What phone would you choose?

[mtnmedic]

Well, I made the choice and upgraded from the TP to the TP2. I'm very glad I did. I have only TWO gripes about the TP2 so far:

1) It doesn't have flash/light assist for the camera. Someone at HTC and/or Sprint, in their infinite wisdom, decided NOT to include it in a phone complete with just about every other feature imaginable. You'd think it'd be a feature in a $600 phone (no worries, I only paid $150).

2) The stylus is a bit of a pain to pull out. I don't mind that it's a snug fit (it actually does click into place when fully inserted) but getting your fingernail into that little notch between the top of the stylus and the body of the phone may take a little effort. This is especially true for folks with bigger fingers and next to no fingernail. I can see that part of the phone's body getting scratched up over time with multiple stylus removals. However, with the generous touch screen hopefully the stylus won't be needed as often. Also, I noticed that the stylus is no longer magnetised, which I did like in the TP. It just sucked the stylus in and kept it there. So yes the stylus setup in the TP is better.

I love the new keyboard although the layout and some special functions are taking a little time to adjust to. They keys are bigger and spaced apart nicely. Plus they're raised above the board, which is a plus. The chance of me inadvertently hitting the wrong/neighbouring key while "typing" has been reduced.

I love the form factor of this phone. Nice, rounded edges, not boxy at all. Quite stylish, too. Good size, good weight. Feels solid and durable. Yeah, it's bigger than the TP but not by all that much. The trade-off is it's a bit slimmer.

The stock battery is 1500mAh vs. the 1340mAh battery that ships with the TP, so that's a plus.

One thing I do kind of miss is the circular directional navigation pad on the TP. I prefer having more than one way of navigation and input (i.e., here at home my desktop's keyboard has a touch pad, there is a mouse and the screen itself is touch- and pen-responsive). However, I can see why HTC sacrificed it for the generous screen real estate. The implementation of the zoom "slide" (for lack of a better term) under the bottom edge of the screen is a welcome addition and it does help. The primary buttons now located near the bottom edge of the phone are great but their placement is taking some getting used to. No biggie.

The way the screen flips up is kind of cool. At first I thought to myself "big deal...looks like another "gimmick" feature". Not so. I quickly realised the keyboard half of the phone acts as a base to allow the screen to stand up on its own at a viewing angle for videos, pictures, etc. No more propping up my phone against something or my arm getting tired holding it upright to watch/view stuff. Nice.

One really neat feature that is LONG overdue is the addition of a standard 1/8" earphone jack on the bottom of the phone. The TP2 will never get nearly the music play time my Zune HD gets, but it DOES get used for a lot of my other audio applications, most notably web radio. As an MP3 player, it actually isn't bad. The fact that I can use a decent set of earphones with it now is appreciated.

I won't get into the software and the operating system. That would require me to just keep on writing and writing....

But you get my point...I find there are more things to like with the new TP2 than to dislike as opposed to the TP, which is a great phone in its own right. I think HTC has just about gotten it right with this phone. It certainly is, as one other person on this thread put it, what the TP should have been.