| Brand: | HTC | ||
| Average Rating |
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Let your fingers guide you with the HTC Touch™, the world’s first phone to feature intuitive touch screen technology. Surf the web with Internet Explorer®, send and receive email from accounts like Hotmail® and Yahoo!®. Chat on Messenger and send photos to your own web space through Windows Live™. Optimised for entertainment, the HTC Touch lets you enjoy your favourite music and movie clips through the integrated media suite. You also have the versatility to upload, store and share your media files with microSD™ removable memory. With Windows Mobile® 6, the HTC Touch also provides instant access to your Outlook® email and the most popular Microsoft® Office applications. Feel the difference with intuitive TouchFLO™ screen technology for finger and stylus input. Simple user interface for quick dialing, navigation and launching applications. Surf the web with ease on the large 2.8” touch screen with Internet Explorer®. Enjoy music and movie clips with HTC’s Audio Manager and Windows Media® Player. Chat on Messenger, send and receive Hotmail® and send photos to Windows Live™ Spaces. more info
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Excellent touch-screen PDA phone
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The HTC Touch is an excellent choice especially for those who like to customize their experience with the touch-screen PDA phone. The only other similar product out there is the iPhone which has a faster processor and has a larger and more sensitive screen. However, if you want to install your own applications and customize the operating system to your needs, the Touch beats the iPhone hands down. The occasional lag is tolerable and the sensitivity of the screen is enough if you get used to applying the right amount of pressure. I hardly ever use the stylus, and I even use my thumb to type with the standard on-screen keyboard (takes some getting used to) but I don’t do much typing or messaging and those who do can install larger keyboard applications or might even be happier with a larger device that has a dedicated keyboard. I actually prefer the Touch’s compact size (about the size of a Motorola RAZR V3, smaller and lighter than iPhone).
I am very happy with this product and use all kinds of software on it (internet search and browsing, email, maps, medical software, games, weather, utilities, etc). Call quality and reception is good (most likely a quadband according to numerous user reports, despite HTC’s specs) and it’s very pocketable. I believe the Touch is the smallest Pocket PC phone around, and within its technical specs, it’s an excellent product. Of course if you can wait you are always going to find newer and better products entering the market, but if you need a very pocketable touch-screen PDA phone now and you need the customizability that comes with Windows Mobile operating system, HTC Touch is most likely the best choice for you.
Don’t bother…yet
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
HTC Touch (code named “Elf”) was in development during the same time as the iPhone so despite some reviews, it didn’t try and copy the iphones o/s. In-fact, it still uses Windows Mobile Pro 6…it’s only the ‘TouchFlo’ application that is different.
TouchFlo works similar to the iPhone interface…swipe your finger up to bring up the ‘cube’ and move your finger to the right or left to make the cube go around. There are some added applications tweaked such as the phone, multimedia player, etc. which are nice but are the exception.
The bad is HTC is still using these tiny screens…gone are the days of the original PPC Cell Phones with their nice big 3″+ screens…now it’s tiny tiny tiny. They didn’t even bother to add a better finger/thumb keyboard (such as TenGO), instead you have to break out the itty bitty stylus to type…um, not that great for a device that talks of using your thumb for everything. So when you leave the TouchFlo application, you are back in regular windows mobile in a SMALL screen. Which is fine if the rest of the apps were tweaked as well.
Next is it’s sub-par 200mhz processor. Which is fine, it still works. But it’s the same processor as my T-Mobile Pocket PC Cell Phone from 2002! Everyone else uses 400mhz+…food for thought. Then it’s internet tech is sub-par as well.
So…why wait? It’s still a cool phone, design is not pretty (despite HTC thinking it is), but there is hope on the horizon:
Those on Sprint and Verizon networks may be getting a beefed up version compelte with 400mhz, GPS, FM Radio and better internet connection tech. In-fact Sprint says they are getting it. They will even include their own tweaks to TouchFlo cube.
