So this past weekend Team NWS sat down with T-Mobile’s impending flagship device dubbed the “HD 2″ for a bite to eat at Downtown LA’s The Pantry. This HTC designed mobile device is a high end media powerhouse, and T-Mo intends to market it as such when it’s released March 24rd…

The first thing you’ll notice about the HD 2 is its 480 x 800 pixels, 4.3 inches screen, which was is quite possibly the most crisp and gorgeous mobile display we’ve ever laid our eyes upon, and is even visible in direct sunlight. Featuring a TFT capacitive touchscreen with 65K colors, we almost couldn’t believe the clarity as we skimmed through the preloaded versions of Transformers 1 & 2.

So after we salivated as it’s screen for a few minutes, we couldn’t help but dive into the main entrée, or the accompanying software. The HD 2 will be powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon processor in tandem with 448MB of RAM, but all this juice seems in vain once we acknowledge that this is Windows Mobile 6.5! But, HTC’s Sense provides an almost effortless transition between programs, is intuitive by nature, and has been so assimilated into the UI that at times it almost doesn’t feel like a Windows Mobile device.

The device is fairly large coming in at 120.5 x 67 x 11 mm and weighs 157g which is extremely feasible, and the metal backing definitely adds to the asthetic feel of the device. Data input is as smooth as a babies bottom, was quick, responsive and the haptic feedback was nice touch. We felt that after a week or so on that device, anyone would be able to type as fast, if not faster on the HD 2 than a device with a physical keyboard. Of course the wide screen has some interplay to that.

Now to the issues at hand, navigation although fluid, was at times tedious, an optical (or physical) trackball would definitely smooth navigation further. And what if we wanted to take those preloaded transformer flicks to our Big Screen TV? The addition of an HDMI output would of definitely taken this device up another notch. Now to our biggest gripe, the Windows Mobile OS, regardless of the near flawless incorporation of HTC’s sense. The perfect analogy would be; The HD 2 is like a Kia with incredible styling, handling, and a v12 engine under the hood. But regardless of all the perks and performance we still can’t get past the fact that… it’s a Kia.