Is there an advantage to having a smaller smartphone? I’ve been asking myself this during the past week while testing the HTC Legend. We’re seeing a number of smaller or “mini”-sized handsets lately and I’m not quite sure what the appeal is. The Legend has everything. It runs the latest version of Google’s Android software with several useful tweaks, an aluminum body and an AMOLED screen, all the connections and sensors that have become the norm with both Wi-Fi and 3G internet connections, but a smaller handset means a smaller screen and for a phone built around a touchscreen, that’s not an improvement.

Design

The Legend takes the classic phone form, a flat surface with a bend at the bottom so it can rest against the palm of your hand when you hold it and curve in towards your mouth when it’s up against your face. With an aluminum casing and Panda-like patches of black rubber grip that classic shape is given a very modern, almost futuristic look and I think it’s the most attractive phone HTC has created so far.

The optical joystick is new. It’s a button with a special sensor built into it. You can press it to make selections on the screen or swipe your finger across it to scroll through pages or swipe from one menu screen to the next, just as if you’d swipe the screen itself. And that’s the problem, really, it’s simply easier to use the touchscreen and I’ve that, while it’s neat piece of technology, I don’t use it and, after asking around with others who have one on their phone, nobody else does either.

Android Tweaks

Since many manufacturers now use Google’s Android software on their phones, the trend has been to come up with exclusive tweaks to distinguish one brand from another. So with the Legend we have HTC Sense, a suite of applications and customization options that are very practical in nature.

With Android there are a number of ways you can customize your phone, but not everyone is willing to invest themselves in going through all the options, so HTC includes a number of pre-loaded wallpapers, clock and weather widgets, and “HTC Scenes” which can auto-arrange your content to prioritize for travel, work, play, or social use, allowing you to make quick changes from weekday to weekend without having to really think about it.

FriendStream is an app that aggregates your incoming streams from Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and other networks. It wisely doesn’t try to reinvent social networking with wacky visualizations or distorted user photos, but simply mimics the successful layouts of the Twitter and Facebook apps we all like to use. For quick, glanceable use, it actually works well. HTC also includes their own Twitter app called “Peep”, but it’s a poor competitor to the free Twitter app already available through the Android Market.

With Android software you’re given seven desktop screens to customize with animated wallpaper and drag-and-drop widgets. HTC has added a nice tweak in that by pressing the Home button you can call up a view that shows all seven desktop screens at once, making it easier to organize your customizations.

TouchScreen

The Legend has an Active-Matrix Organic LED display, which is more energy-efficient than the traditional LCD screens. I can’t say it offers more of an advantage than that, pictures and video are no more vibrant than on other handsets on the market today, and it against direct sunlight it’s average in use. You can still read the screen, but at some angles it tends to become a mirror.

At 3.2” and with a 320 x 480 resolution, the screen is slightly below average in size. It’s slimmer and smaller than the touchphones we’ve seen from HTC before, not much, but when your whole mobile universe consists of a touch screen, even the smallest change can seem dramatic.

Feature Set

A smaller size may also be the reason behind the lack of storage memory. The Legend has a mere 512 MB of storage memory and so depends on microSD cards to increase that, up to 32 GB (sold separately).

Beyond that hitch, the Legend is a fully-featured smartphone that includes Wi-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth, GPS, digital compass, and the full package of built-in sensors for light, proximity, and accelerometer.

It includes a removable Lithium-ion battery that will last up until the end of the day one a full charge.

Camera

One of the nicer features is the built-in 5 MP camera with autofocus, LED flash, and camcorder mode (not that you’ll have much memory to use it with). The camera includes a digital zoom and fine adjustment controls for brightness, contrast, saturation, sharpness, white balance, and ISO. Throw in some cheap filters (sepia, posterize, and “aqua”) and you’ve got a fun cameraphone to play with.

Tis Written In Aluminum…

I can’t say that the HTC Legend lives up to its name, exactly, but I do think it’s one of the best Android phones on the market, simply because it combines the best features of both software and hardware together in a very attractive, aluminum case. Unlike many of the Android phones available, the Legend run Android 2.1, and does it well with all the advantages – animated wallpaper, multitouch, and flash animations on the web. HTC’s “Sense” tweaks are practical to have and all the hardware connections, sensors, are there alongside a nice camera. It may be designed for smaller hands, but it’s made for big use.