HTC Touch Pro
I recently managed to snag a Sprint HTC Touch Pro early before the release date. I must say, the HTC Touch Pro a.k.a. Raphael, has fulfilled all of my expectations, and then some.
As a bit of background information, I had a Treo 755p, then I switched to an HTC Touch (CDMA) for about a year until I acquired the Touch Pro. For starters, some of the main features include:
* Qualcomm MSM7201A 528 Mhz processor (The Touch has a 400mhz processor)
* 288 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM (Touch has 128MB RAM, 256MB ROM)
* Wireless 802.11b/g (Touch does not have wifi capabilities)
* 2.8", 480 x 640 VGA resolution screen (Touch has 240 x 320 QVGA screen)
* Accelerometer (Touch does not have an accelerometer)
Hardware keyboard (Touch only has an onscreen keyboard)
For this entry, I'll go over performance, web b
rowsing, and some extra features. Be sure to check back for more updates which will come soon.
Speed/Performance
Having dealt with Windows Mobile for years now, I was always left wondering when the OS will be "snappy".
The Touch Pro is about the closest thing you'll get to "Treo-like" snappiness when switching programs, changing screen orientation, etc.
Programs open very quickly on the Touch Pro and overall the phone is very responsive. No more waiting for your Today screen to load and no more waiting on Windows to open up SMS/emails.
The new TouchFlo 3D interface is also pretty quick, with no noticeable lag when switching the tabs. Switching to phone doesn't take forever either.
When you type in the number you want to dial, the phone actually responds right away and outputs the number to the screen whereas slower Windows Mobile phones would lag and display the numbers a few seconds afterwards.
The same goes with SMS/text messaging as well; with older phones, I found myself typing the message, only to have it come on the screen half way through.
The only noticeable lag I get is by having 10+ programs running simultaneously after turning on the phone from standby.
Even still, the lag is only for a few seconds and the phone is up and running smoothly in a matter of seconds. One of the main reasons I had swayed away from Windows Mobile phones was my experience with the sluggish HTC Mogul (PPC-6800). However, I'm now a Windows Mobile believer because of the improvements in performance with the Touch Pro.
There are a few tweaks you can do to really speed up the phone even more. I recommend taking a look at the following threads for some very helpful tips and tricks:
XDA-Developers Forum - Tweak Collection
XDA-Developers Forum - More Tweaks
XDA-Developers Forum - Themes, Applications, and Software
Internet
One of the main things I love about the Touch Pro is the VGA screen. Without the VGA resolution screen, web browsing on the phone wouldn't be as good as it is now.
Web pages display just like they would on a regular computer. There's no more "mobile" view where the page is horribly reformatted with text and images all over the screen.
The Opera browser works very similar to the iPhone's browser. Web pages will first display fully zoomed out, then you can use your finger to scroll, double tap the screen to zoom in, or use the touch sensitive scroll wheel to zoom in/out of the page.
Another advantage to the VGA resolution screen is that you can view more text and images due to the higher resolution.
The text will appear tiny on the 2.8" screen, but it comes out very clear and readable if you've got good eyes. Click on the image above to view a higher resolution image where you can actually see how small and clear the text is.
The text size is about the same size as text size 6 in Microsoft Word, if you can read that, you'll be able to read the text in the Opera browser. Of course, you can zoom in and make the text larger, but at a cost of not being able to see the whole page, which basically negates the benefit of having a VGA resolution screen.
Using wireless 802.11b/g doesn't speed up the internet enough to write home about. In my experience, the speed increase was slight, although noticeable.
A bandwidth speed test measured wireless speed at about 1.5mbps down, while EVDO Rev. A clocked in at about .9mbps (900kbps) using the same test. No, the wireless wasn't slow due to my internet speed, which is 20mbps, but probably because the phone couldn't handle the bandwidth.
Extra Features
One nifty feature of the Touch Pro is the built in accelerometer. One cool thing is the ability to switch the screen from portrait to landscape, just by physically rotating the phone.
There are also lots of cool applications that take advantage of the accelerometer, like Klaxon, a feature filled alarm clock in which you turn off the alarm by shaking the phone. Games, like Teeter which comes bundled with the Touch Pro, also take advantage of the accelerometer.
Mini-USB audio output
The folks at HTC really impressed me by including a mini-USB audio output module. Obviously they saw that some people use their phones as multimedia devices.
This module plugs into the mini-usb port on the bottom of the phone and provides a 2.5mm headset jack, 3.5mm headphone jack, mini-usb headphone jack, and a mini-usb charging port.
My previous phones (Treo 650, Treo 755p, HTC Mogul, HTC Touch) did not have a 3.5mm jack and most phones on the market today don't either. What's the big deal you ask?
A 3.5mm headphone jack lets you use standard headphones to listen to audio. No more crappy 3.5mm to 2.5mm headphone adapters with horrible quality! The quality of audio output on the 3.5mm jack is surprisingly great!
I connected my Sennheiser HD280 Pro headphones and I was simply amazed by the quality; I could tell no difference between music playing on my computer and music playing on the phone.
HTC also decided to add a fifth row to the keyboard. This introduces a new row of keys which includes the 0 - 9 keys, which have come in handy more than once so far.
The keyboard is comfortable to type on and I find the keys to be the perfect size, not too big and not too small.
All in all, the Touch Pro is a great upgrade from any previous Windows Mobile smartphone.
The developers at the XDA forums are hard at work creating custom firmware (ROMs) and applications for the Touch Pro already.
It will be interesting to see how far the hardware can be pushed and what it can accomplish. Check back for more updates on the HTC Touch Pro in the future!
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