[Full HD2 review] The HTC HD2 was the first Windows Mobile phone with a capacitive touch screen. The HD2 comes loaded with Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional with HTC Sense (TouchFlo 3D) interface on top. It's packing a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 576MB of ROM and 1GB of RAM. The 4.3-inch color transflective TFT screen has a WVGA 480 x 800 resolution. The HD2 has a five-megapixel camera with dual LED flash and autofocus. And thanks to the tons of developer support, the HD2 is also able to run other operating systems such as Google Android, Meego, Ubuntu and even Windows Phone 7. Read on for the latest HD2 news, reviews and videos:
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by Stephen Schenck | March 15, 2012 9:15 PMThe Windows Phone 7.5 "refresh" is nearly upon us, with news of Tango coming to China next week. Of course, we wouldn't expect a bunch of die-hard smartphone fans to wait until a formal release to start enjoying new software, and the crowd over at the XDA-Developers forums have already cooked-up a pair of custom Tango ROMs, now available for the HTC HD2 and the Samsung Omnia 7. It seems only fitting that the HD2, the quintessential tinkerer's smartphone, is among the first of the models to see these new ROMs. These releases build upon previous custom ROMs, so there's all the benefits of a f...
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by Legacy | February 5, 2012 5:51 PMSince the days of gray scale LCD screens on PDAs, the stylus has been the invaluable tool which allowed you to precisely navigate the small screen. With killer applications like the venerable PhatWare Calligrapher, which converts hand writing to text, you can use the stylus to mimic the analog world of pen and paper. Along, with integration of cell phone technology, the hope of a converged hand held device for your mobile life was starting to become a reality. As cellular data and push email where implemented, the world was starting to be at one's stylus tip. Microsoft along with Palm were vis...
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by Stephen Schenck | January 3, 2012 7:41 PMHTC's HD2 is like the Swiss Army knife of smartphones, with its development community bringing probably the largest selection of smartphone operating systems around to the handset. While it may have launched running Windows Mobile, it didn't take long for hackers to figure out how to load Windows Phone 7 on its hardware. That was a huge accomplishment in and of itself, but some issues remained that kept the HD2 from running the platform as smoothly as native hardware did. One of those issues was some incomplete touchscreen support, with notable problems handling multi-touch inputs. While that ...
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by Anton D. Nagy | November 25, 2011 9:12 AMThis beast just won't die! The HTC HD2 has proven that, despite being a real dinosaur, can easily run anything that's thrown at it, from Windows Mobile to Windows Phone, from Linux to Android and now Google's latest mobile platform: Ice Cream Sandwich. While many other legacy phones didn't get unofficial ICS ROMs -- and who know when they'll get official ones -- HTC's 2009 flagship, the first with a capacitive screen, already has one thanks to the community. It is a port from Nexus One's AOSP ICS ROM and, as you'd expect from these early custom ROMs, not everything's perfect. You'll have...
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by Joe Levi | November 21, 2011 4:21 PMRemember when Google said the Nexus One just wasn't up to running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich? That was just shy of a month ago. Since then we've seen only an SDK port running on the Nexus One, but now we've got an AOSP Custom ROM for it, too! ... and it's not alone! For those who don't know, AOSP is the Android Open Source Project, the place where you "can find the information and source code you need to build an Android-compatible device." It's been a week since Google released the Ice Cream Sandwich source code to the AOSP. Seven days. In that time we now have AOSP-based cust...
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by Anton D. Nagy | August 27, 2011 8:37 AMThe HTC HD2 has long proved its ability to run Windows Phone 7 -- among others like Android -- which still makes it an iconic phone to come out from the Taiwanese phone maker's factory. It now gets the ultimate treat, an unofficial Windows Phone ROM which allows for official updates. The ROM is Build 7.0.7004.0, so it's the original Windows Phone launched last year and is available in English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish, with the possibility of updating all the way to 7720, which is Mango RTM. It's not the ROM though that is a breakthrough but its ability to be officially updated ...
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by Anton D. Nagy | July 9, 2011 1:47 AMWindows Phone has come a long way from the initial launch release, through NoDo, all the way to Mango and it appears that so has Microsoft in its perception on hacked, ported or you name it versions being flashed on older hardware. Five months ago Microsoft was not supporting "Windows Phones that have been altered from manufacturer and carrier specifications", cautioning "that such alterations can dramatically impact reliability, performance, compatibility and security". Now, Redmond just smiles and says "tinker away with Mango and enjoy the juice", with reference to Windows Phone Mango Bet...
