HTC Touch review

HTC Touch Review

Reviewed by: Andrew Lim

Reviewed on: 6 June 2007

The HTC Touch is one of HTC's most attractive and controversial handsets to date. At its launch, HTC firmly denied that the iPhone played any part in the Touch's design and added that the Touch was the first device of its kind.

The Touch is very slim compared to other Windows Mobile smart phones

But with such similar styling and a finger-friendly interface, it's impossible not to draw the comparison. It's out in the next couple of months for free on a monthly contract and SIM-free from eXpansys for about £310, but can a Windows Mobile 6 handset really take on the might of Apple?

Design
The majority of handsets running Microsoft's mobile OS are butt ugly. Fortunately, the Touch doesn't fall into this category -- it's a design masterpiece you can proudly take out of your pocket and show off to your mates.

It's slim, light and features a large, easy-to-view, colour touchscreen. The Touch's casing has that lovely rubbery finish that feels great and the handset fits really well in your hand, making it enjoyable to hold.

As the name suggests, it's all about the touchscreen, which is the primary way of interacting with your phone's contents. The screen is large -- 71mm (2.8 inches) -- and yet small enough to reach every corner comfortably with your thumb.

The HTC default start page has a large clock and on-screen keys that give you fast access to a variety of applications

Features
HTC has created a menu interface called TouchFlo, which is activated by flicking your thumb up from the bottom of the screen.

The TouchFlo menu presents you with a set of applications, media apps and contacts that you navigate through by swiping your thumb left and right. It's presented in a three-dimensional way and gives the illusion that you're turning a multi-faced block.

It works rather well, although you have to press the screen a little harder than you might think. Unfortunately, as soon as you click one of the thumb-sized buttons, you're ejected back into the less thumb-friendly Windows Mobile interface. You then need to pull out a stylus to input text messages or browse Web pages properly.

You can access all your media, among other things, via the TouchFlo menu

The lack of a phone-wide finger-friendly interface isn't great -- compared to the iPhone this is pretty lacklustre, but compared to most of the Windows Mobile devices out there it's a great improvement.

Another HTC-made improvement is a new start page that displays the time, weather and a quick-launch section for accessing your apps much faster than before. It's a small improvement technically but a big one for users, since it cuts out a lot of clicks.