♥ Princessa's Royal Diary ♥ - Royalty has never been so PINK!

Ever since the launch of HTC Dream I've been fascinated by the Android platform - yes, I like it more than the iPhone. The only real problem with the Dream is the... Erm... Well... Battery life actually. Basically that's the only thing that's holding me back from grabbing one off the shelves.

But no, this isn't about the Dream, it's the HTC Magic that is the star of this show.

Admittedly, I am bias when it comes to Android. I've devoted my feelings towards this platform since the day I attending the launch of the Dream. However, as a soon to be ex-writer of a tech publication, it is important to be un-bias towards the products when doing a review (like that's ever going to happen).

As I've mentioned, the issue I face with the Dream is it's battery life, but the Magic seems to have it all figured out (so I've heard, and yes, I've tested).

Through Nuffnang, I was given the opportunity to play with the Magic for a whole week (or close to a week at least). I literally jumped out of my chair in the office when I read the email. It was like a dream come true - I was rather jealous that Adine got to play with it earlier and I didn't.

I remember having this conversation with Gina (from The Right Spin) saying that I would still prefer the Dream to the Magic during the launch of the Magic itself. Just for the record, I'm taking those words back those words right now! The Dream has it's pros; QWERTY keyboard, interesting slider and it was one of the first of it's kind. However, the Magic's longer battery life (major plus point), sleek/slim design and white shell (it comes in black too) overrules it all - the Magic is truly magical!

I am a little bias towards the Android platform but it's not without justification.

Touch-screen

The touch-screen is fast and very sensitive. However, having long nails does somewhat make "touching" the screen a little more tricky then it should be. So for ladies (or even gents) that have long nails like mine, the trackball comes in pretty handy.

With it, if I'm not able to accurately tap something on the screen, I could use the trackball to get to it.

QWERTY keyboard

Well, unlike the Dream, the Magic doesn't have a slide-out QWERTY keyboard so you'd need to use the digital one to type.

But like I've mentioned, the touch-screen is fast and very sensitive, so typing is pretty much a breeze.

Making a phone call

I'm not sure if other mobile phones have this feature but I'm pretty pleased with the Smart Search on the Magic.

This is how it works:

Quick filtering with a touch! ;x

Customisation of own pin

Have I mentioned that this phone allows you to customise your own pin using a pattern instead of just numbers?

Camera

Honestly, with 8-megapixel camera phones (I recall there's even a 12-megapixel one or something) in the market, a 3.2-megapixel one really can't compete. But hey, if you're not looking for digital camera quality but one that lets you snap a shot and load it up to TwitPic (or such) immediately...

This definitely does the trick (and it has auto focus too)!

Android Market

Android Market is basically an applications (aka apps) download website, similar to that of a shopping website, which is integrated in the Magic.

Personally, I use the Magic as my mobile surfing device rather then just a mobile phone per sa. So there are a couple of apps that I just had to HAVE!

For example:

1. Hi MSN Pre: It's basically a MSN Messenger that allows me to stay online and chat with my friends at any place, at any time (places like SingTel building is outta the question since my mobile broadband is StarHub). There are many such apps around but so far it's the one that I feel most comfortable with – personal preference thingie.

2. Twidroid: First and foremost, to be even the slightest bit interested in this app you have to be someone that tweets. It works pretty much like TweetDeck but a scaled down version I would say.

I cannot live without Twitter! I don't know why really...

Viewing of documents

I'll be honest here, reading documents through my mobile phone has never been something I'm fond of. It has got nothing to do with the phone really, it's more of me not wanting to read "documents" so to speak - documents equals work, get the picture?

Anyway, in case you're not the kind of person I am, this is something you gotta know! With the Magic, you can basically view all kind of documents - I am sooo not pulling your leg here!

For example:

1. Microsoft Excel
2. Microsoft Words
3. Adobe PDF

The list continues...

Mobile surfing

I have to admit. I was a little tempted to get an iPhone initially because I needed a mobile phone that could access website properly (some phones I can't even load my blog) and at the quickest speed (I'm quite impatient when comes to surfing the Internet).

Fortunately, the Dream proved that it could satisfy both aspects and so did the Magic!

My personal blog (www.sabrina.sg) is kinda not build for mobile phones (can view but not pretty) - this is about to change of course. So for examples I'm using my gadget blog (www.sabbymonster.com) instead.

In case you hadn't already guessed. Flash is something the Magic currently doesn't support, come to think of it, many mobile phones don't.

So yeah, watching YouTube through www.youtube.com is a big no-no; even loading my flash header is a no-no already. However, that doesn't mean you cannot download the free player to watch YouTube clips! Just something I though you'd like to know... ;x

Alerts

Did you know that the Android platform multi-tasks?

I like the fact that every time someone emails me or tweets I get an alert (the blinking light catches my attention quite a bit really).

Specifications

I should but I won't. I am not going into the phone specifications. If you're interested, check out the official website instead!

Conclusion

Needless to say, it is the phone for me and probably you too!

What more can you ask from apart from style, usability and so-on-so-forth?

Before I forget!

HTC Magic Android Market On-Ground Activity

Events dates and venue:

Since we've missed most of June already, we should really take note of what's lined up in July:

July 4th & 5th: Orchard

The event theme derives from the concept of a hyper mart where shopping carts will be used to showcase the different capabilities of the new HTC Magic phone.

The whole idea is to create excitement for this stylish Android phone so as to educate the mass about the product. It will be an on-ground event to allow the public to try out the phone and create awareness via various activities.

Here's a sexy/cool looking ad!

So yes, point being, COME DOWN AND HAVE SOME FUN! :)