HTC Desire Z

We haven't had a chance to fully test this product yet, but we've assembled this helpful overview of relevant information on it.

The HTC Desire Z is a smartphone that offers both a physical keyboard and a touch screen and offers a host of other features that will keep your this phone in your hand all day.

Whether you prefer a physical keyboard with real buttons you can touch or the smooth and sleek style of a touch screen, the HTC Desire Z is a 3G smartphone is a good choice as it comes with both, making it a phone for everyone. The Desire Z will never keep you waiting to download directions and maps that will quickly point you in the right direction. Use HTCSense.com to find your missing phone, erase your contacts if it’s been stolen or to forward your calls to another number.

Features List:

-Slideout keyboard

-3.7 inch display screen

-resolution 480 x 800 WVGA

-800 MHz CPU processing speed

Press Release:

HTC UNVNEILS HTC DESIRE HDTM AND HTC DESIRE ZTM WITH NEW HTC SENSETM AND HTCSENSE.COM

HTC Sense integrates a variety of multimedia and location-based enhancements and introduces HTCSense.com, a series of new connected HTC services

LONDON, UK – September 15, 2010 – HTC Corporation, a global designer of smartphones, today unveiled a new HTC Sense experience with the new HTC Desire HDTM and HTC Desire ZTM Android-based smartphones. The new HTC Sense experience continues HTC’s strong focus on the customer, placing people at the center by simply making its phones work in a more personal and natural way. HTC Sense introduces a number of key innovations including a series of connected services called HTCSense.com that enhance people’s mobile experience on HTC phones.

“We’re excited to be taking the HTC Sense experience beyond the phone to a whole new level with a series of connected HTC services we call HTCSense.com,” said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corporation. “Our customers will value the holistic approach we’re taking to enhance their mobile experience. This customer-first philosophy has resonated with people buying HTC phones and this drives us to continue introducing new innovative smartphones like the HTC Desire HD and HTC Desire Z.”

“As a key Android partner and smartphone brand, HTC continues to bring new innovation to the platform,” said Andy Rubin, VP engineering at Google. “Android is about choice and the new HTC smartphones continue to provide customers with powerful choices and flexibility.”

HTC Sense

The new HTC Sense experience offers a variety of enhancements that improve how people capture, create, share and access multimedia content. With a newly created camera experience, people can record HD videos or capture and edit images with a variety of fun camera effects. With HTC Locations, a new differentiated online mapping experience, people have instant, on-demand mapping without download delays or incurring mobile roaming charges.

HTC Sense also includes a new integrated online e-reading experience utilizing a new e-book store powered by Koboä and a new, mobile-optimized e-reader that includes the ability to highlight, annotate and quickly search for definitions or translate unfamiliar terms.

HTCSense.com

With the new HTCSense.com service, people can simply manage their mobile phone experience from their HTC phone or personal computer. For example, people can easily locate a missing phone by triggering the handset to ring loudly, even if it is set to silent, or to flag its location on a map. If the phone’s been lost or stolen, users can remotely lock the phone, forward calls and texts to another phone, send a message to the phone to arrange its return or even remotely wipe all personal data from it. HTCSense.com makes it easy to setup a new HTC phone or access archived mobile content such as contacts, text messages and call history from a PC browser. People can also customize their phones with exclusive HTC content like wallpapers, HTC scenes, sounds or plug-ins.

HTC Desire HD

HTC Desire HD showcases outstanding multimedia content with its bright 4.3” LCD display and Dolby Mobile and SRS virtual sound and is the first to be powered by the new 1GHz Qualcomm 8255 Snapdragon processor. The HTC Desire HD enables 720p HD video recording and includes an 8-megapixel camera with dual-flash. Building on the unibody heritage of the HTC Legend, the HTC Desire HD is sculpted from a block of solid aluminum and exudes the air of quality and strength that HTC has come to be known for. It also includes the new HTC Fast Boot that enables people to quickly make a call or check emails by shortening the time taken to complete the power-up sequence.

