HTC Touch 3G - HTC Touch 3G
- By Abbas Jaffar Ali
- Published 23 December 2008
- Smartphones/Gadgets
- Unrated
I must say that I'm pleasantly surprised with HTC's new Touch 3G. The last HTC device I tested was the original Touch and while the TouchFlo interface was nice, it had many shortcomings. It seems that HTC has come quite a long way since then and things seem to flow a lot better on the Touch 3G.
Packaged in a small sift box, the Touch 3G includes everything to get you started. Bundled inside is a USB cable that can be used to connect to the PC or plugged into the supplied charger. A USB headset is also included meaning the unit doesnt feature a 3.5mm audio output interface. A couple of CDs with applications and documentation along with some quickstart guides and a screen protector wrap up the packaging.
The device is available in a few different colors and the one we received is of a light golden shade. While I prefer darker colors, my wife really liked the look of the device. Size-wise, the device is incredibly small- measuring 102mm x 53.6mm x 14.5mm and weighs 96 grams with the battery. It feels really good in your hand and the construction quality is superb with no creaky parts.
HTC continues with their minimilist look with barely any buttons on the device. The top features the on/off button while volume buttons reside on the left and the USB connector at the bottom. Thats pretty much about it. Even the front only features the D-Pad and the two send/end keys. The screen is of QVGA resolution and is nicely sized at 2.8" although its a huge fingerprint magnet- something common amongst almost all touch screen phones.
Specifications-wise, the Touch 3G has pretty much everything except for the higher-resolution screen found in Diamond models. Its based on the Qualcomm MSM7225 CPU zipping along at 528MHz with 256MB ROM and 192MB RAM. A MicroSD 2.0 compliant slot allows you to increase your storage capacity. Connectivity-wise, you have HSDPA 3G, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR as well as GPS/AGPS. Finally, the camera is 3.2 Megapixels.
The Touch 3G comes with Windows 6.1 on it which is the latest version of Windows Mobile at the moment. However, the clunky, stylus-driven interface of Windows Mobile is replaced by HTC's second generation TouchFlo interface that is not only beautiful but also very usable using your fingers. The Home screen has six tabs that allow quick access to most of the commonly used applications.
One cant help but ponder about the iPhone's influence on the Touch 3G's TouchFlo interface. You slide your fingers vertically for navigating between different items within a panel- such as emails or text messages while horizontal swipes takes you between the different panels which include weather, favourites and appliction launching along with the Messaging panels. Even the on-screen keyboard looks very much like the iPhone's.
The good thing is that it works quite nicely. I did not notice much lag switching between panels or items in a panel and almost all the time the swipes worked as intended- definitely a big improvement over the original TouchFlo interface. Even the on-screen keyboard worked mcuh better than most Windows Mobile and I could very type text messages using my fingers without much correction. The iPhone's keyboard is definitely better though.
HTC puts a good amount of other applications on the Tocuh 3G as well such as Acrobat Reader, YouTuber Player, Zip Manager and Opera with Java. Surprisingly, there was no GPS application installed- just QuickGPS for downloading and keeping data on the phone using your data connection. The Camera is 3.2 Megapixels but of the usual Smartphone quality- nothing like higher-end Nokia or Sony Ericson camera phones. Also missing is auto-focus functionality from the camera. The following is a sample shot.
Battery life obviously depends on your usage of the device and HTC does a good thing by providing an 1100mAh battery with the Touch 3G. Using Push email with Exchange Server over an HSDPA connetion, I got the device to last almost two days which included light calling and messaging. Adding more calls to the scenario dropped the battery to a day and a half. Turning on Wi-Fi and GPS drained the battery and an on-and-off usage of these two radios still provided a day's worth of battery. While I didnt test this, I'm guessing that turning of 3G should give you over two days.
