Jenneth Orantia27 February 2008, 10:06 PM
The Touch is one of the first HTC-branded smartphones to make it to Australia, and what it lacks in high-end features (like GPS and 3G/HSDPA support), it makes up for in design.
The black, stylishly slim physique has a rubberised finish that’s soft to the touch, and the small, pebble-shaped form factor sits comfortably in your hand or pocket.
There are dozens of touchscreen-enabled smartphones on the market — the difference with this one is its use of HTC’s TouchFLO technology. Sweeping a finger up the 2.8in display brings up a virtual 3D interface that lets you call or SMS a contact, launch commonly used applications and access your multimedia library — all through large, finger-friendly buttons.
Once you’ve launched the relevant contact or program, however, you’re dumped back into the regular Windows Mobile 6 operating system. Nothing wrong with WM6 per se, but after using the groovy TouchFLO interface to launch applications, it’s a let-down having to then grapple with the stylus and miniscule on-screen keyboard.
The Touch has immense appeal for anyone looking for the features of a smartphone (like push email, Office compatibility and Wi-Fi) without the bulk that usually comes with one, but the under-powered processor, a 201MHz TI OMAP850 chip, is only adequate for running one application at a time — with a few programs running simultaneously, the system slows to a crawl.
The upside is battery life. The 1100mAh cell (and slow processor) extends run-time to five hours of talk time and eight days of standby time.