HTC Touch 2 Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone [printer-friendly] • reghardware

Original URL: http://www.reghardware.com/2009/10/21/review_smartphone_htc_touch_2/

HTC Touch 2 Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone

Going too far back to basics?

21st October 2009 12:02 GMT

Review Windows Mobile 6.5 is now with us but its reception has been far from ecstatic. The general view is that Microsoft is playing catch-up and will have to do something spectacular with Windows Mobile 7, due to debut next year, if it's to really challenge its rivals.

HTC's Touch 2: aspiring to touchphone greatness

However, that hasn't stopped a flurry of new smartphones from gaining the updated OS. HTC has two handsets in the fray: the large screened HD 2 and the more svelte Touch 2. It's the latter we're looking at today, two-and-a-half years on from the launch of the original Touch [1].

The HD 2 marries Microsoft’s revamped OS with an updated version of HTC’s own TouchFlo user interface. It isn't always easy to tell where one begins and the other ends, though the new colour icons on the vibrant main screen’s horizontal shortcuts scrollbar are HTC’s, as is the six-person favourite contacts display. The main slide-to-unlock screen is Microsoft’s, as is the so-called ‘honeycomb’ applications menu.

From a user's perspective, though, who has implemented what is irrelevant. Ease of use is paramount, and the news here is mixed. For one thing, some functions are still duplicated: application shortcuts, for example.

WM 6.5 provides one application list (left) and HTC's TouchFlo has another

HTC’s shortcuts bar on the main screen includes an applications icon. This displays a grid of apps that you can add programs to and arrange how you like, giving you easy access to the apps you use the most. Microsoft’s applications menu, which you’ll get when you press the Windows button or the Start button, is a single, vertically scrolling screen. The apps are in a different, non-customisable order, and we found four or five vertical swipes are necessary to get from top to bottom.

We like the way Microsoft has tried to make its user interface more finger friendly and we are generally in favour of TouchFlo. But don’t let the hype catch you out. Neither WM 6.5 nor TouchFlo take away the need to resort to the stylus with irritating frequency.

Too often the new WM 6.5 look reverts to a very old-style one

Take one example. You want to set an alarm. Switch the device on at the new Windows Mobile 6.5 lock screen, which means swiping a slider to unlock the device. Next, tap the area beneath the screen and next to the date. Low and behold, you are into the same Windows Mobile Clock and Alarms screen as in WM 6.1, 6.0 and before, and you’ll almost certainly need to whip out the stylus to access the settings.

This holds true for many other aspects of device use. Setting appointments, entering contacts and typing emails, are just three examples.

HTC has enhanced the standard Windows Mobile Qwerty keyboard, as it has done in the past, so that the keyboard is larger and includes a tap-and-hold feature that lets you get second functions such as brackets, the @ symbol and numbers. But the overall screen size of the Touch 2 is small - just 2.8in with 320 x 240 pixels - which means the keyboard itself is squeezed. There's no accelerometer, so no larger keyboard in widescreen mode.

These two factors also get in the way of finger-friendliness, and we really think HTC should have included an accelerometer to assist with this. Its absence also detrimentally affects Web viewing, as you can’t get a wide screen mode here. Incidentally, despite Microsoft’s enhancements to Internet Explorer with Windows Mobile 6.5, HTC opts for Opera as its Web browser of choice, though IE is here too if you really want to use it.

Slide to unlock. Go straight into TouchFlo. Do not pass go. Do not collect £200.

The flip side is that if you're looking for a small and light device, the Touch 2 is possibly going to be right up your street. It's 104mm tall, 55mm wide and 12.9mm thick, and weighs 110g. The build quality is good, though the physical design is fairly dull, looking like HTC handsets of yesteryear .

There's no navpad. The front panel include the Zoom bar we’ve seen before from HTC. This comes into its own when Web browsing. You just sit a finger on the left side of it and drag rightwards to zoom in. Work right to left to zoom out. The zooming motion is smooth, but ultimately unsatisfactory: unlike pinch-to-zoom systems, it zeroes in on the centre of the screen, leaving you to then pan around the zoomed view to the bit you want to look at.

The Zoom bar works smoothly, but it's no substitute for pinch-to-zoom multi-touch

Beneath the screen, and very neatly built into the casing, are Call and End buttons, a joint Home and Back key, and the Windows button. The latter, as noted, opens up the new OS' applications menu.

There’s a volume rocker on the left side, as well as a Micro SD card slot, though you can’t get to cards unless you also remove the backplate, an approach that provides extra security but makes card swapping a pain. You will need a Micro SD card as the Touch 2 has just 512MB of memory, of which it reported 250MB free before we synched or installed any software.

The bottom edge hosts a mini USB connector for mains power and PC synchronisation. There is a 3.5mm headset socket on the top edge. The provided in-ear buds are reasonable but not great, though volume can go high without distorting. The Windows Media player seems to have had nothing at all done to it as part of the Windows Mobile 6.5 overhaul, by the way.

Video playback isn’t what it could be. You have two options: choose Windows Media player and video plays in a small window in portrait format inside the Media Player graphics. Choose HTC’s own Album - for both photos and video - and you get a full screen, widescreen playback, which is far better.

Nice size

Format compatibility is an issue too. The specs say that the Touch 2 supports AVI. But neither player liked our sample file, with Windows Media player recognising it but refusing to play it, and HTC’s Album not even noting its existence. Both players did show an MP4 for us, but so jerkily that we could barely stand it.

Sample Shots

Outdoors, the Touch 2's camera doesn't take a terrible snap, especially when the results are scaled down for on-screen viewing or sending by email. But the full-size images show the camera's limitations.

Click for a full-size picture [2]

Click for a full-size picture [3]

Click for a full-size picture [4]

And don't bother trying to capture close-ups...

The 3.2Mp camera has a fixed focal length, making close-ups all but impossible. The apples, for example, when photographed close in are out of focus. You have to pull back to about a metre to start to get good focus. Colour reproduction isn't too hot, either, and the lens doesn’t handle light and shade variance well. Images are greatly compressed. All in all, the camera is passable for quick snaps for emailing or sending by MMS, but you're not going to trade your regular camera in yet.

The camera is adequate for scaled-down shots

With HSDPA 3G to 7.2Mb/s and HSUPA to 384Kb/s, plus GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on board, the Touch 2 provide the full range of connectivity options. There is a Google Map search button on the main screen. Other applications include a calculator, notes maker, Office Mobile for document creation and editing, Adobe Reader, an FM radio, a Facebook client, an RSS reader, the inevitable voice recorder and a YouTube client.

Call quality using this handset was fine and we didn’t experience any problems with dropped signal. Battery life was acceptable too. The 1100mAh battery capacity is good for 440 minutes of GSM talk or 370 hours on standby, HTC claims. We managed to get over a day but not as much as two full days between charges with a usage pattern that included some Wi-Fi, GPS and 3G usage. A daily boost isn't unusual for phones with similar specifications, though heavier users may find they need to charge more frequently.

Verdict

The Touch 2 exhibits some serious shortcomings: a poor camera, limited storage capacity, some confusing crossover between TouchFlo and Windows Mobile, and a lack of support for multi-touch zooming, for example. The Touch 2 is probably as small as a phone could be and still aspire to full touch control, and the screen is very responsive to the touch. But it doesn’t make the grade because there's no accelerometer to counterbalance the small screen for text entry – which is HTC’s fault - and because the operating system defaults to fiddly, old-style screens too often – which is Microsoft’s fault. ®