Overall, the Touch 3G is a pretty impressive Smartphone by HTC. If you're not heavy on emails, then this is definitely a very nice device offering all the latest features with a nifty user-interface that is functional and looks cool. Priced at AED 2199/- (roughly US$ 600/-), the Touch 3G is about 200 Dirhams higher than what I think would be a good price-point for it. That still doesn't prevent me from liking it very much.
Packaged in a small sift box, the Touch 3G includes everything to get you started. Bundled inside is a USB cable that can be used to connect to the PC or plugged into the supplied charger. A USB headset is also included meaning the unit doesnt feature a 3.5mm audio output interface. A couple of CDs with applications and documentation along with some quickstart guides and a screen protector wrap up the packaging.
The device is available in a few different colors and the one we received is of a light golden shade. While I prefer darker colors, my wife really liked the look of the device. Size-wise, the device is incredibly small- measuring 102mm x 53.6mm x 14.5mm and weighs 96 grams with the battery. It feels really good in your hand and the construction quality is superb with no creaky parts.
HTC continues with their minimilist look with barely any buttons on the device. The top features the on/off button while volume buttons reside on the left and the USB connector at the bottom. Thats pretty much about it. Even the front only features the D-Pad and the two send/end keys. The screen is of QVGA resolution and is nicely sized at 2.8" although its a huge fingerprint magnet- something common amongst almost all touch screen phones.
Specifications-wise, the Touch 3G has pretty much everything except for the higher-resolution screen found in Diamond models. Its based on the Qualcomm MSM7225 CPU zipping along at 528MHz with 256MB ROM and 192MB RAM. A MicroSD 2.0 compliant slot allows you to increase your storage capacity. Connectivity-wise, you have HSDPA 3G, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR as well as GPS/AGPS. Finally, the camera is 3.2 Megapixels.
The Touch 3G comes with Windows 6.1 on it which is the latest version of Windows Mobile at the moment. However, the clunky, stylus-driven interface of Windows Mobile is replaced by HTC's second generation TouchFlo interface that is not only beautiful but also very usable using your fingers. The Home screen has six tabs that allow quick access to most of the commonly used applications.
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One cant help but ponder about the iPhone's influence on the Touch 3G's TouchFlo interface. You slide your fingers vertically for navigating between different items within a panel- such as emails or text messages while horizontal swipes takes you between the different panels which include weather, favourites and appliction launching along with the Messaging panels. Even the on-screen keyboard looks very much like the iPhone's.
The good thing is that it works quite nicely. I did not notice much lag switching between panels or items in a panel and almost all the time the swipes worked as intended- definitely a big improvement over the original TouchFlo interface. Even the on-screen keyboard worked mcuh better than most Windows Mobile and I could very type text messages using my fingers without much correction. The iPhone's keyboard is definitely better though.
HTC puts a good amount of other applications on the Tocuh 3G as well such as Acrobat Reader, YouTuber Player, Zip Manager and Opera with Java. Surprisingly, there was no GPS application installed- just QuickGPS for downloading and keeping data on the phone using your data connection. The Camera is 3.2 Megapixels but of the usual Smartphone quality- nothing like higher-end Nokia or Sony Ericson camera phones. Also missing is auto-focus functionality from the camera. The following is a sample shot.
Battery life obviously depends on your usage of the device and HTC does a good thing by providing an 1100mAh battery with the Touch 3G. Using Push email with Exchange Server over an HSDPA connetion, I got the device to last almost two days which included light calling and messaging. Adding more calls to the scenario dropped the battery to a day and a half. Turning on Wi-Fi and GPS drained the battery and an on-and-off usage of these two radios still provided a day's worth of battery. While I didnt test this, I'm guessing that turning of 3G should give you over two days.
Overall, the Touch 3G is a pretty impressive Smartphone by HTC. If you're not heavy on emails, then this is definitely a very nice device offering all the latest features with a nifty user-interface that is functional and looks cool. Priced at AED 2199/- (roughly US$ 600/-), the Touch 3G is about 200 Dirhams higher than what I think would be a good price-point for it. That still doesn't prevent me from liking it very much.
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