Product Listing

HTC Magic - Revealing the Secret

By Seow Tein Hee - 20 May 2009

Design

From Pumpkin, to Carriage

Compared with the stock web pictures that we've seen in the past, the HTC Magic turned out to look much better than we had expected it. As much as we detest glossy products that attract fingerprints like bees to honey, the Magic managed to pull off a much more appealing look thanks to its white color finish and the shine it exudes. The device measures at a mere 113 x 55.56 x 13.65 mm, which is much thinner than the Dream. This is, of course, due to the omission of the slide-out QWERTY keyboard, giving the Magic that slim profile.

In terms of display size, the Magic retains the 3.2-inch measurement, with the same HVGA resolution at 320 x 480. Screen size aside, there are plenty of design improvements on the front panel, mostly focused on the navigation portion. The main buttons are still present, which includes the Home, Menu and Back buttons with the Call/End buttons just below. Adding on to these is a new Search button, which now sits snugly at the right side of the front panel. As the name implies, this brings you to the Google search widget, or to do a localized search within specific functions such as the Android Market, or your Contacts.

Not much has changed on the display front. Same old 3.2-inch screen, same old HVGA resolution at 320 x 480 pixels, same old capacitive touch screen.

The real changes are made on the navigation panel, with a new Search button and square buttons instead of the circular ones on the Dream.

The biggest oddity that we noticed, was the absence of a dedicated camera button. Once we activated the camera feature, we were prompted to use the trackball as the camera button.

With the omission of the camera button on the side profile, this leaves the Magic with only one physical input on the sides: the volume buttons on the left profile. Similar to its later Windows Mobile devices such as the HTC Touch 3G, the volume button is slim but given sufficient height which allowed us to locate and use it with ease. The only other port that's visible, is the mini-USB port that doubles up for both data and audio connection.

The mini USB on the Magic is left wide open. On one hand, it makes it easier for us to plug in our data cable or earphones without a plastic cap dangling around like what you get with the Dream. Conversely speaking, this leaves the USB port exposed and subjected to dust and dirt. Care has to be taken here.

Flipping to the rear of the device, we have the 3.2-megapixel camera with auto-focus built in. More on this in the Performance page when we reveal its multimedia capabilities. The interesting bit came with its battery casing, which is so much easier to slide and remove than its predecessor's which requires a moderate amount of force to pry it open. A closer look at the innards of the Magic reveals the microSD card hidden below the casing, but easily accessible without the need to remove the battery. The same can't be said for its SIM card access.

Unlike its Dream predecessor (shown on the left), flipping the battery casing open to reveal the microSD slot is much easier. Even so, we preferred the Dream's microSD slot design to house and protect the memory card.

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