Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by tatsuke95 5198 days ago
I'll say this about HTC:

The last phone I bought was a Legend...and I'm still rocking it. It's my daily use, so it's been dropped, forgotten places, thrown around, banged around, kidnapped by a dog, you name it. Sure, the specs are dated and it's only running 2.2. But I walk around with my laptop, so all I need my phone for is calling, texting, emailing and tethering, which it does easily. The styling has even held up; it gets a look or two from iPhone users and their ubiquitous rectangle.

All this is to say, I'm in the market for a new phone and haven't really come across anything that makes me want to retire this thing. Mostly too big, too "cheap" feeling, too expensive; just too much going on in general. But based on my experience with this phone, if HTC can do something impressive with the software, I'll buy again. Hell, having a decent DSP is enough.

/end infomercial?

2 comments

I also own a Legend, and it's indeed a very solid phone. I dropped it on concrete 3 times and only have a few 1mm scratches on it. I've also spilled a whole glass of water over it, and I just shut it down immediately and used it the next day without a problem.

When I first held an iPhone 4, I was completely unimpressed by how it feels. It felt like I'm holding a glass in my hand, and I'd better not drop it or it will smash into many pieces. The Legend feels a whole lot better in hand and more solid. Even the LG Optimus Black feels more solid, and it's made out of plastic. But I'm hoping more manufacturers will start using metal or some very solid material in their phones, because it will be hard for me to use something that feels significantly weaker and cheap.

That being said, the Legend is the worst HTC phone from that period, software wise. It's one of the most locked down phones ever. It took me like 7 hours to get to root it and install a custom ROM on it, because I had to jump over a ton of hoops to be able to do it and the process was very complicated. It only took about an hour to root and put a custom ROM on an LG Optimus One, considering these both times are the first time I've ever rooted a phone.

>dropped, forgotten places, thrown around, banged around, kidnapped by a dog, you name it.

You need a phone that you LOVE so much that you will never:

-drop -forget -throw around -bang around -have it kidnapped by animals

You need a phone you love so much that you feel an urge to make sweet and passionate love with it every single day.

You're right. My phone and I need a bond with the Universe such that I can predict every unfortunate thing that happens to it both from inside forces (forgetting it) and outside ones (dognapping).

Look. I care for my phone (Bionic), but there's a reason it has a case around it, and there's a reason I have insurance. Accidents happen. With a rugged phone, those accidents csn be less detrimental.

But those events are the inevitability of having a phone you carry and use 12 hours a day. I know they shouldn't happen, and I try to avoid them, but alas...

My point wasn't that this phone was superior to any other phone in that regard. Just that I haven't been able to kill it yet, and I certainly don't baby it.

If you love your phone set it free. If it comes back to you, it's yours. If it doesn't, it never was.
people treat their phones the way they treat their gf/wife. :)