Review: HTC Touch2

As a Windows Phone, the HTC Touch2 is among the first batch of mobile phones to launch with Windows Mobile 6.5 included as standard.Windows Mobile 6.5 launched on 6 October, and promises vast improvements over previous versions. The of most interest is that it's designed to be more finger friendly, rather than stylus hungry. And while some of the classic problems remain, HTC's marvellous and updated TouchFLO interface - installed on top of the Windows Phone platform - promises to improve things further.When it comes to finger-friendly, touchscreen smartphones, HTC can claim to have got there before Apple.The original HTC Touch kickstarted a tidal wave of touchscreen phones, all hoping to snag some of the spectacularly large market Apple was threatening to dominate.Two years on and the iPhone is seeing off all-comers, despite some incredibly clever software innovation, not least from the likes of Google and HTC itself.HTC's TouchFLO interface, it's claimed, allows you to "choose to take charge of your life", but can it overcome Windows Mobile's historical touchscreen niggles - namely, that the system was designed for a world in which the stylus, not the finger, reigned supreme?When the original HTC Touch came out in 2007, the Windows Mobile community held its breath. Here was a phone that, months before the original iPhone, promised to give users a proper touchscreen interface designed for fingertips rather than the stylus.The reality fell short. The Touch's hardware was nowhere near as clean or as sophisticated as the iPhone's, and while HTC's TouchFLO software, a finger-sized interface running on top of Windows Mobile, was clever, the iPhone OS blew it out of the water.Fast-forward two years and the HTC Touch2 is here, and the comparisons to the iPhone are less readily made.HTC's TouchFLO software has grown up. Before, you could initiate most tasks with TouchFLO, but as soon as you did you were dumped back to Windows Mobile's unintuitive, clunky interface.You could start the text messaging application with a finger, for instance, but once you did you had to dig out the stylus and squint at the tiny keyboard.TouchFLO now permeates the entire handset. Virtually every menu is bigger and better.Naturally for a device that wants you to do most of your interaction via the touchscreen, there are only a few buttons.Dial and hang-up buttons bookend the row of buttons below the screen. There's room for some confusion, though.The back button is self-explanatory, but the hang-up button turns off the screen, while the Home button takes you back to TouchFLO's main page.Then the Windows button brings up the list of Windows Mobile's applications. We found ourselves constantly pushing the hang-up button, expecting it to dump us back at the home screen.Along the left hand edge is a pair of volume buttons, as well as a gate hiding the MicroSD slot. This is something you'll almost definitely have to use, as the Touch2 only comes with a paltry 512MB of internal memory. The body of the phone itself is rather workmanlike. The Touch2 stands 10.4cm high and 5.5cm wide, but the flat back means it never sits entirely comfortably in the hand. It's finished in dark grey plastic, which doesn't make it look exactly elegant.The home screen on the HTC Touch2 itself is particularly good.A big, attractive clock stars, with upcoming calendar events below it. Along the bottom is a horizontal strip of icons ? drag your finger along the line and frequently used applications slide smoothly by. It means getting straight to your SMS or email inbox is a snap, and there's a direct link to Google Maps.The menu system works extremely well, not least because it flatters the iPhone OS by borrowing a few of its more intuitive features. Go beyond the end of a menu or list, for instance, and the menu continues dragging with your finger but bounces back when you let it go.However, look at the bottom right edge of the Touch2 and the stylus is a nasty reminder that beneath the glamorous touchscreen lurks Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional.While HTC has ensured that TouchFLO largely obscures Windows Mobile's shortcomings ? which still exist, even in this latest version of the platform, every now and then you get a stark reminder they're still there.Go to MMS options, for instance, and the menu system goes from animated and large enough to use with a fingertip, to a tiny interface which you can only use accurately with the stylus.You'll the same, small interface every now and again ? such as if you need to enter your Exchange account password. It's a reminder that while HTC has done a superb job with TouchFLO, dressing every element of Windows Mobile with it would be an enormous job.And, while this is an easy problem for geeks to sympathise with, consumers will be left cold.The problem is actually apparent on virtually every screen ? the top of the screen has a Windows button on it and tiny icons that represent currently running programs. The icons are all functional, but accurately selecting one is tricky.There are other problems as well. The Touch2 doesn't have an accelerometer, and so doesn't know when it's being held sideways. Not only does this mean that some content ? such as video ? forces you to rotate the phone whether you find it comfortable to do so or not, it also means there's no landscape QWERTY keyboard.The only way to enter text is with a numeric-style keypad. You get the option of using either ABC-style entry (pressing 2 three times to get the letter C, for instance) or T9 predictive text.In our experience, neither was overly-reliable. In normal mode, the caret would sometimes jump to the next letter before we were finished spelling a word, making bashing out a text message frustrating. Longer messages such as emails were even worse.Screen problemsThe problem is the screen. We've become spoiled by phones such as the HTC Hero and iPhone, which have 3.2in and 3.5in screens respectively. The Touch2's screen is 2.8in, 320 x 420 touchscreen, which doesn't sound like a big difference but its impact is significant.This is particularly true when typing. The numeric keys on the keypad are close together, and there's no clever, iPhone-style dictionary on board that helps spell words.On the iPhone, if you make a mistake halfway through a word you simply carry on and trust the dictionary will step in at the end to correct you. On the Touch2 you need to prod the small, thin backspace button to correct your mistake. Typing is more fiddly than it needs to be.Low resolution aside, the screen is decent. It's not outstandingly bright or sharp, but we had no visibility problems in bright sunlight, and if you can forgive the small size, it's fine for viewing photos and video.One persistent nag is the screen's strange, glossy coating, which makes it look like you've forgotten to pull off the