Just picked up a HTC Touch

[Spud1]

My contract with three is due to end very soon, and despite three offering me great deals on contracts..the really have no half decent phones anymore. The best they could offer me was an N95, which I don't want due to its huge size + weight and shocking battery life.

So Yesterday I went to the high street and trawled the mobile shops, to see what else I could find. Eventually ended up in between the T-Mobile and Orange shops, having spotted a HTC Touch in each of the windows..I had seen it online a while back but never in the flesh (so to speak). Went in to have a play with it, and it impressed me..after a bit of negotiation Orange offered me a good contract (£30 canary contract for £24.45/month and some free gubbins) and I signed on the line.

Had the phone nearly 24 hours now, and I love it Its my first windows mobile handset, and i'm very impressed with how it works - having come from a nokia/symbian background its really nice. The touch functionaility is really good, very accurate for text input, although the default keyboard is a little too small. Theres a nice download available at xda-developers though which gives you the new, improved touch input pad from the HTC touch duo and this makes a huge difference. Texting is now as easy as it was on my N73. All the usual stuff is in there, wireless, bluetooth etc, as well as EDGE/GPRS for data. I'm actually quite impressed with EDGE - I was concerned it would be too slow for me after 18 months on three, but its plenty fast enough for email and most websites...wouldnt cope with videos but then I never streamed them on three either, so not a problem for me. The phone also automatically uses the fastest connection it has also - so if your in a Wi-Fi area it will use that rather than edge, saving you money/megabyes

Of course with this phone the major show off feature is Touch FLO, which is the feature most often compared to the iPhone. This is pretty nice too, a quick flick with your finger and you have a very touch-friendly interface for dialing/multimedia functions or for some of the settings. Impressive.

The worst thing about it is that all of the Microsoft stuff that HTC have not messed with is not so touch friendly - the Touch does a good job of working out what you are aiming for most of the time, but its my no means perfect..the task manager being a particular PITA which makes you reach for the stylus. The good news though is that HTC seem to keep making improvements to the various firmwares that the touches ship with..and although they dont release official updates, the folks at xda-developers keep releasing .cabs for people who dont have the latest firmware So the phone is getting more and more touch friendly with each week.

The camera isnt great but its good enough for MMS pictures. Its not an important feature for me anyway so i've not played with that bit much yet. I have a real camera for taking photos.

Can't really comment on battery life yet as ive not had it long enough, but reports on the net are good.

In short its a great phone, perfect for me and a huge step up from my old N73 - why oh why didnt I go for a Windows Mobile phone earlier! It comes with a 1 gig memory card too (accepts up to 6gig I think) which is pretty decent, stores enough music/movies to keep me happy anyway.

[mightymouse]

thanks for the review, i have always wanted to get touch too but never bothered cuz of its price at the moment and the lack of gps. i'm currently using xda orbit flashed with touch flo so i know how much you're lovin it hehe... when you have thoroughly test the battery life pls update this post i will be interested to know.

cheers

[nc555]

Interesting read...

I 'm another who went the symbian to windows mobile route. The Nokia 7610 was good and really loved using the 6680. When I first switched to windows mobile (spv m500) I thought why did I not buy a PDA phone before? Now using a Xda Orbit with wm6.

I couldn't go back to a symbian now. Too used to a touch screen.

[Flibb]

Looking at getting a Kaiser and installing the touch cube from xda dev. I take it all yhose here using WM phones have looked at xda dev website? Lots of info, tweaks, and complete new ROMS

[Rishi]

Originally Posted by mightymouse

the lack of gps.

If they added GPS to this handset then I could see it being very popular, it could be used to bridge the gap that lies between the Kaiser.

[Salazaar]

Originally Posted by Rishi

If they added GPS to this handset then I could see it being very popular

New HTC Touch Cruise

I think I may have to buy one of these...

[dangel]

check out TenGO for an alternative input method - works much better IMHO (i use it on the Qtek S100)

[Spud1]

Originally Posted by dangel

check out TenGO for an alternative input method - works much better IMHO (i use it on the Qtek S100)

TenGO does work ok - but the keybaord from the Touch DUO which I found on XDA-Developers really works well, really like being able to use it as a touch based stndard phone keypad with T9

On battery life i'm quite impressed - charged it two days ago and its now at 66%. Done approx 1hr calls, few hours on wifi/msn, few hours bluetooth and 50 texts or so. Considering its a WM phone with a large screen thats pretty good imo..will see how long it lasts though, not going to charge it till it dies now!