History:
I bought the HTC Touch in November 2007. Around 2007, the’Touch Screen’ fad was just beginning, and I wanted a slim, classy looking phone, so with a little research, I went ahead and bought the HTC Touch for 17, 000 back then. I’ve used the phone till August 2009, so it’s lasted me a good 21 months. I think in today’s day and age, any phone that last’s longer than 12 months is a pretty good deal.
Description:*
*This is one of the first touch screen phones in the Indian market. It’s manufactured and marketed by HTC, which stands for’Hi-Tech Corporation’. Yes. You read it right. It’s Taiwanese. I guess we should be grateful they chose to use the acronym HTC. It’s slim, comes in three colors(Black, Blood Red and Moss Green). Personally, I think the black looks best. For a complete list of features, visit https://gsmarena.com and search for the phone. You’ll learn everything you need to know about what the phone contains and doesn’t. I have not listed those features here. Instead I have tried to describe what worked well with the phone, what didn’t, and therefore, what I think of it.
Pros:
I bought this phone for 3 reasons - 1. I wanted a phone with strong internet capabilities, 2. I wanted to look cool with a stylus in my hand:-) and 3. I was enamored with the touch screen and the’Touch-Flo’ technology. Basically, the touch-flo allows you to move your finger around the screen and change between 3-4 screens(media, communication tools, speed dial). On to the pros.
1. Very good for browsing. It comes with Windows Mobile 6, so Internet Explorer is this standard browser. Works really well, and is pretty fast. I use the net a lot on my phone, so this was really good for me.
2. Windows Mobile OS is much more stable than the other OSes like Symbian etc. In my entire history with the phone, I think i’ve had only 2 freezes, where I had to manually take the battery out and reboot. Lots of cool features such as cleaning up of cache memory, temp files, etc to speed up the phone. Very windows-like interface, so if you know how to get around on a computer, you can quickly manage files on this phone with the in-built file explorer.
3. Excellent quantity of memory. I rarely had a memory problem - Enough place to store the few songs I wanted. I have an Ipod for my music, so I didn’t really use this feature much.
4. Excellent display - Clear rich colours, and browsing was great because you can crunch the web page you are browsing into a single vertical screen, thereby avoiding the need to constantly keep panning to the left or right to read a whole sentence.
5. Sturdy. Very sturdy. I once dropped this phone from the second floor down an elevator shaft(Yes, I was a little careless, and No, I dont do it for fun). Needless to say, my heart was in my mouth because I thought I had splattered 17, 000 rupees on the basement floor. On opening up the lift shaft and jumping down, the phone had split into 3 parts - front panel, rear panel and battery. On putting everything back together, the phone booted up, was a little slow for 5 seconds and then was completely back to normal. I can’t say the same for the stylus, because that split in 3 as well, but I couldn’t piece it together:-).
6. Amazing potential for upgrades – The great thing about using Windows Mobile is that there’s a software out there to do almost anything. From custom alarm software to new video players to flash to facebook and orkut – you can download applications to make your phone as versatile as you choose.
Cons:
The single biggest problem with this phone is actually it’s biggest USP. The Touch Screen. While the touch screen is very cool when you want to select contacts, or click on links on the web, or just act smart J - It’s horrible to use when you need it for more mundane things like messaging, dialing, etc.
If you can use the stylus, great. But for most people, using the stylus is a pain in the a$. When you want to sms someone really quick, imagine pulling it out, typing what you need, and then putting it in. Normal Keypad users will find this difficult to get used to. Trust me, after the novelty of the ‘touch screen’ wears off, you’ll hate it. And the stylus get’s lost pretty often, no matter how careful you are. After which you are forced to use, among many other things, your pen cap, pencil, finger nail, toothpick, etc as a replacement. And unless you have supermodel-type slim fingers, typing on the keypad is a nightmare. The virtual keypad for messaging is slow, un-responsive and very infuriating when you need to do something quick. Eg. You want to type ‘I’ll call you back’. You often end up typing ‘ilkcall yo bak’. Maybe it’s because the phone is trying to speak Taiwanese?
The fact that there is no keypad makes it even harder if you want to use phone banking, etc. For eg, if you dial ‘Citibank’ for phone banking and have to type your account number(10 digits), you often miss 1-2 digits and then have to retry the whole thing again. You can’t imagine the number of times I’ve screwed this up and yelled at my phone loudly while walking on a public road. And then you end up abusing the phone, the bank, your fingers, and Taiwan. J. This also means that you cannot quickly type down numbers, etc. So if you meet someone in the middle of the road and want to take down their number, you better wait for 2 traffic signals to complete before you get it right.
Poor finish – It’s all shiny and chrome when you buy it, but it wears off pretty fast and starts to look ‘old’ after 2-3 months. Although I admit one cannot expect a phone to fall three storeys and smash the ground and then look like it came out it’s bubble-wrap, it still does acquire a ‘battered’ look much faster than others.
Camera – It’s a 2 MP camera, along with all sorts of flashy features(except a flash, ironically). You can chose from different settings(night, day, automatic, sports, etc), and adjust white balance, etc. You can do all the things that you think professional photographers do. But it wont matter. Because the lens quality and the pictures are basically crap. The images are washed out, video recordings are grainy and my old Nokia 6600 VGA camera came out with better looking photos.
*Verdict:
*All in all, this is a stable, work-horse phone. If you want to use it for the internet and for email, it’s great. You can synchronize your outlook express, or even your yahoo / gmail accounts to the phone to receive mails on the go. Also, if you actually look at it from the perspective of being a PDA – Personal Digital Assistant, it’s great. Set your reminders, notes, calendar entries with ease. The battery is good, lasts 2 days on normal use, but extensive internet usage can drain the battery in about half a day. But for those quick-phone functions(the one’s we all originally switched to mobile phones for) such as quick SMS, taking down numbers, dialling numbers fast, etc – It’s a pain.
So should you buy it? Yes – For internet on the go, and if you choose to use it at leisure. No – If you want a phone for the basic functions, and if you have fingers that are bigger than Darsheel Safary’s.