HD2, then what?

My indecision is final

A decision is due. It is not one I am looking forward to. Now like most people, I hover somewhere between the devil being in the detail
and blissful ignorance when making a choice. The more detail available, the harder the decision becomes for me at least.
Alternatively, going in blind or impulsively can lead to unexpected consequences and that is not always desirable. Getting to know when the balance right is a decision in itself and so it goes on. This is not to say I am indecisive. Well not in the technical sense of the
word at least. To me, indecision is still a decision albeit a passive one. If you are still reading you might be wondering where this is
going and I sympathise with that sentiment. Basically I am trying to figure out the apparently mandatory but convoluted processes going on in my head when it comes to getting something as mundane as a mobile phone.

A phone is a phone right?

For most of my life I have followed he typical business model in the UK. At the end of the phone contract you threaten to leave. They offer you an upgrade. You either accept this or move to another supplier offering the handset and deal you want. In the days of monochrome display Symbian handsets and WAP the choice was pretty simple. Then camera’s were added and then FM radios, then MP3 players and then meaningful internet access and then…, and then…, and then I end up with a Nokia N95. Now this was an excellent phone but Symbian was looking its age. Something else had happened too. It’s functionality was crippled by Vodafone who were terrified of the impact of VOIP on their profits. So I rooted it. Then the world changed because it was 1997  and the iPhone was upon us. So I got the Nokia N97 instead. Why? Well it had better functionality on paper so the detail indicated it was a better product. But it wasn’t. It was terrible. I rooted it and it was still terrible. It was probably the phone that killed Nokia. It should never have been released but I was stuck with it. I resolved to get an iPhone when my contract was up and was counting the days.

 

Fate

So I go on a trip to China and I loose my phone. There was of course the normal sense of crisis when such a thing occurs but also a sense of relief because the N97 was a liability. I bought a £30 knock off iPhone to cover whilst I was there. It was no worse than the

N97 and actually better in one respect because it was a genuine dual sim phone and has been more reliable. I still use it when travelling abroad and it is completely reliable. However it is only 2G and I needed a 3G device at home.  Being stuck in a middle of a
contract with only a SIM card, I was intending to buy a second hand iPhone. The prices for these even now are just mad and I’ve never been entirely comfortable with Apple. I always feel with Apple you are having to delegate your choices to fit their view of the world. I know this is absurd because all the corporates are trying to encase you into their own silo. It is just that Apple’s silo doesn’t resonate with me – the choice is more explicit if you like and once you know a bit of the detail it’s hard to fallback into the ignorance is bliss mode… especially at that price. So my requirement was a phone like a iPhone but cheaper and not a Nokia. Android at his time was in its infancy so what was left?  Looking round the second hand shops there was only one phone that stood out but initially I wasn’t keen. But it was bigger than an iPhone, looked OK and wasn’t definitely cheap. At that time they were almost being given away and were cheaper than a second hand Nokia N97. So I bought it despite my reservations.

HTC HD2

On first impressions it was cheep for a reason. It was a Windows Mobile 6.5 device and the future promised upgrade to Windows Phone 7 had been canned. Pure Windows Mobile 6 was worse than Symbian and the critics hated it. However HTC had put an accomplished Sense skin on it and it was usable, but I had the feeling I had ended up with a technical dodo. There were only a  few additional apps you could get. What I overlooked because I didn’t care, was the underlying device itself. It is extremely well made with a powerful spec. It had to be to handle Microsoft’s bloated OS. I am not sure whether it was out of spite or curiosity but there were others that did care. First they rooted the phone, then they started producing WM 6.5 ROMs, then the got the phone to dual boot WM 6.5 or Android running of the SD card, then Android running of NAND and now Win Phone 7. In fact the HD2 was faster running Win Phone 7 than most of the dedicated WP7 devices made by HTC and Samsung. There have even been reports of  the HD2 running Windows 95 and XP. I have followed that journey and my HD2 is running currently on Android Gingerbread. I love this phone to bits, as do others. I have been using it for 2 years and I could easily sell it and make a profit. But here lies the problem. The hardware won’t last forever and at some point it will need to be replaced with a modern equivalent. Choices, choices, decisions, decisions…