Next, Touch II is on the horizon with a slide down keypad and boasts some new technology.
Finally, TouchFlo won’t allow you to modify any of it’s “set” applications (you’re stuck with what they give you). Maybe an upgrade is in the works…who knows.
Either way, it’s a waste of money for *this* particular Touch, but future versions may be a good investment.
HTC Touch Phone Needs Major Tweaks
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
The HTC touch phone is a decent size phone with an attractive exterior case which has a nice tactile feel.Ti runs on windows mobile 6 and has a touch sensitive screen.
The negative aspect about this device is that it is prone to software/Screen lockups. Almost everything you do on this device including sending text, viewing or deleting mail or even searching for contacts, results in a screen lockup. The only way to recover from the screen lockup is to reboot the device. I usually reboot several times a day.If you forsee future emergencies that may require emergency services like the fire department,this phone might not satisfy that need.
As soon as HTC fixes the screen freeze/lockup problems on this device, it will surely make this phone a worthwhile phone to own.
Nice Alternative to the iPhone
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Given the recent $200 price cut for the iPhone, I envision a price reduction (say $100) for the HTC Touch unlocked in order to compete. I personally had an opportunity to play with this device for a week and I think its a nice alternative to the iPhone. Here’s why!
It’s a Windows Mobile 6 Pro device which means its completely customizable. There’s tons of apps available for this platform. For instance, you can purchase a full screen keyboard app, not to mention tons of games, and office productivity software. Plus, it comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, & Outlook.
Although it doesn’t have an internal 8gig flash drive, it does use a micro SD card which you can get a 4gig micro SD card nowadays.
If your looking to use this device for business, I would highly recommend looking for something more powerful. The 201MHZ processor gets kinda of sluggish when you sync tons of contacts, emails, & calendar appts with your exchange server. The Sprint version of the HTC Touch gets an upgrade to 400MHZ if you like Sprint. So this is clearly a consumer device.
Overall, the device is very slim and sexy. It feels great in your hands and is a good smartphone to have if you’re not a huge text messenger. However, you can purchase a minature bluetooth keyboard if that’s the case.
Best phone I’ve ever had
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I find the phone real easy to use, smooth, very sensitive to touch, despite my large fingers and only need to use the stylus when writing a note or sms. The hand writing recognition is obviously suited to my scrawl, I get at least 90% recognition. Only down for me, was the mission in finding out how to get my home city on the weather and feel HTC should make this easier, although once known, is simple enough.
HTC Touch is not the ideal touch screen phone
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I have gone through three of these phones and they all have the same problems. It is common for this phone not to ring for incoming calls. HTC has yet to provide a suitable solution to this problem. If you are lucky enough for the phone to ring, you only have a few seconds (literally) before the call goes to voicemail. Therefore, you barely have any time to answer it. The phone constantly drops calls and freezes so often that you find yourself constantly resetting it and taking out the battery. In addition, it is difficult to use the screens as they are very tiny so if you like surfing the web or texting, it will be a challenge.
If you are looking for a good touch screen phone, I recommend trying the iphone or the instinct. Please don’t waste your time or your money on this phone.
Genuis but stupid
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I currently have this phone on the Sprint network. The phone has many wonderful advantages such as windows mobile and wonderful internet speed. But on the opposite end it has stupid kinks. For instance, the headphones are to big for the average users ears and the headphone adapter that supposed to allow you to use another set is to small to hook up another set of headphones to. In addition the windows media player is not as up to date as the current version for your pc, even though it syncs its still a little tricky to work out as your songs will end up everywhere if there is a featured artist on the track whose name alphabetically comes before the actual artist of the song.Sadly you can not put the screen on power save and use windows media. You turn the screen off everything shuts off unlike my previous Sony Ericcson W810. You also can not have the phone on vibrate and use windows media player.Te phone can either vibrate or ring, not both at the same time. Setting the alarm can be tricky as you have to use the clock and numbers, but only can seem to move the hour hand. To me this phone is the nerd in high school thats a genuis but can not say hello to a women he’s not related to. Genius phone, stupid kinks
Very good Smart Phone
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This is my 1st PDA phone.. as I was waiting to get my hands on something usefull, with good features and NOT BULKY !
