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The HTC Legend is the Taiwanese firm's latest effort at making a high-end smartphone - the sheer number of features and care taken with the interface should prove that.
We liked
Where do we start? The design is lovely - the unibody chassis is going to win a fair few fans, we bet.
The screen is clear and responsive; the Sense UI overlay adds a huge amount of functionality to the Android OS, and the 600MHz processor whips along.
The web browser is among the fastest out there, the touchscreen keyboard is industry-leading, and the ability to merge contacts and see elements like Facebook photos from your phonebook is superb.
Nearly every single aspect of the HTC Legend was either class-leading or rubbing shoulders with the leaders - it's so clear that a lot of thought has gone into its construction.
We disliked
However, there are a few niggles. We managed to crash the weather widget a couple of times, and the Friendstream application took a while to update at times.
The battery life is pushing right on the limits as well - we're not sure anyone will ever be able to use it up completely in day-to-day use, but it will irritate some people that the meter drains quicker than most.
The screen could be a little bigger, and pack a higher resolution too - but that's very much a subjective opinion, as many won't be upset about that.
Verdict
We had a really, really long think about the mark to give this phone, as it's so good in so many ways that we felt it deserved five stars.
But to give it that would mean recommending it over the iPhone - and while we believe it to be a better phone, it doesn't have the weight of the App Store behind it - and that's going to put a lot of people off.
If you're someone that doesn't really care massively about apps or gets irritated by a day-long battery life, we couldn't recommend this phone more.
And as a standalone device, we get a really strong feeling this is going to be our phone of the year - and if not, 2010 is going to be a really, really good year for smartphones.
The HTC Legend is not quite the phone to persuade the masses Android is finally an adequate iPhone replacement - but it's awfully, awfully close.
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