The HTC Desire HD is in the house, and it’s been a while since we were this excited about an Android smartphone. Packing the same 4.3-inch WVGA display as the HTC HD2 and HTC EVO 4G, the Desire HD throws in the latest build of HTC Sense with numerous improvements, including easy DLNA streaming, a new Car Panel interface, enhanced GPS functionality and more.

We wasted no time getting the Desire HD out of its box and slapping a SIM card inside, and of course we made sure there was a camera trained on us throughout. In our hands-on demo with this production HTC Desire HD you can see some of the initial changes over previous versions of Sense; meanwhile the hardware itself is slick and tactile, a solid-feeling block of aluminum that owes a lot to the shape of the Windows Mobile HD2.

The only usability fumbles we’ve found so far are the slightly tricky angle of the lock button and a difficult-to-replace battery door; otherwise the Desire HD fits nicely into the hand. We can’t argue with performance, either, the 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor (and 768MB of RAM) keeping things flying along nicely. Meanwhile there’s 1.5GB of app storage on hand, and a microSD card slot down underneath the bottom panel.

Some of the most useful changes are the smallest, in fact, like the new app-switcher bar which has been added to the pull-down notifications pane, and which shows the last eight accessed apps. We’ll be putting the HTC Desire HD through its paces to see how the Android 2.2 smartphone holds up in the real world. Until the full review, enjoy the unboxing and walkthrough video!