It is really a good phone, very good battery life, due to the processor it carrier, to which makes it a bit slow sometimes, but nothing that wil annoy anyone…
The Touch feature is nice, but don’t get the phone just because of it, since it’s is just a “shortcut” to the varius features you can get throuhg regular menus… But is still nice, since it IS in fact a shortcut..
The phone is LIGHT, and my choice was based on this… Really thin, and if I am not mistaken, to date, it is the smallest PDA phone available…
Let me point out some of the negative issues after 2 months of usage:
a) If you send a lot of SMS and are used to typing on the numbers and keypad, this phone holds you dow a bit, since you would need the stylus for this particular task.. believe me, but even though I use it a lot, it has not taken me to dislike the phone…
b) The stylus is small… and for big hands it will be a drawback.. (about 2 inches)
c) fingertip magnet, but is a touchscreen phone, so it is expectable..
d) Wifi battery usage.. This thing sucks up the battery when using the wifi !!
I must say I am happy with phone and it has been real handy to have contacts and phone in one thing, since I had to keep a PALM and phone before…
The battery charger through USB is really good as well.. As a matter of fact I have never charged the phone using the power cord so far…
Hope it helps you to evaluate !
I love my new HTC Touch
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I am having so much fun with my new HTC Touch. It is everything advertised. It is a great business tool and a great fun tool all packed in a small, slim and light format. It does not do everything that an iPhone does, but it does the things everyone needs and is lighter, smaller and with a better hand grip.
The only negative is the keyboard and I solved that problem by downloading the SPB Full Screen Keyboard ($9.95).
The smallest pda phone with all the features (x-cept 3G)
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The HTC touch is almost everything I would want in a pda phone. The goods- The size, this is tiny and flat. Not alot bigger than a credit card (3.9 inches by 2.8 inches by 1/2 inch thick and weighs just 3.98 ounces). You can put it anywhere and it disappears. It’s also very light for a pda phone- for a phone in general. The case is a matte black almost rubberized plastic, it doesn’t fingerprint and grips in your hand easily. FYI the green model I was told is a smooth pearl plastic- I haven’t seen it in person. It runs Window Mobile 6.0- which is great if you are using the Office applications. The processor is fast enough and does graphics fine. It also tells you when you have too many applications (usually graphic) open- easy to click off from the process manager on the top bar. The battery life isn’t drained by the bluetooth like on most other phones. Nor does the wi-fi drain it as much as I expected. The battery should be bigger but since the touch is efficient you break even. I still have to plug it in every night but it’s also new, so once I’m not constantly playing with it, maybe it will last longer anyway. I’m personally holding out for an extra capacity battery to appear in the next 6 months. The “touch” part is great- especially switching applications and moving around the screen. The interface is elegant and simple- not gimmicky. All the applications are literally at your fingertips. It has a 2.0 megapixal camera with video and sound (normal and MMS)- no flash but all but my very dark indoor shots come out well, especially with all the light and shooting modes.
I did consider the iphone but the lack of a video camera, blue tooth, and stylus killed it for me. With the 1GB removable mini scan disc- (it can handle storage higher as well) it can do just as well as a mp3 player- at least for me- and I can listen on my stereo BLUETOOTH head phones.
Next the bads- no 3G. Annoying for a new model but Edge is fast enough for regular surfing. Wi-fi is also getting so common it’s not really an issue. Besides it has PUSH email so it’s not like you are hanging out waiting for it.
