Wow, what a week it was last week ~ volcano, Eyjafjallajokull, threw a little kink into what started to feel like a never-ending adventure across asia and europe, and early on in the trip, i decided to travel with only my blackberry curve, no data plan - only sms and international email - also, no iphone… and figured i’d be so busy, i’d survive just fine. Somewhere while i was diving in Indonesia, HTC contacted me and offered to send over an HTC Legend to try out (knowing i’d been lusting to try out the unibody phone and opitcal trackball in person)… they were even kind enough to send it over to my hotel in italy, along with an italian SIM card… with data! After 3 weeks traveling without using maps/internet/etc on my phone, i thought i was fine… good to disconnect a bit!

HTC Legend shows up ~ pop sim card in ~ start playing with maps and internet and gps and twitter and youtube videos and more… i’ll admit it, it made life 110% easier, nearly instantly. I’ve learned my lesson. Super snappy connection to the digital world 24/7 - it’s not an addiction… its convenience… like being able to go get lost and not need to ask for directions b/c your phone always knows where you are… or being able to go out to drinks, and keep checking in on the status of closed airports and volcanic eruptions and ash clouds and book/change flights while in the middle of an insane italian club? Excessive, but it certainly helped keep the panic of being stranded in europe indefinitely to a minimum… so, THANK YOU, HTC, for reconnecting me to the digital world when i needed it most! Things got a little stressful as people were hopping 22 hour consulate bus rides to London, rushing on packed trains to madrid and rome, booking private 737’s from newark to heathrow… but it’s good to be home!

And beyond the awesome functionality of the phone ~ the internet browsing seems FAR snappier than my iphone and i’m in love with the screen and trackball! Also, every designer i ran into at design week couldn’t help but comment how the phone was nearly more mac than a mac! It feels SO good in your hand, and the single piece body of the phone is just lovely… take a peek at the bunch of pics on the next page of it compared to my mac book pro at my last lunch in Milan at a cute little cafe in brera…

TO PAGE 2 of "HTC Legend + the Volcano"! ----->

Tags: cells - gifts - htc - phone - reviews - shopping - technology

On cell phone obsessions ~ i love a great button. I used to love my old Sony Ericsson joystick. There’s something about my blackberry’s trackball thats just so fun to spin. That indentation of the iPhone button just feels good to click! Latest button lust? On the new HTC Desire and HTC Legend phones launching today… they feature a brand new OPTICAL TRACKBALL! In the conference call announcing them they said trackball, in the press release it says joystick… really you can call it what you want, basically they’ve described it as a little optical sensor ever so slightly depressed in the center of a single solid ring of a button. I can’t wait to try this physical interface in person!

Perhaps one of the most enticing aspects of HTC, beyond their hardware that feels SO good in your hand… is their dedication to great UX ~ above and beyond what is provided through Android and Win Mobile! At the Mobile World Congress today, they are not only announcing new phones, but also the latest iteration of HTC Sense - “HTC Sense is a user experience focused on putting people at the centre by making phones work in a more simple and natural way. This experience revolves around three fundamental principles that were developed by observing and listening to how people live and communicate. These core tenets of Make It Mine, Stay Close and Discover the Unexpected continue to be the key to the new HTC Sense experience.” The new version adds more features that are focused around your most important people with the HTC Friend Stream (pulling in from facebook, twitter, flickr, and more). See more details on the next page!

TO PAGE 2 of "HTC Desire and HTC Legend"! ----->

Tags: gifts - htc - phone - shopping - technology

Phone Lust! Crunching to get this post sorted out before i run to LAX to pick friends up... and because of that i wasn't able to make it out to London today for the HTC Hero and HTC Sense launch! Fortunately Dr. Justine (yes! my little sis is all done!!!) was able to spare a few hours, hop out of oxford, and out of the academic world to go see what all this mobile fuss was about. And get pics to show me what i was missing. As usual, you can get all the technical details on any site, but she got us those key moments and details i love seeing... like the expressions the C-level presenters have, and the presentation graphics they used... and quotes about things like Drunken Thumb and Teflon fingerprintlessness and how 'fun people make fun phones, nerdy people make nerdy phones' (yes, this is a "fun" phone). So on the next page you'll see a bunch of hands on pics of the new phone, as well as my favorite snippets of her press event experience.

As for the phone lusting ~ the new HTC Hero is like a super thin keyboardless version of the G1 (in shape!) ~ and it is running Android, with their new HTC Sense experience that takes it to a whole new level (keep in mind HTC are the guys who even skinned windows mobile to a point where i loved looking at it, and the UX, until you realize its still win mobile under there, too bad they couldn't hide everything?) ~ Its most appealing feature is that it is truly PEOPLE centered, in that instead of looking for your friends on twitter, facebook, flickr, address book, email (of various accounts)... it sorts the content by PEOPLE! So you can see all of a person's feeds/interactions with you in one place. And it sounds like it does it pretty easily too ~ get your account info in and the phone does the rest and updates it regularly and syncs people up. Now if that meant all those people i'm bad at officially putting in my address book can have their info sucked in from facebook/linkedin etc ~ that'd be awesome. (p.s. while it does apparently magically sync matching names on its own, you can decide which get paired or manually sync for people who like pseudonyms on various accounts.)

OK ~ go see the pics!

TO PAGE 2 of "HTC Hero + HTC Sense London Launch"! ----->

Tags: events - gifts - htc - london - phone - shopping - technology