Taiwanese manufacturer had a golden run in 2009, with their Hero handset snatching our pick of phone of the year from Apple's iPhone 3GS. Will the HTC Legend, a Vodafone-exclusive style-driven entrant to their 2010 Android phone line-up, be a name etched in the history books this year? Read our review and find out!

Design and Specifications

Let’s get the fawning pleasantries out of the way first and foremost. The HTC Legend is the most beautiful, complete and finely formed handset since Apple unveiled the original iPhone.

The lawyers may be circling HTC’s door, but it's possible due to envy and a bit of fear if the gorgeous lines and aluminium frame of the HTC Legend is anything to go by. The weight of the handset isn’t much more than the competition, but the phone simply feels reassuringly robust and it certain to evoke stares from gadget fans far and wide…

The HTC Legend is a fashion forerunner in terms of how it looks. The aluminium body is forged from a single piece of metal, accented with the occasional flash of black plastic around cartain facets including the battery case and the camera. It's a necessity for the internal gubbins to work well and the phone to actually receive a signal, but the stylistic touches to these plastic parts are still in keeping with the super-cool Legend’s aesthetic.

Remove the cover at the base of the device and the battery, SD card and SIM can be locked and loaded with ease. A plastic guard protects this whole section, proving that the attention to detail and reassuring build quality extends to the Legend’s interior.

This phone is a head turner and no mistake. Whilst a certain other handset has become almost pedestrian in its ubiquity, the unique form of the device (including the return of the angular ‘chin’ previously sported by the Hero) makes the Legend one to attract the good kind of attention when whipped out in public.

It seems like the Legend is beautiful both inside and out, with the user interface (dubbed ‘HTC Sense’) giving a refreshing new feel to Google’s Android operating system, full of social networking hook-ups, messaging apps and browsing widgets.

It is genuinely fun to swipe around the Legend’s touch-driven interface - although there is also an optical trackpad for more incremental scrolling and poking - with an overarching feel through the device that is has been designed to make life easier, rather than overwhelm with features and functions.

Speaking of features, they are certainly in abundance on the Legend with a 3.2-inch touch display and 5-megapixel autofocus camera dominating the landscape on the front and rear respectively.

The camera is replete with image tweaking options usually reserved for dedicated devices, but we found the autofocus and the image quality a little wanting when pushed. The LED flash was a godsend however, illuminating after dark images with aplomb.

Connectivity

Setting up this phone is a joy, with plaudits to HTC and Google’s Android operating system in equal measure. Simply enter e-mail addresses and passwords to get mobile messaging live in seconds, the same going for the addition of Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Armed with this information, the Legend quickly becomes an information hub, with the FriendStream widget presenting a threaded list of status updates, tweets and messages in a single, easy to access location.

Photo albums and links can be viewed, messages and status updates all can be replied to directly from here (stopping short Facebook nuances such as ‘liking’ other people’s comments), giving you a new degree of control over the social networking universe.

Other widgets provide the latest RSS-powered news updates, bookmarks for easy access to favoured sites, and even up to the minute location-specific weather alerts, all within swiping distance from the Legend’s vibrant and colourful home screen.

Complete Microsoft Exchange and Gmail support makes the Legend equally competent in a corporate capacity, with Wi-Fi bolstering the strong 3G connectivity.

All testament to how much more life the paint-job has given the HTC Legend, taking Google’s latest 2.1 mobile phone software and giving it a real user-friendly shot in the arm. This completely customisable interface certainly puts the Legend ahead of the competition, whilst the super-fast processor ably keeps up and keeps Sense responding quickly to every whim.

When the desire to travel the information super highway grabs you, the Legend has a nice line in web browsing – one of the few handsets on the market able to handle animation heavy Flash sites – with multitouch, landscape viewing and a versatile touch screen keyboard proving responsive and assured for those with nimble fingers.

GPS is on board as standard, working a dream with Google Maps by quick satellite pick up and responsive to location changes.

Multimedia

With an FM radio, robust music player and support for a myriad of video formats, the Legend can certainly hold its own when it comes to entertaining. Being an Android phone, it also has key to the Market – a home of over 30,000 applications, many of which are free

Admittedly we wouldn’t pay for more than a few of apps on offer in here, think formative days of the iPhone App Store and the profusion of weird and wonderful content, and you won’t be disappointed.

Whilst the cream of mobile gaming is yet to arrive on Google’s platform, (a situation soon to change with big name publishers pledging support) applications like Goggles offering image-driven search, and Layar which overlays geographic points of interest virtual reality-style onto your surroundings, there are plenty of distractions to be found on here.

Verdict

The HTC Legend is not merely a good phone as far as HTC devices go, or even compared to other Android-powered devices.

We truly believe it might be the best device yet seen from the Taiwanese manufacturer in terms of both hardware and software, whilst the iPhone has seen its first real challenger for the crown of coolest phone.

The HTC Sense user interface enables easy access to even the most complicated of features for the layman, whilst the Legend will still attract attention from fashion phone snobs, changing what to expect from smart phone design.

Whilst the Nexus One might be more powerful and the iPhone more established, the HTC Legend is certain to be one of the most memorable handsets of 2010, and the combination of a luxurious exterior and peerless functionality has already seen it pencilled in our ‘handset of the year’ list.

Your move, Apple!