HTC Touch (Sprint)

Editor's Note, April 22, 2008: Ratings have been adjusted with respect to newer devices that have entered the market.

Editor's note, November 5, 2007: This review has been updated since the original post with corrections to the Design and Performance sections. We apologize for the errors.

If you'll remember, we reviewed an unlocked version of the HTC Touch when it first debuted back in June, which made headlines for its all-touch-screen interface--pre-iPhone release. We thought the TouchFlo interface was cool but had some major problems with the poor text entry input methods (or lack thereof). Still, this didn't seem to bother too many CNET readers as it's garnered an average 8.5 user rating. So, many of you should be happy to hear that Sprint has picked up the HTC Touch, with availability starting on November 4 for $249.99 with a two-year contract and after rebates.

Sprint's version of the Touch includes some nice enhancements, including EV-DO support and compatibility with the Sprint Music Store and Sprint TV. It's also a better performer with faster response times, thanks to a faster processor and more memory. Unfortunately the speaker is still on the weaker side, and Wi-Fi capabilities have been stripped out of this version. And while there were improvements made to the onscreen keyboard, we still have issue with the less-than-ideal method of text entry. That said, if you just want a smartphone to help manage your personal and professional life (e.g., e-mail triage, organizing appointments, making calls, and so forth) the HTC Touch is certainly capable and cool to boot.

Design
The HTC Touch is unlike any other smartphone the company has produced in a number of ways. Obviously, the TouchFlo interface is the biggest story, but the Touch also is the smallest touch-screen smartphone that we've seen in recent memory. The handset measures a petite 3.9 inches long by 2.8 inches wide by 0.5 inch tall and weighs just 4 ounces, fitting nicely in the palm of your hand and easily slipping into a bag or pants pocket. Compare that with the bulky Sprint Mogul (4.3 inches high by 2.3 inches wide by 0.7 inch deep; 6.5 ounces) and Palm Centro (4.2 inches high by 2.1 inches wide by 0.7 inch deep; 4.2 ounces). In addition, the device features a soft-touch finish (a la T-Mobile Dash), to give the device a nice, rubberlike texture that makes the phone easy to grip.

The HTC Touch is the smallest touch-screen smartphone we've seen to date. Here it is next to the Palm Centro.

Moving on to the touch screen. First off, the screen itself measures 2.8 inches diagonally and displays 65,536 colors at a 240x320 pixel resolution. That's all pretty standard, but what sets the screen apart from other smartphones is the TouchFLO technology behind it. Basically, it allows you operate certain portions of the smartphone with a series of finger swipes or taps. To complement this functionality, HTC also made some interface and menu changes so you can more easily access your messages, applications, and other pertinent information.

Starting with the home screen, if you've used Windows Mobile devices before, you'll notice a new look and feel right away. On top of the shortcuts to your contacts and calendar, you now have one-touch access to your messages, call list, frequently used applications, and even weather. Frankly, it reminds us of the Spb menu interface we saw on the Pharos GPS Phone 600e, and whether it's a copycat or not, we appreciate the convenience of this new interface. From there, you then can dig deeper into the smartphone by dragging your thumb from the bottom of the screen (around the Sprint logo) to the top. That will take you to a new screen where you can cycle through a 3D interface of three menu choices: Applications, Contacts, and Sprint Power Vision content by swiping your finger left to right or vice versa. Launching a program only requires a tap on the appropriate icon. To get back to the home page, just sweep from the top to the bottom of the display.

Sprint's launcher menu includes quick access to messaging apps and the Web.

The screen is also smart enough to know the difference between a tap and finger sweep, which comes in handy for scrolling through e-mails and Web pages. When checking out a Web site a quick flick up or down will tell the Touch to automatically scroll through the page. You can then stop the action by tapping the screen. You can do this with your Office documents, e-mails, and more--all very cool.

Overall, it only took us few minutes to get a good understanding of those commands, but we needed more time to learn how the touch screen works once you're in an application. For example, to exit out of a Word document our natural inclination was to swipe the screen downward, similar to what's needed to get back to the home page. But that's not the case. Rather, you press the X or OK box at the top right of the screen, or you can drag your finger upward to get back to the 3D menu. Oh, another thing we noticed: The TouchFLO technology doesn't seem to work when you switch from portrait to landscape mode--oops.

Our biggest beef with the unlocked version of the HTC Touch was having to use the tiny virtual keyboard to compose messages and notes. You were pretty much reduced to pecking at the letters with the stylus, which was neither fun nor efficient. Fortunately, the Sprint version includes improvements to the keyboard that makes text entry easier. You now have the option of a 20-button QWERTY keyboard that mimics the SureType keyboards found on some BlackBerry devices. The virtual keys are larger so you can actually use your fingers to tap the letters. The full QWERTY keyboard features bigger buttons as well. Though not as roomy as the modified keyboard, it's certainly an improved experience to the GSM HTC Touch. As with other Windows Mobile devices, you also have the option of using one of three handwriting-recognition systems--Block Recognizer, Letter Recognizer, or Transcriber--but again, it's not the easiest or most ideal way to enter text. On the bright side, the virtual dialpad for making phone calls is spacious and usable. And while this may only spark jealousy, HTC recently announced the HTC Touch Dual for the European markets, which features a slide-out alphanumeric keypad. One can only hope this model eventually makes its way to the States since having those tactile buttons will be a huge benefit.

Though you'll mostly use the touch screen to operate the Touch, you do get Talk and End keys and a five-navigation toggle.

You do get some tactile controls on the HTC Touch. Below the display, you get tiny Talk and End buttons and a five-way navigation toggle. Along the right side, you'll find a camera-activation key and a microSD slot, which is protected by an attached cover. However, the flap is incredibly hard to open--we tried using our nail, the stylus, and other sharp objects to crack it open. In the end, the easiest way to access these slots is to take off the back cover, then jimmy it open. All in all, a frustrating experience.

