BGR has learned from a trusted source that HTC is preparing to switch up the company’s strategy a bit in 2012. In order to focus getting quality products to market, we have heard that HTC’s release schedule is going to be shockingly quiet for most of the first quarter next year. HTC will also release fewer phones overall in 2012 compared to 2011, we’re told. We’ve also been given exclusive details surrounding several upcoming phones from the Taiwan-based vendor, including HTC’s first 4G Windows Phone for AT&T and its flagship Android handset for the first half of the year. Hit the break for more.

HTC is currently set to deliver an HTC Titan-like smartphone with a 4.7-inch display and 4G LTE to AT&T — the first LTE Windows Phone we know of — and the release date is currently slated for February 5th, so we should expect a CES announcement. Additionally, we got word that HTC’s flagship handset for the first half of 2012 will be called the HTC Elite. Joining the HTC Ville and HTC Edge, the Elite will obviously run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and it will also have Beats Audio as well. AT&T is going to carry the handset according to our source, and it may launch as the “HTC Congressional,” sad though it may be. The phone is currently scheduled to launch during the first or second week of April. That’s all we have for you for the time being, but stay tuned as we’re working on getting our hands on photos of both phones.

This post originally appeared on BGR: The Three Biggest Letters In Tech.com

Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform is in a peculiar place right now. Those who use the year-old mobile operating system typically offer glowing accounts of their experiences, but adoption has been anything but brisk. Carriers aren’t pushing Windows Phones with any effort worth noting — in fact, retail staffers at U.S. carrier shops have been known to steer customers away from the platform according to various reports — and in the second quarter of 2011, Microsoft’s share of the mobile market may have hit an all-time low. Microsoft’s deal with Nokia finally bore fruit this week however, and the second wave of Windows Phones has begun trickling out into the market. Among the Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango” devices that have been announced to date, one in particular stands taller than the rest, both literally and figuratively. In this review, we take a look at the AT&T-bound HTC Titan to see if it’s worthy of its grandiose moniker.

The Inside

Ever since Microsoft first took the wraps off its next-generation mobile platform “Windows Phone Series 7″ in early 2010, I’ve been intrigued. Like webOS, Microsoft’s operating system appeared to offer a fresh take on the smartphone user experience. When handsets finally started shipping ahead of the holidays last year, Windows Phone delivered. It was fresh, it was unique and it was a pleasure to use. Unfortunately for Microsoft and its partners, however, consumers didn’t seem to care.

Windows Phone was truly a pleasure to use, but it was also quite clearly rushed. I can’t really blame Microsoft for rushing its new mobile platform out the door, of course, as Windows Mobile had effectively been dead for some time already. Android and iOS were crushing the market and Microsoft needed something to lure its vendor partners away from Android. And so Windows Phone 7 was born, but almost immediately dropped off at the orphanage. Vendors didn’t bother promoting the devices, carriers didn’t bother promoting the devices… even Microsoft fell oddly silent as its new platform was cast aside.

Enter Windows Phone 7.5, code-named “Mango” after a fruit so sweet when it’s ripe, it is almost impossible to resist. This was to be the company’s opportunity to regroup and deliver a series of blistering fastballs after a bases-loaded balk saw its opponents’ lead grow wider. All eyes were on London this week as Nokia unveiled its first two Windows Phones, but HTC’s Titan is already upon us, carrying Microsoft’s latest mobile OS on what is likely the largest display it will ever see.

The HTC Titan is a beast. Its 4.7-inch display gives Windows Phone a canvas that is nearly tablet-like, and the 1.5GHz Snapdragon processor driving the device makes one of the world’s smoothest operating system even smoother. In the two weeks I have been carrying the Titan, I have yet to see a crash, bogging, lag, or anything else of the sort. I can’t even say that about iOS.

