HTC Dopod hands-on

Carlo from The Unwired dropped by my office (again) showing off his latest expensive toy, the HTC Dopod. After my initial impressions that the Dopod would be the “end-it-all” device for the mobile warrior, I changed my mind after spending an hour playing with it.

True to its features, the Dopod is a mobile warrior’s dream come true – swivel screen, huge keyboard, phone, Windows Mobile 5, 3G dual camera, and a megapixel class camera at the back of the unit. All for the hefty price of a weee bit more that $1,200.00 (roughly 63,000.00 Philippine Pesos as of this date). Makes you want to rethink whether you should invest in this baby or get a brand new notebook computer.

Features aside, the Dopod is one huge mother err .. farker. Here are some pictures showing how big the bulge it will cause in your pocket. In “spread eagle” mode, the Dopod covers a huge surface area of my 12-inch iBook.

Because the keyboard is huge, it actually becomes awkward to use. It isn’t small enough to comfortable type with your two thumbs and too huge to be used with your two hands.

Pros

• Long battery life when using WiFi
• Very loud stereo audio

Cons

• Keyboard size works against you
• Device is too huge to carry around comfortably
• Megapixel camera isn’t that great (as I would expect from most WM camera devices)