Like its sister product, the HTC Dream (which includes a slide-out QWERTY keyboard as well as the iPhone-like touchscreen interface), Magic is a quad-band GSM phone. It works on the highest-speed HSDPA and UMTS networks in the 850 and 1900 MHz bands, and older GSM, GPRS, and EDGE networks at 850, 900, 1800, and 1900 MHz. In other words, you can use it virtually anywhere in the world.

Hardware features

Physically, it’s very similar to iPhone, measuring 4.45 x 2.19 x 0.54 inches and weighing 4.09 oz. (The latest iPhone 3G S: 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.48 inches, 4.8 ounces.)

The iPhone screen is marginally bigger—3.5 inches (diagonal) and 320×480 pixels versus 3.2-inches and 320 x 480 pixels for Magic. The smaller screen makes room on Magic for six small but well-placed and useful buttons—Home, Menu, Back, Zoom, Answer, Hang-up/Power—and a BlackBerry-like trackball, which seems unnecessary given the excellent touchscreen interface.