iPhone is getting all the hype – but people should soon be talking about the Touch.
HTC’s Touch is a brand new smartphone design with a very cool touch-screen navigation system – similar to what Apple has reportedly developed for their soon-to-be-unleashed iPhone.
But one of the big differences here is that HTC’s device is built on – and has improved upon – a sixth-generation operation system. The iPhone will be Apple’s first-generation in-house designed smartphone.
HTC, the manufacturer behind some of the best smartphones on the market today (like the terrific T Mobile Dash), has been working on their revolutionary touch screen device for two years – and the pedigree is reflected in the Touch.
HTC based their phone on Microsoft’s just-released Windows Mobile 6 OS. They developed a number of improvements to the standard (boring-but-functional) WM smartphone home screen by, among other things, adding a big digital clock or local weather display as the main focal point. The new screen is not only beautiful it’s also user-friendly.
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Touch and slide
Touch’s hottest feature is their next-generation touch screen and the software which controls it. HTC calls their underlying technology TouchFLO. It’s a new way of controlling your phone by recognizing and responding to the sweep of your finger across the screen. The system is even smart enough to know the difference between your finger and stylus input. I find that the phone’s touch screen is actually a little less rigid/more compliant than other smartphones I’ve tried.
All you need to do is slide your finger up the display to launch the animated interface. You are then greeted by Touch’s new 3D screens: ‘Contacts’, ‘Media’ and ‘Applications’. The interface is spun by swiping your finger right or left across the screen. You can also use your finger to open and close menus, move from one screen to another, easily scroll up and down through contact lists and actually move documents and Web pages.
Does it work? You bet! It takes a minute or two to get used to the system and perfect your screen sliding skills. Once you do, it begins to be second nature.
The rest of the device ain’t bad either. It’s very small: 3.9 by 2.3 by 0.55 inches and weighs a hair less than 4 ounces with the battery. The 2.8-inch backlit touch screen is capable of reproducing 64K colors. The 1100mAh Lithium-ion battery is said to provide up to 5 hours of talk time and 200 hours of standby.
My Touch sample came with 64MB of RAM and a 1GB microSD memory card to store – among other things - your music and photo files. There’s also a 2.0 megapixel camera on the back which uses the entire color screen as its viewfinder. Very cool. My sample is black but I’m told there is also a “wasabi green” model.
Touch has Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) and Bluetooth (2.0) built inside. My test sample was a GSM/GPRS/EDGE world phone – but the HTC people said they can also make CDMA models to work on North American (Verizon, Sprint) networks.
The on-screen, software keyboard is not as usable as the hardware keyboard on other smartphones. Using the included stylus is an absolute necessity. The iPhone has a software keyboard too. Personally, I do more e-mail reading than sending. But, I’m hoping someone comes up with a much better method in the near future.
HTC has begun rolling out the GSM version in the United Kingdom and will release the Touch, later this month, in Asia and other European countries. North and Latin American versions are expected later this year. I’ve been told “early fourth quarter” is most likely for the United States. U.S. pricing has not been announced.
My first impression: this is one small, lightweight, feature-laden, action-packed, next-generation smartphone. How does it compare to the iPhone? We’ll know more soon.
GARY KRAKOW
Via : MSNBC
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