HTC Magic – Dodgy Batch?
I’ve now got a perfectly working HTC Magic that I am more than happy with, however I thought I’d share this in case anyone else had/is having the same issues I was…
I purchased a HTC Magic on Vodafone from Dialaphone in May after trying it out in Phones4U (since they were offering the same contract for £10pm less). However, when the phone arrived I noticed some differences between my model and the one I was using in the store and others I had seen:
- The transition effect between landscape/portrait was completely different (mine bounced the screen, others blurred).
- Some applications from Marketplace just refused to work correctly (forced close).
- The background on the Notification Bar (when pulled down) was different.
- The background on the Application Menu (when pulled up) was different.
- The keys at the bottom of the phone didn’t seem as defined, felt almost worn down.
- Finally, and most importantly, there was no Enter/Return key on the keyboard when typing messages/e-mails.
Points 1-5 were easily tolerated (point 2 was the only real issue). However, when I came to write quite an important e-mail to a client and realised there was no way to add a line break, the phone simply had to be sent back. I checked on my friend’s handset, and the Enter/Return key was indeed present (along with the other differences).
The firmware on the handset had a slightly different release number, though they were both running Cupcake (Android 1.5). I can only think that this batch of handsets (I am assuming mine wasn’t entirely unique) were pre-release (or very first release) handsets that really should be re-called.
Thankfully, Dialaphone replaced the handset with no argument (though it did help that it had a few dead pixels, so also had a distinct hardware fault).
If anyone out there has noticed these issues on their version of the HTC Magic, please get in touch. My recommendation to you is to get your handset replaced as soon as possible.