Animations flutter about on the Titan, and native apps open into a usable state in the blink of an eye. The user interface is unbelievably smooth, and the UI “sticks” to one’s finger during navigation just as well as iOS. Scrolling in apps is also lag-free, though inertia scrolling is still a bit off. When the user releases a finger following a flick, the scroll seems to accelerate at the same rate regardless of how hard the user flicks. It’s awkward but hardly a major problem.

My biggest performance-related issue is the amount of time it takes most apps to refresh with new data. On AT&T’s HSPA network, data speeds are fast and latency is quite low. I regularly saw download speeds of between 2Mbps and 4Mbps during my tests in and around New York City, and upload speeds hovered between 1Mbps and 1.5Mbps while connected to HSPA. Even still, it can take 5, 6 or even 10 seconds or more for an app to refresh with even the smallest amount of new data. I haven’t quite pinpointed the culprit yet — different developers tell me different things, though everyone I’ve spoken with recognizes the issue — but I suspect that it’s often a combination of the OS and developers’ inexperience with coding apps for it.

Beyond that, I can’t stress enough how much I’m enjoying Mango. The “tombstoning” feature akin to application state-saving in iOS is implemented quite well, and apps that take advantage of it load from the background almost instantly. Enhanced multitasking features in the next major Windows Phone release will bring even more capabilities to developers and users alike, but the current solution is fast and elegant.

The Outside

The Titan is huge. There’s no reason to beat around the bush.

Supersized smartphones are becoming more popular each month — probably due in large part to the fact that vendors are flooding the market — and there are definitely advantages and disadvantages to carrying a phone this massive.

At 5.18-inches tall by 2.78-inches wide by 0.39-inches thick, the Titan is even bigger than the Samsung Galaxy S II. At 160 grams, it’s also more than 20 grams heavier. I like a heavy phone, and the Titan’s solid build and high-quality materials are more than worth the added heft to me. The majority of the smartphone’s case is comprised of beautiful brushed aluminum, save for a small rubber-feel area near the top of the rear case and a larger one at the bottom where the antenna sits.

Across the top of the phone sits a power/lock/unlock button, a small hole for the noise-canceling mic and a 3.5-millimeter audio jack. The right edge of the device is home to a slim two-stage camera button that sits beneath an equally slim volume rocker, and the left edge sports a lone micro-USB port. The bottom houses only the phone’s main microphone and a battery door release button.

On the rear of the device is a sizable camera lens flanked by a dual-LED flash and a speaker. I’ll discuss the camera more extensively a bit later. The face of the phone is made up almost entirely of smooth, oil-resistant glass. Three customary capacitive Windows Phones buttons sit across the bottom, and a front-facing camera is positioned near the top below the phone’s ear speaker. Voice calling is quite clear on the Titan, and the speaker gets loud enough to be used comfortably in noisy environments.

One thing that should not be overlooked about the exterior of the Titan is the design. Like the Sensation, HTC’s Titan features a unique unibody design that has the rear case of the device wrap around the side and top. The “guts” of the phone then sit inside the case, creating a design that positions all seams directly around the display. The result is not only gorgeous, it also means there are no uncomfortable seams to be felt by the user’s hands.

The Upside

As a complete package, the Titan is easily one of my favorite Windows Phone to date. The build is phenomenal and the Windows Phone 7.5 operating system is like greased lightning. I’m also a huge fan of live tiles.

Microsoft’s home screen UI, for those unfamiliar with Windows Phone, is tile-based. It is comprised of a grid of square and rectangular tiles that cascade endlessly. The result is a tidy home base that provides a welcome alternative to static icons. These tiles, if enabled, provide the user with information dynamically and can be updated frequently.

For example, my favorite simple weather app WeatherLive displays the current temperature, the temperature range for the day, and a graphical representation of the current weather conditions. When it rains, I see a storm cloud and rain drops. When it’s sunny, a big sharp sun covers the bulk of the tile. Another example is my favorite Google Reader-compatible RSS Reader, Wonder Reader. When enabled, the app periodically flashes headlines across the tile to let me know I have new articles waiting to be read. Messaging apps display unread counts, the Photo Hub cycles through images stored on the device, my Xbox Live avatar dances around the Games tile, and so on.

