Well, I took the plunge and ordered my AT&T Tilt this evening. My old RAZR V3 has been on the fritz lately and I’m not entirely certain it isn’t because I’ve been planning to dump it. Technology has a way of being finicky when replacement is imminent. With luck, my new toy should be in by Tuesday. Suffice to say…I’m giddy.
Now one would think that the biggest problem with ordering a phone on the day of its release would be availability. New flagship products have a way of garnering a following far before the first unit hits the stock. However AT&T has found a wonderful way to circumvent that kind of problem. Unless you are an avid follower of new PocketPC technology, you probably haven’t heard of this device. That would be because AT&T has decided for unknown reasons to skip all the pomp and circumstance that surrounded the iPhone launch. This one slipped in under the radar.
And that leads us to the second problem of getting this phone. They released it so far under the radar that from all reports…more than half of their sales reps still have NEVER HEARD OF THIS PHONE. One would think that at least the people manning the Premier and National Business Services portions of the company would be briefed in some way about a new phone that will be the flagship of their business device line. One would be wrong. I spoke with three different people and only one of them had even heard of it…and that was because he was interested in the device and had been following posts at HowardForums and XDA-Developers. AT&T, your world connected clueless.
Luckily, I had those wonderful forum resources myself over the past few months to gather my own information from users of the unlocked version. Now let me take a quick moment to familiarize you with a few of the names this device has taken on (and sometimes shed). This unit started as the HTC Kaiser. It then became the HTC 4550 and finally the HTC TyTN II. At this point AT&T decided to use it to replace their 8525 (also known as the HTC TyTN) and it became potentially the AT&T 8925 or the AT&T Tilt. There was even a few posts mentioning that the internal AT&T name was the Pilgrim. So the Kaiser/P4550/TyTN II/8925/Pilgrim/Tilt has surprisingly little confusion surrounding it considering…
So here’s the basic rundown of features:
- 256MB ROM/128MB RAM (twice that of the TyTN)
- Windows Mobile 6 Professional
- Pocket Word, Excel, Powerpoint
- Built-In GPS (not locked to TeleNav, tested successfully with TomTom, Google, and Live)
- 3MegaPixel Camera
- TouchFlo (HTC’s version of iPhone’s flick to scroll feature)
- 3.5G connectivity
- 802.11 b/g WiFi
- Bluetooth
- MicroSDHC slot (yes, 6GB cards work, theoretically capable of up to 32GB)
- Slide out keyboard
This list goes on but this should give you an idea of how amazing this device is. It is very slightly thinner than the TyTN/8525 but heavier by accounts of current owners. The battery life does leave a little to be desired but that will be remedied when the high capacity versions hit the market. I’ll post a bit more when mine finally arrives.