Customer Reviews

HTC Magic Android Google 2 Unlocked SmartPhone--International Version with NoU.S. Warranty (Black)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm an Apple guy. Always have been. I'm writing this on a MacBook Pro connected to an AirPort. I have an iPod, an Apple coffee mug, t-shirts from the various Macworld Expos I've attended, and even an Apple sticker on my car. So when it came time for me to join the 21st century and get my first "smart" phone, naturally I chose ... an HTC myTouch for T-Mobile.

Come again?

Okay, I've had iPhone envy for years now and have been spending my recent lunch hours playing with the new iPhone 3GS at the Apple Store in the mall connected to my office. I really like it, but I've been a happy T-Mobile customer for years now, since they were VoiceStream, and was reluctant to change carriers, especially with all the bad press about AT&T's coverage. (Apparently, there are so many iPhone users using their iPhones so much that the system can't handle the traffic, resulting in slow or no 3G connections and poor or non-existent call quality.) So the other day I stopped in at my local Radio Shack and found that they had the myTouch. None of them were "live," so the saleswoman let me pop my sim card into a brand new black one and play with it for a while. After she told me I could return the phone, without penalty, within 30 days if I didn't like it, I figured, why not? So I left the store with that new black myTouch in my pocket.

First impressions? It's a beautiful little phone. The screen is bright and colorful and I get a good connection to the internet and my e-mail. Calls are clear and strong, as always, and there are lots of free apps from the Android Market. The myTouch works seamlessly with my .Mac account, as well as my Gmail account, and everything is automatically synched between the phone and my Google calendar and contacts. I was a little concerned about no iTunes access, but there's a great free program called Double Twist that allows me to easily copy all of my content -- songs, photos, video, and more -- from my computer to the phone, so it's like having iTunes on the phone. Overall, it's a lot like an iPhone, only the T-Mobile service is cheaper than AT&T, and from all the complaints I've heard and read about, it's also more reliable.

Other reviewers have complained about the speed of e-mail, but my e-mails -- Gmail and my .Mac mail -- are very fast. I have the phone set to check every 5 minutes and have no lag at all. As for the keyboard, it's not that bad, but you can download the free HTC keyboard or buy the Better Keyboard or TouchPal, all of which work better -- problem solved.

So, at the end of 30 days, what am I going to do? The Apple-loving side of me would still like an iPhone, but there really isn't any need for one, given that the myTouch does just about everything the iPhone does, and it does it for less, and more reliably to boot. The iPhone undoubtedly has more available apps, but the Android Market already has thousands, most of which I couldn't care less about. Many more are sure to come. As much of an Apple fan as I am, I'm having a hard time justifying the extra cost of the AT&T service, particularly given all of the problems they're having. (I have lots of friends with iPhones and they all love it, but concede that it drops calls all the time, and that the call quality isn't that great. Call me old-fashioned, but I think a phone -- "smart" or not -- should be able to handle calls first and foremost.) And because the myTouch is still new, there aren't that many floating around yet, whereas the iPhone is now ubiquitous; even my 10 year old daughter's friend has one!

So, while I've only had it a couple weeks, I'm very impressed with the myTouch and think I'll be keeping it.

I've had my MyTouch (HTC Magic) for a month and a half. Overall, I love the phone, but I found it has a few things that drive me a bit crazy.

Pros:
-There are a ton of apps.
-The cost of the T-mobile service is much cheaper than the AT&T rates.
-Where I live, T-Mobile coverage is very good.
-Fast networking speeds.
-Easy to search and download apps. Marketplace is even easier than the iPhone store.
-Sound is pretty decent, both via the headset and voice.
-Google voice search is included, and available right off the main screen.
-Enabled GPS makes for fantastic, easy searching, and works well with my running apps. It's able to map and track my position and speed.
-Can use a wireless connection instead of the 3G network - very easy to set-up.
-If you don't clear your text logs, the texts will continue to be stored under the person's name who sent them. This is easier to navigate than having texts from unrelated people.
-Mobile uploads of pictures and video has worked well, and quickly.
-Can easily set up multiple alarms. Can even make them sound like the ring on your phone in order to scoot out of a date that is going poorly.
-Syncs well with Gmail calendars. (I haven't tried syncing with other ones).
-Portable, fits well in pockets or pocketbooks (even when I'm carrying a small clutch).
-Screen resolution is good; very easy to read e-books or PDFs.

