Interesting idea, badly executed

This is a beautiful phone. It feels great in your hand. It has a premium finish. I like the way the phone gives tactile feedback when you're using the on screen keyboard.

For only being up for so short a time, the Market (app store) is very full of (sometimes) useful and inexpensive apps. The Android OS itself seems like it is well planned out.

I also have to say that during the forty or so hours I've been on the phone with them, the folks at Sprint (their advanced technical folks) and the folks at HTC have been quite nice. Very friendly.

I'm currently on my second handset in as many months. The first one refused to let me see texts, or voice mails. It had about a 3 hour battery life (due to what I was told was an issue with the text application). The processor was never allowed by that app to ever sleep. It was running 100% of the time.

Those nice folks at Sprint sent me a new phone and battery.

The new one has had some of the same issues, and others that have been baffling. The browser would refuse to ever open. Apparently you have to clear the History just about daily to keep this from happening. The browser seemed to think I was in Germany, flipping over to that language despite my never requesting it.

The thing still won't let me see all my voice mails, sometimes dropping them in days later. Changing over to the Handcent text app (per those same nice folks at Sprint) seemed to clear up the sleep issue with the processor, but now Sprint is telling me Handcent may be to blame for my phone locking up and not letting me answer phone calls.

I cannot get my Hotmail account to load to the phone. You have to use an Advanced Task Killer to preserve the battery. The phone is already to quiet, and heaven help you if you get a case for it, as it will muffle the phone's speaker phone by huge amounts.

Apparently, if you use too much of the internal memory (the only place apps can reside) it will cause the phone to loose its mind as well.

I've just tried turning off the HTC Sense. That reduces the number of screens and types of widgets you can use, but since they've got me paranoid about using the internal memory, it isn't a huge hit.

REALLY SAD I GOT THIS PHONE. That said, my fiancee's phone has worked with little or no problem. That's why it is getting two stars. I'd not give it any.

Lagging processor, unreliable build quality, OS that kills the phone's usefulness. Stay away. Stay far, far away.