HTC Desire Z

For people constantly on the go, HTC Desire Z makes it quick and easy to stay connected with friends on Facebook and Twitter or with colleagues and customers at work. HTC Desire Z features a unique ‘pop hinge’ that opens to reveal a QWERTY keyboard for fast, convenient typing. HTC Desire Z’s keyboard also includes a variety of keyboard shortcuts and two customizable keys for providing instant access to common functions without the need to open menus. HTC Desire Z also includes 720p HD video recording and a 5-megapixel camera with automatic flash. It is the first phone to utilize the new 800MHz Qualcomm 7230 processor for improved performance and battery life and also includes HTC Fast Boot.

Availability

The new HTC Desire HD and HTC Desire Z will be broadly available through mobile operators and retailers across major European and Asian markets from October 2010 with the HTC Desire Z shipping in North America later this year.

About HTC

HTC Corporation (HTC) is one of the fastest growing companies in the mobile phone industry. By putting people at the center of everything it does, HTC creates innovative smartphones that better serve the lives and needs of individuals. The company is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange under ticker 2498. For more information about HTC, please visit www.htc.com .

Digital Trends’ Cell Phone Buying Tips:

Notable Features

The list of features to look for in a phone could fill an anthology, so we’ll run down some of the most important ones.

Cameras appear on nearly every phone these days. Although a quality camera can be great for quick snapshots, few phone cameras are ready to replace a trusty point-and-shoot. The few with variable focus far outperform fixed-focus cameras, which you’ll find on the majority.

When considering a display, pay attention to size and brightness, which will both come in handy when trying to read it in difficult conditions like outdoors in the sun. LCD displays are still the most common, but OLED displays have been cropping up lately as well. They use slightly less power and produce extremely vibrant color, but suffer from poor outdoor visibility.

Battery life often gets buried at the end of buyers’ wishlists, only to lead to disappointment when they realize they can barely go a whole day without recharging. Be particularly careful with smartphones, which can get particularly thirsty.

If you plan to use your phone for playing music or watching video, be sure to check for internal and external storage. If the phone has a microSD slot you should be able to add up to 32GB of additional storage.

Six Steps to Start Your Unlimited Cell Phone Plan Search

1. Determine which service providers are available in your area and make a list of the services you want and how much you can afford.
2. Check with your current wireless service provider—if you have one—and see what unlimited plans they provide and if one matches up to your needs. If not, then continue to search.
3. Compare special offers and plans of the key players of cellphone providers: Verizon Wireless, AT &T, US Cellular, T-Mobile, Sprint, Cricket, and etc.
4. If you’re prone to changing cell phone providers, choose a plan with least amount of commitment to avoid expensive cancellation fees.
5. Do you actually need true unlimited minutes? Or would you only need unlimited just on weekends or to your most frequently called and received numbers?
6. Determine which cell phone service company excels in the areas you need for the price you want, but also look at the provider’s connectivity and coverage ratings. We’ll give you a hint—Sprint may offer a great price and with great unlimited minutes, but Verizon is still takes the cake for coverage and call clarity.

The difference between a smartphone and a feature phone

You could divvy up cellphones into dozens of different categories, but these are the two umbrella groups that matter. Smartphones like the iPhone can serve as personal calendars, e-mail machines, Web browsers, gaming platforms, and a literally unlimited number of other purposes. They’re essentially mini computers. Feature phones are more basic, but they still offer features like cameras, text messaging, and even some limited data connectivity, like checking weather or sports scores. Although smartphones obviously have a lot to offer, they also weigh more, offer less battery life, cost more to buy and run, and can make basic tasks like calling seem more complex. If you plan to buy one, make sure you’ll really take advantage of all the extras.

Apps

If a building is only as good as its foundation, then a smartphone is only as good as its app store. Even as manufacturers continue to stack their handsets with YouTube support, instant messaging, and other essentials right out of the box, the features just don’t add up to the amount of capability a phone can take on in the hands of the right developers: You name it, a good smartphone can do it.

The app store you buy into will have a longstanding effect on the way you use your phone – perhaps more than any other feature. But it’s tough to get a feel for every smartphone app store when you don’t get to push a cart down the aisles until you have a carrier contract in your filing cabinet and there’s no turning back.

Apple’s App Store has been leading the market in sheer numbers of apps since the original iPhone was release. Android is catching up in total numbers and offers a higher ratio of free apps in the Android Market than Apple does. Nokia’s Ovi Store, RIM’s BlackBerry App World and Microsoft’s Windows Marketplace all offer quality apps but currently lag far behind Apple and Android.