Cons:
-I was new to the virtual keyboard world. It took me about an hour or two to really be able to type with any accuracy when the phone was in the portrait position. There are different keyboard apps that actually work better (imho) than the one that is included the with phone.
-The battery life is pretty abysmal.
-Leaving wireless connections up seems to drain the battery faster.
-Bluetooth functioning is different from any other phone that I've used. There is a setting where you can turn on bluetooth, set your phone to be discoverable, and pair the phoe with a bluetooth earpiece. After pairing, my other phones always "knew" when I had the bluetooth headset on, and automatically switched to use that when I turned on the bluetooth. With the MyTouch, you have to either keep the bluetooth setting on, or manually turn it on when you want to use the headset. For me, I leave it off, because it seems like having the bluetooth functionality drains the battery.
-There is a delay when using bluetooth; it takes 1 or 2 seconds after the call has been answered before the bluetooth headset "activates" for listening and talking.
-Camera does not have a flash. The camera takes terrible pictures under non-bright conditions (i.e. indoors).
-One of the biggest complaints I have is over the stupid design of the headset/earphone connection. There is not a plug for a typical headset or earphone jack; instead, the mini-USB port has a connector that is needed for a standard telephone headset/earphone. This means I have to keep a second adapter around for when I want to use my phone to listen to music and/or connect a headset to talk.
-I haven't found a way to delete e-mails I've read off the server, which means that when I refresh, the previously read e-mails show up as unread again. This may be a user error (if so, I'd love feedback about how to do that).

I have a pretty old Hotmail account that I set up, which had to be done "long hand" because the account was old. However, there were instructions to follow, so that was no problem. I was able to easily set up my gmail and Yahoo! accounts. I haven't experienced any long delays from creation to sending as other reviewers have reported.

Overall, I love the convenience of my MyTouch smartphone. I like being able to browse online while waiting in line or on the bus. I'd give it 5 stars if the battery life was longer; if the bluetooth connected seamlessly, and if they had a separate jack for headphones/earphones-microphone combo.

It's a great looking phone and the touch screen works smooth. I have already dropped it a few times, and it still works great.
BUT! what really iritates, and upsets me is that it does not come with "market" so I can't download ANY applications, so I'm just stuck with what the phone came with. The only way I can get market on this phone is if I had Windows XP (I have Vista) from what I've read and already tried to do.

Ive tried pretty much everything mainstream , blackberry bold , blackberry flip , iphone and even the sidekick. (not available in Canada). And then , after many disappointments from apple , rim and sharp, this phone is a step up . People call this the iPhone wannabe , but its a completely different phone , with a different look and different features. I LOVE the android OS , its so personalized , and very versatile unlike the iPhone and Blackberry OS's.I'm not a big fan of touch screens but i found this phone , and it immediately caught my eye.

Now to the phone, i love it , it has goods and obviously some bads .

Pros:
Looks Great
Pocket able
Very Responsive touch screen
Trackball , useful when touch screen gets annoying
Good Camera, defiantely better than i Phone
A good number of apps
Very user friendly , unlike blackberry OS
Great Media Player
Unique , not many people have it
Great Web Browser
Call quality is fantastic
There is a GAMEBOY app , brings back memories.....

Cons:
No 3.5 mm headset jack
The whole phone slows down when the usb headphones are plugged in
Prone to Fingerprints
Keyboard could be alot better , but better than most touch screen phones , but not as good as iPhone
No Flash on the pretty good camera
Start up is pretty slow

Overall , this is a good phone , but i dont plan on keeping it too long , i got this to try the android OS , and i loved it , i want to try the nexus one , supposedly the best android out there

I got this phone primarily as a portable electronic calendar, and for this purpose it works really well. While not an iPhone competitor, the phone is a decent member of a platform that is rapidly maturing, but is still raw.

Pros:
- Open Platform - can download apps from the Android Market or from any other website.
- Android Market - not a large as the iPhone's but is sizable for a young platform and is growing.
- Attractive. Good compromise between a large screen and small form factor and low weight.
- Sound quality is good during calls.
- Integration with the Google Account, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, Google Talk.
- Great browser.
- Bright and crisp screen.
- Open Development - programmers can develop apps for free and post them on their website for people to download (don't have to go through the Market).
- Voice Search and Voice Dialing. Mostly work well.
- Centralized alert notification at the top.
- Multitasking. More than one program can run at any given time. Can be an issue if one program monopolizes resources unnecessarily, thus starving other programs.
- WiFi, the option to cancel the data plan. Since for me a data plan isn't worth $25/month, I canceled it after the first month. Had to get it initially to activate, but now I'm managing fine with just. Obviously, if the phone is subsidized, you have to get data.