Beyond the tiles, there are a few other new features in Mango that I really enjoy. First and foremost, tombstoning and basic multitasking support are implemented quite well. Enabled apps close in a frozen state and holding down the back button for a second quickly brings up the task switcher UI. Transition animations are subtle but appreciated, and jumping between apps is lightning fast.

I also like that Mango brings Wi-Fi tethering to Windows Phones. The Internet Sharing service on the Titan is buried in the system settings in Windows Phone rather than being granted a dedicated app that I might be able to pin to the home screen, but I still appreciated having one less device to carry while testing the Titan. Wi-Fi tethering is available on a number of smartphones these days, but I typically find it unusable due to the inevitable battery drain. The Titan’s 1,600 mAh battery held up nicely even after about 30 minutes of Internet Sharing, however, and Mango includes a nifty feature: if no devices connect to the phone after a few minutes, tethering is automatically turned off. Also, if you’re tethered and then you disconnect all devices from the phone, Internet Sharing will automatically turn off after a few idle minutes. It’s one less thing to worry about.

The camera on the Titan shocked me. This has traditionally been a very weak point for HTC phones — very, very weak — but the 8-megapixel camera on the Titan captures terrific still images. The color and clarity in photos taken by the Titan is on par with the likes of Zeiss-equipped Nokia handsets and the iPhone 4S, and future Titan owners can certainly plan to ditch their point-and-shoot cameras. It also captures high-quality 720p HD video content, though the lack of an HDMI-out port or even an adapter is something of a disappointment.

Finally, Windows Phone still provides what, in my opinion, is the hands-down best email experience on any mobile platform. The UI in the email app is gorgeous and lightning fast, and it’s simple to drill down to unread items, urgent items or flagged items with a quick flick. On the Titan, the humongous display only makes things better. Productivity is the same story. Microsoft’s mobile Office suite is a joy to use for creating and editing Word documents or Excel spreadsheets, and the SkyDrive integration provides easy access to remote files to ensure that the same documents are available on your phone and your computer.

The Downside

Again, the Titan is huge. While I have gotten somewhat used to the mammoth device over the course of the the past two weeks, it’s just still too big for me.

Consumers love giant smartphones. Vendors keep cranking them out and people keep buying them. While there are numerous and obvious advantages to big smartphone displays, there are also several drawbacks and the negative outweighs the positive for me.

On the one hand, the huge screen affords a great canvas for emails, web pages, images and video. On the other hand, stretching 480 x 800-pixel resolution over a panel that measures 4.7-inches diagonally means clarity and sharpness suffer. Usability suffers as well, and a perfect example is the back button. On Windows Phone devices, the back button is extremely important. There is often no way to navigate back one screen from within the UI, and holding down the capacitive back key also brings up the application switcher. While holding the device in my right hand, however, I cannot reach the back button at all. Not even close.

I also can’t reach the lock/unlock button without repositioning the device in my hand, though this is infinitely less important than the back key. This button is crucial to the operation of the device, and one-handed use is often my preferred method of operation. It just doesn’t work. Samsung solved the problem by repositioning the back button on its giant Galaxy S II smartphone to make it accessible during one-handed use. This of course left the menu key just out of reach, but better that than the back button.

Somewhere around 4-inches lies the sweet spot for me, and a scaled down device like the Titan with a display around that size would likely be my ideal Windows Phone.

My only other serious complaint about the Titan applies to Windows Phone in general rather than to this particular smartphone, and that is the third-party app situation. It’s improving every day, and Nokia’s arrival on the scene will only help accelerate developer adoption. Today, however, things are not where they need to be.