protective sticker.In the run up to the launch of Windows Mobile 6.5, plenty was made of the re-designed Internet Explorer, so it's curious that the Touch2's default browser is actually based on Opera. Still, it works well ? start the browser and you're greeted with a black screen and a big search bar.It's well featured too. It supports Flash, for a start, so those on unlimited data packages will be able to watch YouTube videos.It also generally tries to download the desktop version of each page. HTC claims this allows people to "experience content the way it is meant to be viewed" but desktop-style browsing is a double-edged sword.For one thing, downloading pages designed for home broadband connections takes longer, and will cost more for those on limited data packages. Desktop-size pages initially open on the Touch2 fully zoomed-out. Getting into the details of the page is simple enough ? just double-tap and the browser smoothly zooms in, but it does mean there's a certain amount of hunting.The Touch2 can't handle multiple points of contact on its screen, so gestures such as pinching to zoom don't work. HTC works around the problem by providing a space for a zoom bar below the screen. It's touch-sensitive and works well without needing the stylus.In use the browser is responsive, and dragging a finger around web pages is fast and intuitive. Again, we wish there was a way to view websites in landscape mode, most desktop pages being wider than they are tall.Media The Touch2 isn't a natural multimedia phone. TouchFLO bundles a media viewer that ? naturally ? allows you to swipe through your photos and videos with a fingertip, and it works well.However, there are signs that TouchFLO's integration with the core Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system isn't all it could be.For instance, we synced a few AVI video files to our phone via Windows Mobile Device Center and they resolutely failed to show up in the TouchFLO video viewer. We even tried moving them manually between folders on the phone.Even so, the only way to watch them turned out to be via Windows Media Player.Sadly, TouchFLO doesn't permeate to Windows Media Player, and so not only do you need to use the stylus (or sharpen your fingernails) to navigate the folder structure to find your files, but Windows Media Player ? despite the upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.5 ? is beginning to look incredibly dated compared to the sophisticated media players available on the iPhone and Android platforms.The Touch2's multimedia foibles continue with the camera.HTC's cameras have been the source of long-standing grumbling from users, and the Touch2 doesn't rectify the situation.The camera's specification is reasonable ? a fixed focus lens with a 3.2 megapixel sensor behind it should be capable of decent results, but our test images don't lie.We saw washed out colours, chromatic aberrations and aggressive JPEG compression in virtually all of our shots, making this a camera best used for simple documentation than creative endeavours.The lack of a flash doesn't help either ? on the basis that most camera phone pictures are taken in the pub, the Touch2's camera is poorly specified.The beefy processor keeps things running smoothly. At 528MHz, with 256MB of RAM backing it up we never had performance problems with our device.Tapping a menu option or starting an application was virtually instant, and moving between home screen icons is similarly quick.Given the number of things the Touch2 can do it's impressive. In terms of mobile data there's an HSPA chip which ? network-allowing ? permits up to 7.2Mbps download speeds. 802.11b/g wireless is useful given the web browser's penchant for downloading full-size web pages.Bluetooth and a GPS receiver round off the options.Battery lifeOne area the Touch2 didn't disappoint at all was its battery performance. We took it off the charger in the afternoon, and, a day and a half later, it died.During that time we used Google Maps, kept Twitter updated and sent and received a stream of text messages. We also set up a connection with Microsoft Exchange to keep emails coming and going. Naturally, the more you use the data connection ? particularly when in range of a 3G signal ? the worse you can expect battery life to be.Throw in an average commute with a bit of music, though, and we're confident most users will see a day's battery life with no problems.You have to commend HTC for the effort it has put in to making Windows Mobile truly intuitive ? a difficult task given Mobile's stubborn reluctance to ditch the stylus.Where TouchFLO covers Windows Mobile it works superbly ? the Touch2's small screen hinders things a bit but the menu system is generally easy enough to use without wishing for either the stylus or smaller fingers. Where it falls down is when TouchFLO doesn't quite reach the edges.Every now and then you're reminded of the touchscreen inadequacies of Windows Mobile by a jarring, small screen that's hard enough to read, let alone navigate using the tip of a finger.The Touch2 also suffers from rather uninspiring design and construction ? there's nothing actively wrong with it but compared to stylish pieces of work such as the HTC Hero or the iPhone the Touch2 will hardly raise your pulse.However, despite the cute user interface (and attendant niggles) there's no denying the Touch2's business capabilities.Love it or hate it, Windows Mobile still comes with Microsoft Exchange capabilities built-in, and the calendar and contact features remain some of the very best on any platform.And, costing around £300 SIM-free, it seems likely you'll be able to get the Touch2 free on some contracts when providers are announced, which, despite the occasional problem, will make it a decent bargain.We liked: TouchFLO is undeniably clever, and you simply can't beat Windows Mobile for the sheer range of features on offer. Business users in particular should never discount it.we disliked:Not every screen on the Touch2 can be navigated with a fingertip, and using the stylus is aggravating ? not least because it's something you could potentially loose. The camera is poor and the looks are rather boring.Conclusion:The HTC Touch2 is good, but it's not the ultimate smartphone. The iPhone still wears the crown ? the benefits of having an operating system designed from the ground up to be touched are painfully obvious.And Android should remain the operating system of choice for HTC aficionados. But that doesn't stop the Touch2 being a decent handset for a good price.Related LinksTechRadar's reviews guaranteeMore mobile phone reviewsCheck for the best HTC Touch2 deals at OmioRelated StoriesReview: RIM BlackBerry Curve 8520Review: Nokia 6303 ClassicReview: Samsung Galaxy i7500Review: Samsung Blade GT-S5600VReview: Motorola Dext MB200

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