Cons:
- Sluggish, at least partially due to slow hardware. Occasionally, slows down to a painful crawl, apparently because a background application is doing a lot of processing and hogging up the resources.
- Built-in storage for the OS and apps (512MB) could be larger. I've got 208MB free with only 2-3 dozens of apps. The SD card provides extra storage for data, but can't install apps there without jailbreaking the phone.
- Battery life isn't as bad as the G1, but could be better. WiFi and the Compass drain the battery. Haven't played much with GPS and Bluetooth to tell how energy efficient they are.
- Stock soft keyboard is sluggish. Alternative keyboards are allegedly better.
- No full backup. Backup apps on the market only backup part of the phone, not everything. This is due to design of the OS.
- Calendar quirks: entries sometimes temporarily disappear when I change their time (always reappear though); modifying a calendar entry doesn't modify a notification for that entry that popped up before the entry was modified; in agenda view, if click on an appointment, edit it and go back to the agenda, the scroll position is not at the entry that was clicked (seems to scroll to today, no matter the day); in Agenda view, can only see one month at a time.
- Calendar entries are time-specific. Would like the ability to have tasks that are not tied to a time slot.
- No native Microsoft Exchange support in OS 1.5.
- Camera is not great, especially in low-light settings. No flash.
- Need for a converter to connect the headphones.
- Since there is no approval process for developers to post their apps on the Android Market and since people can install apps from any source, there is greater potential for malicious apps than on the iPhone. For example, there is a great alternative keyboard that I'm not using because it was created by an unknown entity.
- Slippery, a fingerprint magnet.

I'm still stuck in another year of T-Mobile contract, and so rather than pay the $200, I thought I'd try this - the MyTouch. At first, I thought it would do th job - until I received my first email with an attachment... I have already returned the phone to T-Mobile, and returned to my Blackberry.

The phone is cute, a good size, easy to configure and pretty easy to use for basic functions. Sound quality is good. However, it has some idiotic constraints. If you get an attachment at G-Mail, it can be opened and viewed. If you get one at a POP mail account you have set up on the phone... well, tough. The attachment cannot be opened.

In any case, why have different icons for different email accounts in the first place? As another reviewer has noted, email seems S L O W. Maybe the synch settings needed changing? If so, I couldn't find out how to do so.

No flash with the otherwise good camera.

The keyboard sucks. If you need to go back to correct a word, positioning the cursor in a specific place is intensely frustrating. Sometimes the space "key" just wouldn't work (as it was at the edge of the screen, maybe?).

So - I will be waiting for my contract to expire to get an iPhone, or maybe just decide to splurge and pay the get-out fee...

This is a very nice phone. Feels good in your hands when you are on a call. Beautiful screen, great sound and I have had ZERO trouble with anything including getting my g-mail. Wireless was a breeze to set up. I am using this on AT&T and the only thing I had to do was input the internet setting to be able to access it. No big deal, al you have to do is google "HTC magic internet settings for AT&T" and bam I had allot to choose from. Andriod seems very stable. I tried the AT&T Pure and that was just awful. SLOW browser. In fact the Magic browser running on EDGE was faster then the Pure running on 3G. It just took forever to load. I don't know why AT&T is late to the game with an android phone. I will never go back to Windows Mobile.

I only wish that it supported 3G, but that wasn't a deal breaker. This phone can hold a signal, unlike the iphone, which I sold to buy this because its RF unit is sub--par.

Does anyone know if I can update this to Donut 1.6? I didn't see a software update in the setting menu.