I would also like to address the complaints I see about this phone- namely the lack of separate keyboard/small onscreen keyboard. This phone is really tiny- it would be impossible to keep the big screen AND have a keyboard, adding a pull out key board would bulk it up too much. I don’t think the online keyboard is meant to be used as a ‘regular’ keyboard either. I can type (with my nails)- but why? That’s what the transcriber is for. Using the stylus I write on the screen and it types it out. Not letters (there is that option) but whole sentences. It’s pretty accurate and about perfect, especially if you practice a bit and input your personal style. I do use the keyboard for passwords, number strings, etc. Anyone buying this should keep that in mind- it’s not for someone who is insistant on a keyboard. The other is the speaker. It’s okay for music and video but do wish it were louder, you certainly can’t sit across a desk and have a phone conversation, maybe it’s because the speaker is on the back. Pda speakers in general don’t have a good track record and my hp messenger was especially terrible. This is at least 2x as loud and is fine for car navigation. The call quality is clear and is loud when used as a regular phone. I also use my blue tooth head set all the time. (no I’m not walking around like the secret service- it’s just what I reach for when the phone rings.) The range is good, and I think most pda people will probably be moving that way anyhow. (I have the little Motorola H700 which you open to answer and uses the same charger.)
I would highly recommend this phone to anyone who uses a pda with the exception of those who just can’t give up their keyboard. But with tablet PCs coming up- I think it’s only a matter of time until you’ll need to consider a transcriber anyway. (Just for the record- I would much rather type on my computer than write free hand, but the transcriber is a good alternative when you want small and fast.)
Exactly what I needed
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I traded in my four-year-old O2 for the HTC Touch. I looked at a lot of other alternatives, and just about everything in the same price range was too bulky or too expensive. I was also very accustomed to Windows Mobile, didn’t like the interface for Symbian or for the i-Phone (which was too expensive anyway).
I also prefer virtual keyboards over hard keyboards (so Blackberry and Nokia E series were out), and prefer using the keyboard with a stylus rather than using my finger. But I notice the HTC works fine either way, with stylus or finger. Just happy that a stylus is included and that it fits snugly in the case. Shorter is better, too, less chance of breakage.
Basically it’s a super update of the O2. Slimmer, lighter and more reliable. It’s funny that some reviewers here have mentioned lockups or freezes, as that was an occasional problem with my O2 but it hasn’t happened once yet in the two months I’ve had the HTC Touch. Three stars so far.
I don’t use the Touch Cube feature, which basically seems like something thrown in to compete with the iPhone. It’s just as useless here as on the iPhone. I also find the weather feature useless, as I live in Thailand and it’s not supported here. Besides I already know what the weather is: tropical. I wish there was a way to erase the Weather feature from the ‘Today’ menu as it’s a bit distracting. Minus one star for these two features.
Sound quality of the phone is excellent, tons better than the O2 and better than any of the Nokias I’ve owned, and Nokias are known for good sound. Add one star.
The camera is a big improvement over the one in the O2 as well. It’s much more logical the way photos are stored and accessed after you shoot. This may have been an improvement that came from Windows Mobile rather than the HTC Touch programming. Add one star.
The comfortable, non-slip feel of the phone is outstanding. No other PDA phone I’ve handled comes close actually.
One of the better PDA phones
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I have had an iPhone, Blackberry Curve, two Blackberry Pearls, Verizon VX6800, and a Palm Treo. I’ve been around the block when it comes to “smartphones.” The HTC Touch has been a pleasent surprise. I was a little skeptical about having a PDA phone without a physical keyboard. I loved the Pearl’s text input (Suretype) and was surprise to see a virtual “suretype” style keyboard. The keypad for text input has 20 keys arranged like a QWERTY keybard with two letters to a key. There is also 5 other text inputs other than the suretype style: a small keyboard (stylus only), T9, letter recognition (like a palm treo), block recognizer, and transcriber.
The transcriber was one of the more interesting text inputs. How many times have you gotten frustrated while inputing a contacts name or something custom? Transcriber recognizes your handwritting (both cursive, print, or a combination of both).