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by Anton D. Nagy | July 8, 2011 2:26 AMWindows Phone was ported over to the HTC HD2 from the early days proving once again that the HTC Leo was a phone ahead of its time. Once Microsoft outed the Windows Phone 7 Mango Beta, this too was ported to the phone and was working rather well, as we tested it out. One of the problems with earlier Mango custom ROMs for the HD2 was that the Live services were not working. XDA Developers have cooked a new custom Mango ROM that has a fully working Marketplace allowing you to purchase application just as you would if you'd own a legacy Windows Phone 7 device. Implications (legal, copyright, e...
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by Brandon Miniman | July 6, 2011 10:01 AMEven though Windows Phone 7 Mango won't be shipping until later this year, you can still get it on most current Windows Phone 7 devices in beta form. If you don't have a WP7, or you do but you don't want to run beta software on it, you can now take Mango for a test drive on your HTC HD2! Here's how to get Mango on your HD2: 1. Follow the instructions to download and install magdlr if you haven't done so already 2. Download the Mango files from XDA 3. Put your HD2 into USB Flasher mode when prompted on HD2 boot up 4. Run DWI.exe from PC with HD2 connected
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by Anton D. Nagy | July 4, 2011 2:18 AMWe know that Windows Phone 7 Mango has been hacked over to the evergreen HTC HD2 and we even hope to see a public release sometime soon (probably even today) but until then there are a couple of videos to get you through the waiting. Yes, Windows Phone 7 Mango is working on the HD2 even if there are currently some things that do not, like the Marketplace, search or HTML 5 rendering in Internet Explorer. Other than that, just take a look at the two demo videos below to see how the beloved Leo is handling Redmond's upcoming greatest: Source: XDA Developers Via: WMPU
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by Anton D. Nagy | July 3, 2011 2:33 AMThis beast just wouldn't die! The HTC HD2 was probably the Taiwanese manufacturer's most popular smartphone ever and because of its solid specs it was able to run anything thrown at it, from Windows Mobile to Android and Windows Phone. Now it will get Windows Phone 7 Mango. The Dark Forces Team, same peeps that originally made Windows Phone 7 happen on the HD2, have a working Mango ROM for the Leo. It's not public yet but according to the forum posting a link should go up as early as tomorrow. Of course it will have its glitches due to the old (not Windows Phone 7-specific) hardware and the...
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by Anton D. Nagy | June 13, 2011 11:18 PMWith three days left until the release date of T-Mobile's HD2, we want to show you the differences between the T-Mobile version and the international version of the HD2. Size: T-Mobile HD2: 122x67x11mm / 4.803x2.637x0.433in HTC HD2: 120.5x67x11mm / 4.744x2.637x0.433in The T-Mobile HD2 is 1.5mm / 0.059in taller than the International HD2, a difference which in my book is negligible and I'm sure you'll find it too, in case you happen to own an international HD2, so no need to be affraid, it won't stand out compared to it. Both devices weigh 157 grams (5.54 ounces) with the battery attach...
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by GabePeters | May 16, 2011 1:48 PMYukiXDA over at XDA brings us a very thurough guide to disassembling a WP7 ROM for a device, introducing new components from other ROMs (Cooking), and rebuilding the resulting mash-up into a flashable ROM for your device. For a while now, we've had some Custom ROMs available for the HD2, and functioning Live services, but the knowledge to create these ROMs was limited to a small set of developers. With this post the process is now laid out in detail, allowing other developers to create custom ROMs for the HD2, and bringing us the first NoDo ROM for the device, which is also available from t...
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by Anton D. Nagy | April 5, 2011 2:50 AMWindows Phone 7 running on the HTC HD2 is probably well known to you by now as there's a NAND solution bringing the mobile platform to one of the most popular HTC smartphones. HTC branded Windows Phones get access to the HTC Hub and the Hub itself has been hacked enabling it to run on any (jailbroken or unlocked) smartphone running Windows Phone 7. Check out the video below to see the HTC Hub running on a Windows Phone 7 powered HTC HD2. Source: Twitter
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by Anton D. Nagy | March 30, 2011 6:35 AMIn mid-January we saw Windows Phone 7 running on the most popular HTC HD2 courtesy of developers from DFT and the device handled the new Redmond platform pretty well -- need to mention that it could be within the specs outlined by Microsoft for Windows Phone 7, give or take the buttons. Turns out that the same peeps at Dark Forces Team are working on a Windows Phone 7 NoDo port for the HTC HD2. There's also a video to prove it where you can clearly see that the new feature, Copy/Paste, is present and running on the smartphone. Check out the video below and let us know if you're anxious to g...
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