I have been using HTC Touch HD for more two months now and I'm generally happy with it.
My previous phone is O2 Atom Life with Intel XScale® PXA 270 Processor at 624 MHz, it's really fast. I don't know why newer phones generally only have 528 MHz speed, you would expect newer phones to have faster specs. But anyway, the main weakness of O2 is that it hangs and freezes A LOT. Averagely, I have to reset the phone twice a day. The phone signal is also not the strongest.
I got Samsung Omnia i900 to replace O2 and immediately gave it to my husband after 3 days of use. He was using Nokia so didn't really feel the difference, but for me the speed and touch screen sensitivity of Omnia is way below O2. I love the big screen, color, and design, but just can't stand the less sensitive screen (although it has improved with the newly released official ROM).
Finally, I tried the HTC Touch HD, which has better speed and touch screen sensitivity, not the best, but acceptable. Undeniably, I think that currently, iphone has the best touch screen speed and sensitivity (I don't own one, but have played around with my friend's). However, I still decided to stick with Windows Mobile system as I use the Office application quite often and I like to be able to easily sync data with my computer. I also like the freedom to customize/tweak my phone according to my likes.
I use cooked ROM with the new contact list and dialer (Topaz/Rhodium based), which has better interface and features such as linking contacts to facebook friends. The Full QWERTY input is also better and easier to type.
My main usage of the phone is to make calls (of course), messaging, calendar, reading e-book, word and excel for inputting data, surfing the net when traveling. I don't really use the music player, movie, stock, and email function.
Here are my experiences so far:
- System is quite stable. It has never hang/freeze so far. It also doesn't lag. When I have too many programs opened or didn't soft reset for days, then sometimes there might be 3 seconds or so delay when changing from one program to another. But the problem is usually solved when I soft reset or close all those opened programs.
- Touchscreen sensitivity and speed is good. Although it does take a while for first time touch-phone user to get the hang of how much pressure to use, gestures, etc.
- Text input is also great. As I mentioned I love the new full qwerty keyboard. It's very easy to type and I make very little typing mistake.
- Quality of call and signal is good. It's very clear, no noise/disturbance.
- The display is beautiful. Very nice and crisp color. It's much better than Samsung Omnia's display. I compared them side by side and Omnia's display and color appeared to be more blurry type.
- Camera and video quality is just average, no flash. They are very plain. Not too many special features. You can take good quality picture/video under good lighting condition, but nothing too exciting.
- The speaker for music playing is just average. It's probably not as good as Sony Ericson's music-phone.
- Battery life is good. For average usage (making calls, texting) it can last around 3 days (this is with the cooked ROM) and I always turn off the data connection at night. I've read that with original ROM it could last up to 5 days (depending on usage of course).