The HTC touch is highly customizable since it runs on Windows Mobile 6. I have rather new to WM6, but am thus surprised on how fast and stable it has been.
The HTC touch is a great PDA style phone. The “Touch Flow” is a great addition to an already well balanced phone. So if you’ve read my other phone reviews, I’ll list the pros and cons:
Pros:
-Stable operating system
-Customizable
-Loud speaker phone
-Loud ear volume
-Good vibrate
-Touch flow
-Variable data/text entry (6 different ways)
-Bright and vivid display
-Touch screen is sensitive and responsive
-Rubberized shell
-2.0 MP camera
Cons:
-Quiet custom MP3 ringtones
-Terrible alarm clock
-HTC Home Weather app is limited to major cities only
-Cheap stylus (my first broke within a few days…a little superglue fixed that problem)
-Must have data package (see notes below)
Now to finish up, the only problem with having a PDA phone affording a data package. If the phone is purchased under a new contract or upgrade (so you take the phone at a discount), you will have to either have a “Smart Choice” plan (via Alltel) or pay 45 bucks a month for unlimited data and e-mail. Seems a little high since the phone doesn’t require data to function. Now, if the phone is purchased at full-retail price, you are not obligated to pay for a data package. If this is the case, data is charged by the minute, not the KB. For only 10 bucks a month, you will have unlimited data through Alltel. Not too shabby.
Sprint HTC Touch
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is the review for the sprint version of the HTC touch. Everything about this phone is sweet. This phone was in production when Apple was developing their iPhone so there is no need to bash HTC. Apple actually rushed the iPhone to release before this one could have been completed. First of all the Touchflo is completely improved from the GSM version. There is no need for the use of the stylus that was included with the phone. The camera could be better but it is a phone so no credit lossed there. There are several buttons on the phone but everything can be controlled with just the screen. A drawback is that there is no GPS (in the real world who needs that on a phone) and there is no WiFi. That would have been nice even though sprint has a nice sprint speed service, that still doesnt beat WiFi. The ringers are clear and the websites load pretty smooth. Also would have been nice if the page turned horizontal when the phone was. Other than that, this is a solid phone with good capabilities. There are programs that are available to fix all these complaints except the WiFi. The exterior look of the phone is sleek and smooth. Great Phone, Good Buy
Empty phone
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I changed my Palm Treo for the HTC Touch some months ago, it was a mistake, I loved the design and the specifications, but from the begining the phone had software problems, problems that reduced the device almost to futility, I can`t sync with a PC because the HTC Touch destroys every programation in the calendar, I looked for help, and even today I have not received any response from HTC. The only thing I can do now is throw my HTC to the garbage can and go for a Palm Treo or something else.
Nice
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I purchased my Touch through Sprint about a week ago and am pretty happy with it so far. I’ve had no issues with phone service quality (I’m fortunate to live in an area where Sprint’s coverage is almost continuous) and I’m very impressed with the Touch’s features even if I don’t use all of them. One example is the “Touch Cube”. It was fun to play with for a few minutes but I don’t really see myself getting much use from it as everything I need is already on the Home page. One thing on the Home page that I’d love to be able to use is the Weather feature. Sadly the weather info is provided by AccuWeather and only major cities are included in the set-up list. You can include some cities via registry tweaks, but many more are still not supported. Basically “Weather” is a dead feature on my phone.
The Touch itself feels solidly made and the screen is plenty big. Using the Sprint EVDO I’m able to surf the web at speeds that are almost as fast as when I was using WiFi with my old Mogul. I also have my Touch connected to a Slingbox and the picture is very impressive, much better than I expected. The Touch doesn’t have an external keyboard but that was actually a selling point for me as I’ve got fat thumbs and prefer to use a stylus.
I would have given five stars if it weren’t for the useless Weather feature and the lack of more built-in customization options for the interface (fonts, colors & such). I’m pretty happy with it so far.