I cannot for the life of me find a decent Twitter app, for example. There are a handful of usable options — I’ve landed on Seesmic for the time being — but they’re all slow and clunky. This goes back to my earlier note that data calls take entirely too long. Microsoft needs to fix this problem because it can be quite off-putting, especially in areas with sparse cellular coverage. The Metro interface is beautiful, but it loses its allure quickly when a data refresh takes 10 seconds.

Today, Windows Phone is often an afterthought for developers and the selection in the Windows Marketplace reflects that. This will change, and Mango introduced new APIs and capabilities that afford developers more flexibility. Right now however, there are many go-to apps that I simply can’t find in the Marketplace, and I suspect many users coming from more established platforms will make the same claim.

The Bottom Line

HTC’s Titan is a smartphone worthy of its name. More importantly, it is also worthy of consumers’ consideration because it really is a fantastic device. The hardware and build are class-leading, the display is bright and clear, the 8-megapixel camera captures gorgeous images, and the Windows Phone 7.5 operating system is a breath of fresh air.

Size matters. For me, bigger isn’t always better and the Titan’s towering stature is a turn off. Many smartphone buyers enjoy large handsets however, and if you fall into that category I sincerely doubt you’ll be able to find a better Windows Phone anywhere in the world right now.

AT&T will launch the HTC Titan some time this fall.

This post originally appeared on BGR: The Three Biggest Letters In Tech.com

As expected, HTC today announced its first two Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) smartphones – Titan and Radar. The Titan holds the dubious record of sporting the largest display on a Windows Phone smartphone – 4.7-inches – and is only 9.9 mm thin. It sports an 8.0 MP rear and a 1.3 MP front camera, 16GB of internal memory, 1.5GHz processor and 5.1 surround sound for videos. The Radar has a 3.8-inch display, 8GB of internal memory, an 8.0 MP rear and VGA front camera, 1GHz processor and 5.1 surround sound for videos. Both the smartphones will be available in October globally starting with Europe and Asia. Jump the break for the complete press release.

HTC Unveils HTC TITAN And HTC Radar Smartphones

Smartphones unveiled at consumer meet-ups across Europe

LONDON, PARIS, MADRID and BERLIN – September 1, 2011 – HTC Corporation, a global leader in mobile innovation and design, today hosted a series of consumer meet-ups in London, Paris, Madrid and Berlin to unveil its new HTC TITAN™ and HTC Radar™ with Windows® Phone smartphones. The HTC TITAN brings your favorite content and multimedia experiences closer than ever with a large 4.7 inch display, HTC’s largest phone screen ever wrapped in an ultra-thin 9.9mm aluminum case. The HTC Radar is designed to keep you close to the people, news and entertainment that matters to you most. Consumers enjoyed exclusive hands-on demos of the new devices and got to try out Microsoft’s next release of Windows Phone, code-named Mango..

“The new HTC TITAN and HTC Radar smartphones raise the bar with new advanced photography, multimedia and social capabilities that enable you to take full advantage of the latest Windows Phone innovations,” said Jason Mackenzie, President of Global Sales and Marketing, HTC Corporation. “With its large, cinematic display, the HTC TITAN packs an amazing amount of power and innovation into a device that is unlike anything you’ve ever held before and the HTC Radar’s aluminum uni-body, compact size and finish will capture people’s attention.”

Picture Perfect

Both HTC TITAN and HTC Radar include a dedicated hardware camera button which enables you to capture vivid images without unlocking the phone while the f/2.2 aperture lens and back-illuminated sensor provide improved low-light performance – making sure you never miss that perfect shot. With 28mm wide-angle lenses you can capture more of the scene in front of you while the new panoramic feature lets you create dramatic pictures of skylines and landscapes.  Both devices can shoot bright and vibrant HD (720p) videos, making them perfect companions for family functions or a night out with friends. And with the HTC Photo Enhancer, you can quickly touch up pictures and upload them to Facebook, tagging your friends as you go using automatic face detection built in to Windows Phones.

