HTC * ( Touch Pro2 vs Universal )

[warning: no identity in this post]

Ahh, immense joy. Today coming back from work I found a nice surprise: a brand new HTC Touch Pro2. Well, not exactly a surprise, since I spent every idle moment refreshing the FedEx tracking page; but it’s always a nice feeling to unbox a new gadget (as long as it does not become a compulsion to film & post every unboxing, behaviour that appears to be quite widespread lately. Rule 34: no exceptions).

The thingy is light, snappy, sports an enormous display with mind-blowing resolution, the best thumb keyboard I’ve ever used, and above all moves me back to first place  in the “latest smartphone” arm’s race with my wife (she has an “old” Touch Pro, and until 2 hours ago I had a s730. HA!). It does lack US 3G, but I am usually pretty content with Edge: I live constantly surrounded by PCs readily available at arm’s length, for the few times I need connectivity while on the move I can wait a bit. The other thing I am not crazy about is the charger, a super-sized UK plug: apart from the times in which I travel to Singapore (rare) or London (even more rare), that just takes a lot of room without a bringing any ROI. This is not the first time I have a phone with such a charger: 4 years ago I bought a JasJar (HTC Universal), a behemoth which was really good as PDA but a tad oversized as a phone, which forced me to go around with a fanny pack (and very briefly with a man’s purse) which was handy for keeping the rear pockets of my jeans in good shape, but that regularly unleashed hilarity among colleagues, friends & detractors alike. Now, that was a long sentence. Well, I needed an adapter and I thought I could find it in the original box of the Universal, which in turn was in the den’s closet, sleeping the sleep of the just in the geological strata that can be dated to our last move. I sure found the adapter (too many, in fact: a UK->Italy and a Italy->US), but even more interestingly I found the Universal itself. The thing is much, much bigger than the TouchPro2: keeping them side by side makes it so incredibly obvious that I felt compelled to shoot few pictures and write this silly blog entry for sharing them with you.

I know that the following is the quintessential commonplace about technology, nevertheless I can’t help but being amazed at this magical force that packs more power & features in smaller and slicker form factors. In front of this, a little overstretching of my jean’s pockets truly is a little sacrifice… at least I won’t have to dig out the fanny pack!