 hours of life on a full charge which took me from around 6AM to 6PM which was disappointing considering I didn't have everything on the phone running. (Location services were disabled and Wi-Fi was powered down). All in all it's not bad considering the power needed to function the phone, but sorry guys, you're not going to be able to take down that girl's number!

All in all it's a great device. I was extremely pleased with it, and should please the general demographic it's aimed at. But as always check it out before buying!

Updated on Oct 14, 2009

KennyB123 is right when he says that the default setting for email is to partially download the message however the problem I encountered was a message that stated "A Network Error Occurred" and thus the message could not be downloaded. I had the option set to fully download the message. So just to let everyone know that.

Updated on Oct 18, 2009

Tomorrow I have to return the Tilt to my pal in the company's IT Tech department and wanted to just give you guys a short summary of how it has been. I will deffinitely miss the Tilt 2 and might pay retail to buy it when it's officially released. I charged the unit at work which gave me enough juice to power the phone through until about 11PM when I usually get home. I did drop the phone once on a very unforgiving concrete sidewalk and was so scared it had broken but low and behold NOT EVEN A SCRATCH! That was a stroke of luck. I did notice however that when using a stylus with the unit the screen got a tiny bit scratched and fingerprinting was a big problem which I had to keep wiping off. HTC ahould think of using an oleophobic screen like the one on my 3GS which is really nice. Performance through the whole 10 days was excellent and I have to say impressive for an HTC/ Windows Mobile phone. I'm going to be dissapointed when I have to use my iPhone again. Hope the review helped you!:)