HTC Touch 2 Mobile Phone

HTC’s Touch enjoyed quite a flight of fancy for a long time. It was a popular handset in its day, so much so that HTC designed a slew handsets in its like. The latest to come our way is simply called the Touch 2, which can easily be deemed as a rather direct descendant of the original. or not, depends on your perspective. It’s the first handset in India that comes with the new Windows 6.5 Professional mobile OS. Take a quick look at the OS here and read on for my opinion on the Touch 2.

Form Factor
I like the look and feel of the HTC Touch 2. It has a very comfortable and simplistic form. The chrome rim around the brown handset gives it a touch of class. However, even though it looks good the design does have a few flaws. Those include the 2.8-inch resistive touchscreen display not being scratch resistant and the microSD card slot, although clearly marked and visible is only accessible by removing the rear panel. If the handset is dropped it’s going to wind up separating into three pieces as the battery and rear panel will pop open. Unfortunately, I found this out the hard way.

The touch zoom slider under the display is quite handy while web browsing. The buttons below that make accessing the menus a little easier as well. A couple of other plus points for the design are the inclusion of a 3.5mm handsfree port and the mini (although it may not seem like it) USB port located at the top and bottom respectively. I believe they should have included a camera shutter release on one side and I’ll explain why in a bit.

Features and Performance_Interface_

First off the 240 x 320 pixel resolution display is clear but should have been a little higher resolution to really make the colors on the screen pop. That said, HTC’s TouchFLO UI can be loaded onto the Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional OS. This version of TouchFLO doesn’t bring anything new to the table in terms of features but it’s a lot more colorful as compared to the earlier. It’s easy to use and extremely finger friendly. The Touch equipped with a Qualcomm MSM7225 528 MHz processor gets the job done quite easily.

Windows Mobile 6.5 goes quite well with the TouchFLO UI element as the icons and colors in this new avatar blend very well together. The most annoying aspect is the fact that you’ll still need the stylus for quite a lot of the functions underlying the otherwise finger friendly system. The lack of an accelerometer makes quite a difference especially when you take into the account the price tag on this baby. Flick control is available for viewing images but you’ll have to manually adjust the orientation if it’s a landscape shot in the Windows Image Viewer. The keypad is quite average and easy to use if you have slim fingers. Of course it has no landscape mode so that’s an issue as well.

I also found that the system didn’t allow me to make multiple selections for moving data from one place to another. There’s a ‘Select All’ option of course but that’s not always usable.

TouchFLO works out quite well but if you’re looking at a totally touch handset… this ain’t it.

Media
The Touch 2’s media capabilities work quite well. HTC has included an Audio Booster application with EQ presets and 10 band customizable EQ. It adds a lot to the overall tone of the handset’s audio. The bundled handsfree is comfortable enough to use but for a truly enjoyable audio experience, I’d suggest getting a better set of earphones. The mobile version of Windows Media Player is also available in addition to the TouchFLO player.

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Video support is limited to MPEG4 and 3GP formats. If converted properly you’ll be able to watch videos quite comfortably. One of the main reasons I’m not a fan of the Windows Mobile Media Player is because it always seems to take too much time updating the files list. With the Touch 2 it was the same thing and where the processor really didn’t come through was with full length movies. It took really long for the player to read and play the larger files. Plus you have to switch back to portrait mode if you want to scan through the file as it doesn’t have a ‘Start where you Stopped’ function. And then you’ll have to switch back to full screen manually. I recommend using the secondary Image and Video player that’s so much better and faster.

Other media features include a pretty good FM radio and a voice recorder that has good range. You’d think that Windows, if not HTC would at least include a few more games with the new system, but you’re still stuck with the same old Bubble Breaker and Solitaire games that haven’t even been revamped to a more touch friendly version.

Connectivity
The handset is fully equipped for connectivity. Functions in this department include – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP, USB 2.0, 3G support, basic EDGE/GPRS and GPS with A-GPS. Sadly there’s no mapping software that accompanies the handset so that’s an additional costing if you want to use it. But good old Google Maps to the rescue so no worries unless you want voice guided directions. The new WinMob 6.5 browser can best be used with HTC’s touch sensitive zoom bar otherwise you can opt to use the onscreen version. The browser supports all content and offers a ‘desktop’ like experience. HTC has also included an Opera browser if you prefer that.

Other connectivity apps that the Touch 2 comes pre-loaded with include – Facebook, MSN Messenger, a streaming media app, RSS reader and a couple of new apps form Microsoft. Microsoft’s Market Place is just another application store for WinMob users. What happens to be a handy application is the Microsoft MyPhone software. It’s an online service like Ovi that allows users to back up their data to servers and restore it anytime. It also lets you share images videos etc to your favorite social networking sites and also track your mobile in case it’s misplaced or stolen.

Windows Live, a Widget Search engine, Active Sync and email for POP IMAP and Microsoft exchange are also on-board. The Touch 2 can also be used for Internet Sharing. It just needs to be connected to a PC via USB or Bluetooth for use with GPRS. It also comes with a Remote Desktop app to complete the connectivity options.

Misc. Features
Like any other mobile all the regular standardized features are present and accounted for. From a Task application to the Calendar, Notes, File Explorer and Phone Search etc. it’s all there. Office Mobile with read and write capabilities and Adobe’s PDF reader are also available.

Camera
The Touch 2 is equipped with just a fixed focus 3 MP camera. Settings include White Balance, brightness adjust and ISO settings up to 800. It also records video at a resolution of 352 x 288 pixels (CIF) @30 frames per second.

The lack of a shutter release makes it a little bit difficult to tap the screen without jerking the handset leaving you with a slight blur. If you have a steady enough hand, picture quality is not too bad though colors seem a little bit faded. It’s average to say the least.

Battery
The battery life of the handset is not bad at all. With Wi-Fi active throughout, I got two days of usage from net browsing to calls and messages and even a little bit of music thrown in. Stand alone talk-time came in at over 4 hours and 40 minutes which is excellent in my book.

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The Bottom Line**
It’s a good handset in terms of features and looks but at Rs. 24,490 for Maharashtra and Rs. 22,490 everywhere else the HTC Touch 2 is way over priced. It has no accelerometer, a fixed focus camera and Windows Mobile 6.5 doesn’t really offer full touch sensitive usage except for, like I said before, a few cosmetic changes. HTC isn’t even including a memory card with the price and all you have for navigation is Google Maps. So why exactly is the price so high? It can’t be because of the new OS or because it has Wi-Fi or GPS and a great battery life. So the bottom line is there are quite a few handsets that are much cheaper and offer the same features. The Touch 2 is worth a pass.