“Phones were originally designed for communication, but they haven’t kept up with the way consumers are actually communicating today. That’s why we built Windows Phone to put people first, building in all the key types of communication people are already using right out of the box,” said Andy Lees, President of Windows Phone Division.  “Both HTC TITAN and HTC Radar bring a sleek, modern design that perfectly complements this people first experience, making sure it’s easy to connect & share with the people you care about most so the message always gets through.”

HTC TITAN

With its large and bright 4.7 inch super LCD screen, an 8 megapixel rear-facing camera and 1.3 megapixel front facing camera for live video calling, HTC TITAN

combines high performance innovation with a super-slim 9.9mm curved body made from a brushed aluminium shell that fits comfortably in your hand and exudes style and quality.

HTC TITAN is also the perfect portable office that enables efficient multitasking like viewing a presentation while you’re on a conference call or listening to music while compiling an email. With its expansive screen with built in Microsoft® Office Mobile, this super smartphone enables you to create, edit and collaborate quickly and easily. Advanced email features like Linked inboxes makes it easy to manage multiple email accounts, synchronize your to-do list and calendars in one place, group contacts to make communication simpler and faster, and even store your latest ideas and notes in the cloud with Microsoft® OneNote®.  Typing on the HTC TITAN is quick and easy with the huge virtual keyboard on the responsive 4.7 inch screen.

HTC Radar

Elegantly crafted with an aluminium unibody, HTC Radar brings you closer to the important things in life, with the new People Hub from Windows Phone. The People Hub keeps you up to date with your friends’ latest news showing all of your communication history with each person, as well as their recent social network updates and photos. You can also stay in touch using SMS, Facebook chat and Windows Live® Messenger in one conversation, without having to switch applications or disrupt the conversation flow. Alternatively, speak “face-to-face” with new video calling that lets you see your friends’ faces on the bright and sharp 3.8 inch screen.

Entertainment on the move

With HTC TITAN and HTC Radar, mobile multimedia is greatly improved.  Both phones include HTC Watch™ – an application and service that puts an entire library of the latest, premium movies and TV shows right at your fingertips, letting people discover the latest video content in an easy and visually engaging way.  Utilizing Virtual 5.1 surround sound for a rich audio experience, these phones are perfect for enjoying the Zune® music service.  Internet browsing is fast and smooth with HTML5 support.  You also get an amazing mobile gaming with Xbox LIVE®, giving you access to a great selection of games for Windows Phone, which include features like Leaderboards and Achievement that connect you with your friends and the Xbox LIVE community around the world.

Availability

HTC TITAN and HTC Radar will be broadly available from October 2011 globally, beginning in Europe and Asia.

BGR exclusively reported that HTC would be introducing two Windows Phone 7 smartphones at the company’s European event today, codenamed the HTC Omega and HTC Eternity, and these phones are now official. The HTC Radar is a mid-market device but still features pretty compelling specs for a smartphone that we’d assume would be priced well under $200 with a service agreement. There’s a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 512MB of RAM, a 3.7-inch display, a 5-megapixel camera and HSPA on board. The HTC Radar feels good to hold and use, and with Windows Phone 7.5 Mango on the device out of the box, it seems like a perfect Windows Phone for budget-minded buyers. Hit the break for our thoughts on HTC’s Titan and be sure to check out our hands-on photo gallery below.

Unlike the Radar, the HTC Titan is a high-end device through and through. In fact, this thing is a literal beast with a 4.7-inch display, 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and an 8-megapixel camera, and it’s still less than a half-inch thin. The size of the screen is something that will be either warmly welcomed or loathed by customers in the market for a new Windows Phone, and we’re really not sure where we stand at this point. It feels thin enough to not make the entire footprint seem too large, but a 4.7-inch display is a 4.7-inch display no matter how thin the phone is. The Titan was very responsive during our preliminary testing, as was the Radar, and we think HTC is off to a pretty good start with its second-generation Windows Phones.

This post originally appeared on BGR: The Three Biggest Letters In Tech.com