Pros:
- No Camera button to get in the way.
- Very comfortable size.
- Warm and fussy open source feeling
- Can use t-mobiles 3g

Cons
- It goes through power like a hummer in the fast lane and will not make it through an 8 hour work day without some kind of power management.
- The keyboard is useless there is a better one for sale but it is still pretty painful.
- Email is worthless unless it is gmail. No attachments, all messages downloaded every time, no bulk delete or mark as read, repeat notification for the same messages.
- The dial pad tends to freeze after you dial so I can not dial an extension reliably.
- The all purpose notification bar is a miserable UI nightmare making it hard to get info you care about and sort trough everything you already know.
- There is a painful lag between task switching. For example you get a test message with a phone number and extension. It takes practice to navigate back to the extension and return to the dial pad in time to dial.
- The calendar is only Google calendar no direct syncing with the pc
- The bluetooth is really limited too. No voice dialing and it only works with basic head sets. This is the only phone I have had that only calls go through the ear piece. Videos and notification tone are all through the speaker.
- There are basically no apps worth downloading. Visual voicemail looked wonderful but didn't work reliably. I bought the call blocker but it doesn't work.
- No one is buying android apps so the developers wanting to get paid are all moving on.

My Touch (HTC Magic) - T-Mobile

This could've been a slick iPhone wannabe but the Android virtual keyboard sinks the entire experience. Typing on this thing is torture. Mistakes are just about impossible to avoid and the spelling/word suggestions make it worse. If you manage any kind of speed on this keyboard, you'll be treated to a wall of lag that will only get worse as you add apps and more functionality to the phone.

Paid replacement keyboards don't provide much of an improvement and neither does the free HTC Keyboard which I use by default. I get the best results using T9 on HTC. The design of the virtual keyboard in general seems incidental to the design of Android itself. Stick to a physical keyboard if you're looking to do quick, efficient messaging.

Pros
1. Good high end phone for casual use.
2. Nice looking phone... especially in Merlot.
3. Google - voice search, sky, maps.
4. Gmail sync.
5. Web browsing. Excellent on 3G and WiFi.
6. Size - It's close to not being a brick.
7. Media player.

Cons
1. Virtual Keyboard is terrible... almost useless. It's the deal breaker.
2. Android App store stinks. A handful of useful apps. The rest are buggy junk.
3. Email client is broken. Try K9.
4. Camera has no basic editing options. It's bare bones. You need a camera app! Takes good pics though.
5. If you're crazy enough to do word docs etc on this phone you'll need the expensive app doc2go.
6. The phone often lags with some basic touch functions and when the phone switches from portrait to landscape mode. Very annoying.
7. There is NO way of organizing web browser bookmarks natively on the phone. What a joke!
8. Battery stinks.
9. In too many ways this phone is crippled. The hardware and OS need work.

6/29/2010 T-mobile is now releasing a new version of this phone called My Touch Slide. Apparently someone owned up to how bad the first virtual keyboard was so now they're offering a new virtual "swype keyboard" with a physical keyboard to back it up. Sounds like a bad movie sequel. I've moved on.

I hope everyone reads my review with an open mind.

I am a former iPhone user, turned Blackberry, and now a HTC Magic (MyTouch 3G) user. I have been drooling over the G1 for quite sometime. I think its internet, menu system, and qwerty keyboard make it a worthwhile investment. It's definitely for any cell phone crowd that's heavy into texting and emailing. I held off on buying a G1 because of the physical design. I found the bottom chin of the phone to be a massive turn off. Plus, everyone that I knew who had the G1 kept telling me how horrid the battery life was. From that comment, I figured out why they were always carrying their charger with them.

Here we are, almost a year later and the G2 has been released. Known as the HTC Magic in Europe and the MyTouch 3G here in the US on T-Mobile. I was so excited to get this phone & as soon as I got home & fiddled around with it - I immediately lost interest after 10 mins. I thought the integration with the Gmail address was great. I sent my Gmail address an email from my AOL account to see how long it would be before I received the email & needless to say, it took over 30 mins. Even when I went into the account and clicked REFRESH, it still wouldn't come through. I added in my AOL account & it was the same. You can set the phone to check for emails every five mins, ten mins, fifteen mins, and so forth. Certain emails took a whole day before I even received it. This was not a good sign.

Another major flaw of the G2 is the lack of a real keyboard. I thought I could handle the virtual keyboard since I had an iPhone, but the G2 can not handle multiple entries. It can only handle one letter at a time and then you move onto the next. This makes typing text and emails a horrific experience. Especially if you are an EXPERT and you've been texting & emailing on a cell phone for a long time. The iPhone had no problem with this at all.

The camera is only 3.2 megapixel and it's not the best, but it does the trick. The camcorder is really lacking features. It's simple & there are no options or settings changes allowed. The batter, much like the G1, leaves little to be desired.

Pros:
None

Cons:
Almost everything!