indows Mobile's fatal touch on the new HTC Touch

The original HTC Touch was a small, smooth and very attractive smartphone, especially as the majority of smartphones were big, thick and decidedly clunky. Unfortunately, the HTC Touch was a huge disappointment. It was slow, incredibly so. It ran out of internal memory with nothing more than a large diary loaded. The interface was rough, and that is being kind. It did not take long before I gave up and changed to another phone.

Along comes the Touch 3G. If anything it is smoother, taller, and better feeling than the original. The build quality of HTC phones has been improving over the years, and this phone feels very well made, with a smooth, polished finish and clean, well fitted lines. Its size and weight make it much more pocket friendly than the iPhone or Blackberry Bold. For those that are fashion conscious, I have seen the phone in Blue, gold and brown.

I was impressed with the speed of the phone when switching on. HTC have updated the processor and memory, and it shows; none of the slow response of the old Touch. The Touch 3G uses the latest version of Windows Mobile,  i.e. 6.1. A new improved version 6.5 is around the corner with much improved touch features and I hope HTC will make a ROM upgrade available when it is launched. HTC have included the 2D version of their TouchFLO interface, which runs on top of Windows Mobile 6. This interface makes the phone very easy to use, and is much more finger friendly than the base operating system.

 Much to my disappointment, even with the TouchFlow interface hiding much of the original Windows Mobile interface, you still need to use the included stylus. The simplest tasks become a never ending click-and-peck with the stylus. It is very frustrating and ruined the phone for me. After becoming accustomed to the iPhone and Blackberry touch phones, going to the Windows Mobile interface was a real problem. Nothing is intuitive and the stylus made me feel so 2001. Windows Mobile is a pig of an operating system to use; it is way past its sell by date.

That said the phone itself worked well, reception was first class, I never dropped a call and call quality was good. The built in browser is from Opera and it was fast and easy to use; if anything, faster that both the Blackberry and iPhone browsers.

There are plenty of other great features, for example Bluetooth 2.0 and a 3.2 Megapixel camera, which was good, even in low light, although there is no flash. Google maps is included free along with the built-in GPS receiver. Battery life is also impressive. I got around three days of general use, and this dropped to two days with lots of web browsing and email checking. Another really impressive feature was the ease and seamless integration with Windows 7 on my PC. Plugging the phone in, all the necessary bits were downloaded and installed, and synchronising was effortless and fast.

Along with the dated operating system, there are a number of other relatively minor annoyances. The phone lacks an accelerometer so the screen does not switch to landscape when the phone is turned. A small thing, I know, but one I have become so used to in many competitive phones from Nokia, Samsung and others. The headphone jack is also not standard, and you therefore have to use the supplied phones, which are not bad, but not good enough for extended listening. This is a real pity as the built-in media player is easy to use and sounds very good. The charging port is also not a standard mini USB Port, and it doubles as the headphone socket, so you can’t listen to music while the phone charges.

Overall I was both pleased and very disappointed with this phone. It feels great, has impeccable build quality, great features, and with the TouchFLO interface it is really easy to use. It is much faster than the original Touch, and loading programmes is easy. An example was Fring, which loaded fast and worked really well. It was only when trying to do simple tasks like switching the WiFi on and off and changing a few setting, as well as delving into the phonebook and other arcane Windows Mobile bits, that the frustration set in. What should be simple became a mission, and while familiarity would improve matters, this is just not good enough, as so many competitors have come so far in the last year.

In summary, the Touch 3G is a good phone with many cutting edge features, and a useful but fatally flawed interface. If you need Windows Mobile compatibility or have the older Touch phone and have become accustomed to the way it operates, then this phone is a good choice.