There's a volume rocker on the left side, a mini USB port and lanyard loop along the bottom edge and a power button at the top. And finally, the phone's speaker and camera lens and self-portrait mirror are located on the back. The HTC Touch for Sprint comes sleekly packaged with a travel charger, a wired stereo headset, a 2.5mm headset adapter, a 512MB microSD card, a USB cable, a protective pouch, a cell phone dongle, and reference material. Check out our cell phone accessories page to learn how you can further personalize your device.

Features
Behind all the flash of the new interface, the HTC Touch doesn't offer anything revolutionary in the features department. At its core, the HTC Touch is still a Windows Mobile smartphone, running the latest Windows Mobile 6 Professional Edition. This means you get the full Microsoft Office Mobile suite for viewing and creating Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, and new enhancements to the Calendar, Contacts, and more. You can learn more about the operating system in our review of Windows Mobile 6.

For messaging, the HTC Touch ships with Microsoft's Direct Push Technology for real-time synchronization with Microsoft Exchange. The smartphone also supports Sprint Mobile eMail, which is available as a free download to its data subscribers and gives you access to up to three e-mail accounts. The carrier also included its instant messaging suite with AIM, Yahoo, and Windows Live clients, and while we appreciate this, the lack of a spacious keyboard makes it a bit difficult to quickly and easily compose text. The Touch is definitely more of a device for checking messages rather than sending them.

The Touch's phone features include a speakerphone, smart dialing, voice commands and dialing, and text and multimedia messaging. The address book is only limited by the available memory, and you can store up to 12 numbers for a single entry as well as home and work addresses, e-mail, IM screen name, birthday, spouse's name, and more. For caller ID purposes, you can pair a contact with a photo, a caller group, or one of 15 polyphonic ringtones. Sprint's HTC Touch also has a dial-by-picture photo caller ID screen where you can easily tap a contact image to make a call.

Wireless options on the HTC Touch include Bluetooth 2.0 and EV-DO support. Unfortunately, it loses the integrated Wi-Fi that was on the unlocked version, but the 3G capabilities certainly soften the blow a bit. The smartphone supports Bluetooth profile wireless headsets, hands-free kits, object exchange, file sharing, dial-up networking, and A2DP for stereo Bluetooth headsets. We should note that if you want to use the Touch as a wireless modem for your laptop, you will need to sign up for the Sprint Power Vision Modem Plan, which runs $39.99 per month for 40MB or $49.99 per month for unlimited. Finally, 3G brings broadband-like speeds to your device--around 300Kbps to 600Kbps--so you can enjoy faster Web browsing, data transfer, and streaming music and video.

The HTC Touch comes equipped with a 2-megapixel camera and a self-portrait mirror.

To get the most out of the 3G support, the HTC Touch for Sprint supports the carrier's various entertainment services, including Sprint TV and the Sprint Music Store. With the former, you can watch short clips from a variety of channels, including CNN, Fox Sports, and the NFL Network, and you can listen to live streaming music and talk radio from Sirius, VH1 Mobile, and MTV Mobile. In addition, you can access Sprint Exclusive Entertainment, which is a made-for-mobile sports and entertainment video programming network. For more content, check out the carrier's On Demand feature, which pulls all the current headlines for the user's region (based on ZIP code) from the Web and delivers it right to your Touch. Sprint offers these services as part of the Sprint Power Vision pack, which ranges in price from $15 to $25 per month.

Finally, the HTC Touch is equipped with a 2-megapixel camera with 5x zoom and video recording capabilities. The options are pretty standard for a camera phone. You have your choice of five resolutions and four quality settings. There's no flash, but you do get white balance settings, including one for night shots, and various image effects. There's also a self timer, a time stamp option, a picture counter, and a flicker adjustment, among other things. For video, the Touch can capture clips with or without sound in MPEG4, Motion JPEG, or H.263 format. There are only two resolution choices, but you get the same white balance and color effect settings from the still camera.

Picture quality is disappointing.

Picture quality was pretty poor. Though images were clear, there was an orangey, brownish tone to the colors. Video quality was also subpar, as clips look extra pixelated.

Performance
We tested the dual-band HTC Touch in San Francisco using Sprint service and call quality was good. For the most part, we enjoyed clear audio with the exception of a slight background hiss but it wasn't bad enough to prevent us from having a conversation or interacting with our bank's voice response system. Meanwhile, our friends reported excellent results and said they couldn't tell we were on a cell phone. Unfortunately, we didn't get the same praises for the speakerphone; voices sounded tinny and echoed on both ends of the conversations. We were able to pair the Touch with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset with no problems.

Armed with a faster 400MHz processor as well as 128MB of ROM and 256MB of RAM, general operation was OK but much improved over the slower unlocked version we reviewed earlier. With about 151MB of free program memory, there was often a few-second delay when opening applications but not more than other Windows Mobile devices we've tested. The Web browsing experience was great as pages loaded quickly, thanks to Sprint's swift EV-DO network, as were downloads from the Sprint Music Store. Multimedia performance was less than stellar. As we saw with the speakerphone, the Touch doesn't have the best speaker system and songs sounded harsh and one-dimensional. We also watched several clips from Sprint TV, and the picture was often pixilated; occasionally, audio and video weren't synchronized.

The HTC Touch is rated for 3.5 hours of talk time and up to 10 days of standby time. In our battery drain tests, we were able to get 4.5 hours of talk time from a single charge. According to FCC radiation tests, the Touch has a digital SAR rating of 1.25 watts per kilogram.