LAS VEGAS – America's first 16-megapixel cameraphone is here. The powerful HTC Titan II is a beast of a phone, with a 4.7-inch screen and 1.5Ghz processor, able to share your 4,640-by-3,840 resolution photos over AT&T's fast LTE network. I got some hands-on time here at CES.
The Titan II is part of the current generation of huge phones. At 5.2 by 2.7 by 0.4 inches, it's still a little shorter, if wider, than the Samsung Galaxy Nexus for Verizon Wireless. It can fit in one hand, but it definitely wants a bigger hand. The size comes from the 4.7-inch Super LCD screen, which is sharp but looks a bit grainy at times, with its relatively low (for the size) 800-by-480 resolution.
The Titan II is a Windows Phone Mango device, and those phones all work pretty similarly; check out our full review of the Mango OS for more details.
The 16-megapixel camera takes insanely high-res images, but they aren't necessarily high quality. When I took a few shots outdoors, the camera showed some problems with dynamic range, whiting out sunny areas. It snaps photos very quickly, but as with most cameraphones, that's a bit of a con: you only get quick photos if you forego autofocus, which means you risk your photos being blurry or you have to wait an extra half-second or so as the autofocus locks in.
The question remains whether all those extra pixels, in and of themselves, will add so much data to your images that you'll get sharper shots than a higher-quality 8-megapixel camera like the one in the HTC Amaze 4G for T-Mobile. The camera also records 720p video, and there's a 1.3-megapixel camera on the front.
HTC's geek sheet claims that the lens is an f/2.6, 28mm unit, but doesn't claim any fancy pedigree for it, like Nokia does with its Carl Ziess lenses. At this level of megapixels, the quality of the lens is going to make a big difference.
Other specs: the phone has an HSPA+ backup to its LTE connection, along with Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, 16GB storage (and no memory card slot), and a 1730 mAh battery.
AT&T and HTC didn't announce a release date or price for the Titan II.