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It is rainy day when I arrived at IT Hypermall the day after Christmas. About an hour later, I came out RM1.5k poorer, thanks to HTC Magic. The long dreamed Android smartphone finally in my pocket, ready to rock!
HTC Magic position itself between HTC Hero, the HTC’s Android based smartphone flagship model and HTC Tattoo, the slightly low end model running on Android 1.6. Compared to Windows Mobile smartphone, it is relatively an easy task choosing Android smartphone of your choice due to limited model we have currently in Malaysian market.
There are 17 Android based smartphone models available worldwide if I’m not mistaken, but I’m quite surprised to see only Android smartphones from HTC currently in sale (at the outlet). Well, since I already set HTC Magic as my first Android smartphone, the rest of the model doesn’t really matter now..
HTC Magic has been in the market for about 6 months, so I left the review part to this post, which covers almost everything. You know, GSMArena is always over delivered on it’s review, which why I trust them whenever I’m going to shop for new smartphone.
On my end, I’m more into the inner side of the smartphone such as the interesting apps, function and feature of the smartphone which you should start to see in the next few days, hopefully.
There are couple of things that almost end me up with Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone. But luckily I’m sticking to my target. Before you decide to buy HTC Magic or any Android phone and using it in the country outside of the US, please be aware of following drawback. If you live in the US, that’s not going to be the big deal, as it’s there by default.
- No Android Market. By default, Android smartphone sold in South East Asean countries (such as Malaysia, Vietnam) doesn’t have it. It remind be of Blackberry App World that I have to install using the workaround. Imagine iPhone without its App Store, unimaginable?? Gone all the excitement in iPhone!!
You won’t be able to fully utilized to phone to its extent. Although there is workaround to install it (by flashing the ROM), but hey, not everyone has the skills to do that.
- No GPS Software – HTC Magic is equipped with GPS but without GPS software and MAPS by default. Garmin?? Don’t ever dream of it. Jump to Windows Mobile smart phone which has the GPS app and maps pre-installed if you really wanted it.
But the good news is, Papago X5 and maps (for Malaysia) had just been released recently. It is not free though and I’m not sure if it is good enough.
Seriously, it really need more effort to enjoy Android smartphone in this part of the world, just like other Android users in the US or other developed countries who enjoy the phone without risking their ‘life’. There are workarounds available on the net, but it may void the warranty and in the worst case may turns it to brick.
But because my ultimate goal of having Andoid phone is for blogging purpose, just like how I use other smartphones run on Symbian, iPhone OS and Blackberry OS, and not for just daily usage, it is thousands times more worth than the amount that I have to part away and the time I have spent to get it works the way I want.
Anyway, here are some photos of the phone that I snap the day after I ‘kaw-kaw’ testing it. Gorgeous right!
